Originally Posted by
lapekasd
Hey all. I am 38yrs old and finally starting the career I should have been in from the beginning. I will have my commercial with nearly 300hrs by end of April, 2020, then moving to ME, CFI, etc, etc. I have a 4yr Aviation degree from a credited university. I have been researching preliminary regional carriers for some time now and there is so much info out there that it is hard to know when to start applying for conditional offers and know the right route to take. I live in FLA and need to remain here for at least another 8 or 9 years so I will be commuting. Any advice would be great as far as carriers to look into, etc. or just good solid info. Many thanks in advance look forward to some great insight, thanks.
You are not to old to make this change, by the time you are ready to transition to the regionals you would still have about 25 more years to go, which is a damn good career.
I live in FL as well, in Port Saint Lucie, i commute to Chicago O'Hare, mainly using AA or Spirit out of FLL or AA from PBI.
When i was in the same situation i decided to go with SkyWest Airlines, mainly due to the fact that all my friends where there and they were happy and the fact that my college had a path to OO with an on campus recruiter.
Had i been diligent i would probably have gone with Envoy, since my end goal is AA out MIA. Hopefully i can reach that goal from OO. Only time will tell.
If you want to stay in FL, you can either go with Envoy, Republic och Silver. Envoy and Republic are very senior in FL and Silvers compensation is not the greatest.
You still have other options that are close by, SkyWest and Endeavor have Atlanta bases, or you can commute to Charlotte, Raleigh or Greensboro.
I love being based in Chicago and have found the commute to be much less stressful than anticipated. I spent one year in Detroit and getting there from Florida was extremely hard since i had to 2-leg it through Atlanta. And Atlanta i hell on earth on a good day, so when you are trying to get to work, it's worse...
Good luck with your endeavors.