This is not the case for me. I've been able to attend nearly all of my families major events! I am also home more than I'm gone. Oh and when you're home you're home! No paper work no projects from work to work on at home, nothin! I live in base though. My advise would be to wait til you can hold the base you wouldn't mind living in and then when you get the award go ahead and move. Of course there's always the risk of base closures and displacements but it's definitely a different and more enjoyable job when you can drive to work!

For the month I June I spent 2 nights away from home and flew 4 days on reserve. But- I was the most senior guy on reserve and I got lucky.

Sounds like your airline honors reserve seniority rules, not all do.

And therein lies the difference. Regional vs. mainline is night and day.

It really does come down to living in base to minimize your time away, especially at a regional. To take that to the next step, if you really want to minimize it, live in the largest base, where the company has the most flexibility with the schedules. As you can see, the experience level is all over the place. But, avoiding the "non-hub" domiciles minimizes the risk of a base closure.

At the regionals, you WILL start out with 15-20 days working each month, but living in domicile can easily get you several more nights at home.

You asked about which carriers will give you the best chance of that happening. Since you are at least a year, and maybe 18 months, from getting hired, that's too hard to say. The airline you don't want to work for today may be the best one to go to later, and vice versa. Generally speaking, the larger the carrier, the better the odds, but who knows? What if your airline of choice stops or slows hiring?

If you're willing to move, it's worth looking at a map of all of the major domiciles and start asking yourself where you'd like to live or where you'd like to avoid living, then apply accordingly. If you plan to try to go to the majors, you can deal with that issue then, but at some point, I would imagine you will want to settle down.

The point about "being home means you're home" is one not to be missed. The only time you will be doing anything on your off days will be when you need to study for recurrent. Otherwise, when you are not working, you are free to do as you please.

If OP were to go to your regional (whatever that may be), how long would he need to wait to get that 18-day off schedule? With his military retirement he could live on that income and remain an FO to ensure eternal seniority and better schedules.

Well Endeavor would be about 8-9 years at this point. Though if you came from the blessed company 9 years would get you halfway up the captain list so.....

I'm on track to make $55k this year, and at LEAST 15 days off/mo in base in DEN. 4th year pay at SKW, CRJ FO. Not great, but could be worse I guess. Trying to move on to something better, but I do love living in base with a good schedule.

Numbers like that are thrown out everyonce in a while, but typically has more to do with a pilots familiarity with how to "work the system" inside their company's constraints...end result, it's not the "norm" for most pilots with a company...

I know it's all about how a company works "soft time" and that it's possible to make big $$ with certain airliners...but if EVERY pilot was doing it at that company, the company would be out of business...I'd be more curious what a 4 year CRJ FO makes who simply "flies the line".

I simply fly the line, I do no tricks, I pick nothing up, and I drop stuff when I can. We have no reserves, so I pretty much never drop anything anymore unfortunately. I bid about 50% in my base and mostly fly the 700. This month I'm crediting 90 hours, 15 days off. Pretty typical for me.

I doubt the company would be out of business, because 1) I'm still WAY underpaid and 2) I'm just an average line pilot.

Your math doesn't work 90x43(the rate 4 yr FO at oo) is $3870 which is 46k without subtracting ins. Taxes etc which puts you closer to 38k. At least be honest with these guys.