This won’t work for everyone, but when faced with the decision in 2017, I wanted to go to a AA WO for the back up of having the flow. I listed the crew bases that were common between the regional and mainline. I handed the list to my wife and said “Where do you want to move?”

I’ve been doing flying for awhile. My simple recommendation is to live within a drive commute of your base. I’ve seen folks literally tear their families apart by trying to do a flying commute “for the sake of the family, make things easier on the wife, keep kids close to grandparents, my wife needs help, closer to my wife’s job, etc.”

The issue is once you start commuting by air, it will be a varying sacrifice on your part. It may work now, but will it work years out. If you want to stop, will your spouse then agree to move? I’ve seen spouses refuse to move or want to move often while citing your ability to commute. Even worse, I’ve seen the ability to commute used to allow ex spouses to move with the kids with little recourse because a pilot had commuted in the past.

While the ability to live where you want may seem like a benefit, IMHO it’s just not worth the hassle. There’s plenty of great areas to live within a 1-2 hour drive of a pilot base. Back in the day, the standard recommendation was to move to the largest, junior base. It’s still true now.