legobrains

You got to find out what is best for you.

Some people report reaching burnout flying so often, no time at home with the family, having to cancel plans on days off and being told they have to work, flying older Aircraft and dealing with maintenance issues, lack of maintenance personnel (that industry is short staffed too) late flights, fighting for higher of block pay or other pay issues that your entitled too, low employee moral, trying to keep your bonus money after you upgrade to cap, one of the lowest paying hourly rates among regionals, possibility of them closing an entire base that you are stationed in with little notice (IAD DCU), Privately ran company so they will make decisions that are in the interest of the company with out telling their pilot pool and string them along to keep the company going. Run the risk of something happening and being stuck at your current regional for life. If they are having a hard time recruiting training slots, your seniority number wont rise as fast. Frontier flow program that prevent pilots from applying to frontier, and instead using it as a retention tool to control the flow of pilots they loose and sending their most expensive senior pilots first. History of furloughing pilots during hard times.

Good things that pilots report: Single occupancy training, good training program, little to no reserve time at certain domiciles, hold a line immediately in DEN, probably fly 90 hours a month during peak months, probably upgrade to captain in about 13+ months, no reserve for a captain , and hold a line immediately as captain . Get 1000 PIC time fast and start looking at major airlines. 200 to 300% pay when offered for overtime during peak flying months, Lower pay can be offset by making captain in one year. Pays for 4 days of hotels if on reserve and you have to travel day before/after to go home. Small company and they can get to know you well. Big bonus program with flexible training opportunity's.

There are a lot more things that are important to people. Some of these things can change quickly for the good or bad. It is like the stock market, go risky stocks for big returns, or nice stable government bond. Do you have the time and age to recover if the risky investment failed?

The best advice is to forget about what the regionals offer and write down what your priority's are, then match the regional that can best fill your most important priorities. NO regional will be perfect and you will have to sacrifice some priority's to make others happen. Read through many pages of posts in any regional you are interested in, send a private message to members to ask them to contact you and ask them what they like/dislike to get unfiltered first hand comments. Make your own assessment of the regional. You can't just use the public forums to paint your picture.

A positive for one person might be a negative for another person depending on how you look at it.