divide your pay by TAFB. Most folks are paid for their time away from home. Firefighters are paid to sleep unless called. It's all a matter of perspective. If the FO pay comes out to over $15 an hour by TAFB I'd be surprised. It used to be the number you cited by the way.... so as poorly as the place is run, it's still light year better than before and right after the bankruptcy

Are there worse regionals out there to be at; absolutely.... however, they aren't part of a global corporation either. Most are shoestring operations and until 5-9 years ago were still checking airport monitors for their planes arrival time and were calling in their OOOI times. There "should" be an advantage to working for the largest airline in the world (and they only get to say that when including the regional feed).

Frankly, nobody there should be happy with it as is. Once you're out of the regionals you will look back and realize how poorly you were treated comparatively.

Sadly, it won't change. Not until management wants it to. No regional airline union under the RLA can force anything; it's too easy to just give the flying to PSA. We all learned the hard way that somebody will raise their hand to work for less if it means more planes and more upgrades.... in spite of a dozen other pilot unions voting no; somebody will say yes.... and ALPA can't stop it.
Knowing that's the reality of the situation, you fight for what you can, when you can.

Of the choices facing brand new pilots looking to break into the industry, I tell them to focus on wholly owned first in this order: Endeavor, Envoy, PSA, PDT, Horizon, then to vendors like Republic/Skywest. Mesa is okay too and will survive the shortage because they are expanding into ACMI, but definitely not a high pick. All vendors will shrink with stagnation. The AA three WO will eventually be consolidated. Gojet, Air Wiskey, Commutair are all fodder for bankruptcies and mergers. That means lots of stagnation and downgrading in the process.