Tomcat,

Friend of mine was just hired for the Oct Class (320...he had a choice). He lives just north of San Diego, and when offered the job he was told he had a good chance of getting LGB FO right out of training. If not, only a month or two at JFK. While true it is true that Captain upgrades at Long Beach are few and far between for now, you would be looking at three years or so for upgrade to Captain even at JFK. No telling what could happen between now and then, might even start flying out of (shudder!) LAX, which could grow the west coast base.

By East Coast airline, we mean all roads lead to NYC. Boston and Dulles are islands that, for now, we don't serve NYC from, but every other Blue city goes to NY. We do virtually no North-South flying on the west coast, east coast does a lot of it. LGB is pretty much transcons only.

Things change quickly around here, so no telling what could happen over the next three years. Good luck.