Your statement has merit, but understand it's not as simple as that. There are so many factors that attribute to this common feeling. For example, the job is tolerable to a single person with no family. When you meet your spouse and begin having kids, things get a little complicated. Your options become limited and toughing it out becomes your only choice if you wish to move on to the majors one day.

We have had pilots quit at outstations, quit on the spot during these fact finding meetings, and after bad weatherflights where there was immense pressure to do the flight. Other pilots are moving on, but for most it requires swimming through a sewer pipe as in the Shawshank Redemption.

If it were possible to make a lateral move to another regional airline to a semi-equal job and pay, Pinnacle Airlines would collapse during a mass exodus. By the way about 3 years ago we had 1/3 of our pilots quit in one year! That was around 400 pilots that had to be replaced. Most who left were first officers and pilots without wives and kids. But since seniority lists do exists, you must start all the way over which just is not practical. Obviously there is a better life at other airlines. If I had known the truth about Pinnacle before I started, I would never have taken the job.

So instead I hope that the union can put some pressure on our company to grow up while I wait for the legacy carriers to start hiring again.