Pakagecheck

Protrident,
don't forget the guard and reserves(AF and Navy). There are some there at Oke city and in the surrounding area. Great way to get back into and keep flying and helps put food on the table. Great connections for the potential aviation career either corporate, pax or package airlines. Call them all that are commutable for you or somewhere where the wife can be happy. Even if it can't keep you completely employed, it is a great bridge.
Pakage

XHooker

Judging by your flight time I'm going to assume you're leaving before retirement. In a nutshell... use the reserves to get current. If you can't get into a reserve unit soon enough, apply to everyone and take the best job offer you get to regain your currency (given your background, somebody will hire you). At that point you're back in the game for the majors. Resubmit for all of the majors/freight and track down everyone who you flew with who's now at a "destination job" (if you can get into the reserves, there's no better place to network). Good luck, eventually, it'll work out.

PS, driving to work makes your life a lot easier.

atpcliff

Here are some US companies hiring and my personal ranking of them, best-worst:
Large aircraft:
Atlas
Kalitta
Evergreen
Omni
Southern
...not sure how to compare the above with Miami Air

Small Aircraft:
American Eagle
SkyWest/ExpressJet/ASA
Pinnacle/Mesaba/Colgan
Trans States/Compass/GoJet
Republic

I think Allegiant is also hiring, as is Spirit.

JetBlue is good, as is SWA/AirTran.

Overseas there are a LOT of jobs: China, ME, Asia, Africa. pprune.org has the most info on companies outside of the US.

cliff
SYD

Stitches

Protrident,

There's a guy one here who runs an airline interview consulting firm that wrote a great post in the military threat called "timing your exit". Google it, it was updated this year. Not all of it applies to you but good info nonetheless.

As far as your currency problem, you are definately behind the curve. As others have suggested your best bet is the reserves/guard. You can make more $$ there as a quasi full time bum than you can as a regional guy and you will be home way more. You may want to think about moving to a Navy training command location as they are almost always in need of guys. You might be able to swing 6 months to a year of active duty orders as well which will put you in the hunt (able to apply for a major) right as the retirements start up next winter, PLUS you will have lots of opportunities to network.

The more desirable airlines have somewhere between 3-7 thousand qualified/current applications on file depending on who you talk to so don't expect the application mins to change anytime soon. Your military background is a plus but it wont even matter if you can't get past the initial application screen. Good luck.

atpcliff

What is a "desireable airline", and do we have a "pilot shortage" already. Obviously this is subjective. I think my airline is "desireable", and we just lowered our mins...for the second time in about one year. AAEagle just lowered their mins, as did just about every regional airline in the US. Overseas the mins have been lowered multiple times by multiple organizations. I think this is due to a "pilot shortage".

The good thing, for US pilots, is if you have an ATP-MEL, your currency will matter less and less as we get closer to the day when an ATP will be required by all new pilots that are going to fly -121. It won't matter if you are current or not, as if you don't have an ATP you won't get hired for a -121 job....and that will affect all other organizations, as those with ATPs will be sucked up by -121, leaving less guys to fill the non -121 slots.

cliff
SYD

Protrident

All good suggestions, thanks everyone!

I've thought about the Reserves, but didn't know if they were "eligible" for these random deployments to the desert and all points not flying. I've already been tagged for an IA to the desert and don't want to be in that situation again. But, if being SELRES lets me fly some without the worry of deployments, I'm all for it!

Thank you for that list too! I like seeing how different people rank each job, gives me a little heads up when I start evaluating.

Seems there's a job fair in Orlando for the Regionals in a week put on by FLTops! I'm off to that as well to see what I can do in person.

Stitches

I was referring to the list on the APC homepage of the most visited airline profiles. The folks I know who fly for the ones at the top have told me there are several thousand applications on file.

As far as a pilot shortage, and this is my opinion only, there is not and wont ever be a shortage in the U.S. There is a dwindling supply of people/banks willing to spend/loan $60k to pursue a job that only pays $20k to start. The regionals know about upcoming retirements at the majors and the soon to be 1500 hour legislation and are trying to get ahead of the curve.

Stitches

[QUOTE=Protrident;1095136]I've thought about the Reserves, but didn't know if they were "eligible" for these random deployments to the desert and all points not flying.QUOTE]

You get a 2 year deferment when you join the reserves. As things wind down overseas your chances of being mobilized will likely fall substantially. Talk to some reservists in the unit you want to drill in, I'm sure they will be willing to help.

Good luck at the job fair. My guess is with your experience even without currency you may get some offers in the near future. However they know you are probably looking to get current and move on. I hope you will post about your experience there.

Protrident

Stitches, definitely will!