Rightseat Ballast

If you still want to take a chance in the regional world, I say the best pick between RAH and SKW is the one that hires you first. Both have their advantages and disavantages, but in the end both companies provide an adequate quality of life. As an RAH driver myself, I will say that we still have a decent growth forecast, we are understaffed and trying to fix it, we have an average FO payscale, we have captain wages that you could live off of in the short term, and a payscale that you could make a decent living off of if you decide to stay here as a career, or if the mainline hiring future decides it for you. You will be at the bottom of a pretty long seniority list, but your guess is as good as mine as to how long it would take a new hire to upgrade. Currently we only have a 4 year FO payscale, but that was negotiated as such because at the time, there was zero need for anything longer. No one has had to be an FO for longer than 3 years here... those who have stayed FO's have done it by choice. In our next contract the FO payscale will be extended to cover the reality of longer FO stints. The biggest problem our company has right now is growth. We are growing fast, and fast ourgrowing our management structure. Our leaders have to make the big choice of trying to continue operations with our old structure and support staff levels (which are adequate for a 1 time zone, 600 pilot operation), or dish out some money and hire more staff in HQ and reorganize the chains of command. Looks like our leaders are opting to hire and restructure, which is encouraging. No doubt we fell on our faces last year because we didn't have enough button pushers behind the curtain, but top management actually listened to that wake up call, and are improving things slightly faster than you might expect.
Good life at RAH, SKW may be equal or better... don't know cuz I never worked there. You won't do much better though if you play regional roulette.