Depends on how close you are to having the time to go to a non-regional, IE - career job. You leave now, you'll be losing flight time. My advice, which will get you to your career job the soonest? Make that your deciding factor.

 

at the expense of him living in a trailer and his kid eating Chef Boy Ardee 5 nights a week? Great advice

 

Yes, right back at ya.

 

If you're gonna go, go now. Apply to the good 'regional'/contract carriers immediately. No joke. You'll get hired if you have finished a 121 program and have some turbine time.

First year pay won't be great anywhere. But it won't be worse either.

 

ASA first year pay is in the $20's / hr. Not sure that I'd want to commute to ATL, though.

 

So, is Comair, Eagle, Mesa (jet), Air Wisconson, Big Sky, Colgan (his current employer), Compass, Those *****s at gauxJet, TSA, PSA, Piedmont, Pinnacle, Horizon, Mesaba... I could go on but do you notice anyone missing?

 

2nd question, for those of you that dont live at base, how much do you pay out of pocket monthly to live? As of now it is costing me right around $150-$200 month to commute to base from home. Do you all have crashpads or do you just show up at base and go from there?

 

Look into Netjets, you'll make 80K your first year as an FO, good fun flying. 100 bases, company pays 100% of medical, and 50% match 401k to 15% gross.

 

If you don't have a crashpad or some other type of arrangement, most people do hotels, which can get expensive quick if it's more than a couple a month and can be tough regarding availability sometimes.

There are a ton of regionals. Some are decent and some are cruddy. Make the decision for the decent ones or even a cruddy one based on your own personal situation. Working at your home airport or close to it makes a HUGE difference and if you can get into one where you can drive to work that will make up for a lot of cruddyness. And commuting all the way across the country to a decent regional isn't great either.

Being at home every possible night is the holy grail for most poeple in this business and if you can arrange that then that is where you'll likely be most happy. And waste the least amount of money on commuting expenses like crashpads. Also, you'll save money by being able to bring more of your own food on the road. That is a bigger expense than most people talk about.

 

Expect to pay at least that much for a crashpad each month, possibly more if you are in the NYC area. But don't necessarily expect to pay that amount the whole time. If you are commuting, the end game is commutable trips so you don't have to pay for a crashpad, only the occasional hotel if you get stuck.

Trust me, living in base is HUGE! You want to be there for your little girl.