Speedbird, be careful with jumping ship. Here's a true story.

I was hired @ AWAC in the summer of 2005. Hiring was fast and furious until the winter, when it suddenly stopped. Attrition was slow and I stopped moving up the list at all. I was a junior FO and it didn't look so good, so I started looking around. I considered a street CA position @ Gulfstream, I had everything lined up, but just when I was about to jump things started picking up again in the spring of '06. Midwest looked like a lock with Rankin coming on board. We hired a lot for that flying that never materialized.

Winter of 2006/2007 I started looking around again, after we lost the Midwest RFP as I was losing hope in viability of AWAC as an airline. Upgrade was nowhere in sight and I was getting frustrated with the majors picking up people left and right. Skywest and Republics upgrade were down to 1 year or less. I found Bigsky was hiring street CA's. I considered it but after further review didn't want to pursue it any further. During this time I was also looking over various 135 jobs, from Ameriflight to USA Jet to you name it. I didn't want to be the 4 year FO.

Then the list started moving again. I hung on, and it hasn't stopped moving since. I got my type at 2.5 years. This while the company lost 20% of it's fleet. I guess what I'm trying to say is while things look scary now you could end up jumping to the next Bigsky. Looking back had I left for any of the places I had considered I'd either be unemployed (there are a large amount of Bigsky folks in our new hire classes now), in the left seat making less than I did as an FO, or in the on-demand industry while we enter a recession.

Also, keep in mind AWAC only has 50 seat CRJ's. The majors don't want these aircraft anymore. They are parking them in droves. They want the EMB products or big turboprops. I think that is where you will see the growth. If you're going to make the jump, consider the companies that operate those aircraft first IMO.

Above all, don't do anything drastic.