Hello all,

I have been lurking the forums for months now and have a pretty good understanding about all three airlines. With four months to go until ATP mins I was hoping to get some input as to who you think will be the best fit for me.

Currently, I live in Maryland roughly an hour and some change from DCA, with BWI being a half hour away. Like many of you I would like to move on quickly. Delta in the long term goal. From my understanding the commute to NYC / ATL will be pretty easy. Personally, my preferences are as follows (from most to least important):

Career advancement -> Quality of life -> Work rules / pay -> Equipment

To my understanding these are the pros and cons of each airline as they pertain to me (please correct me for any errors and feel free to add):

Endeavor:
Pros - Industry leading pay, great contract, commuter clause, flight benefits with Delta, quick upgrade time, DGI program, perhaps a better route to Delta???
Cons - Living out of base is the big one here, classes are real backed up, reserve time likely increasing

PSA:
Pros - Living in base, SAP is a huge plus, pay seems to be above industry average, flight benefits with American, flow (not depending on it just nice to have in the back pocket)
Cons - Reserve from what I read isn't the best, SAP may be leaving in the near future for PBS which is a big drawback, classes are full reducing the chance of seeing pay rates similar to 9E in the future

Republic:
Pros - Live in base, 2nd highest pay in the industry with good work rules, flight benefits on all three, E175 is nice
Cons - Slow progression in terms of upgrade times, low priority with flight benefits

Overall, if you were in my position which route would you take? Its been a stalemate for awhile now and could use a bit of input. Thanks for your time!

Side question: is there any attrition data that shows were pilots are going? Curious to see if Delta is high on that list

If PSA has a base that works for you and a flow... go... at least it should mean movement. granted it could change tomorrow Never commute if you don't have to. hoping for a flow to Delta (from anywhere) is spitting in the wind. It might work out but you probably are going to curse yourself for doing it before the wind shifts.

Hard to commute to NYC from BWI. Very limited flights between those cities. You'd need to go to DCA where I hear the commute is quite easy. Endless options.

We have a decent amount of overnights in DCA at Endeavor.

Five flights a day, and four of them are on EDV. Sounds pretty easy to me?

To the OP:

Not sure where RAH ranks in pay, but first year is $50,500 for you with the $10K bonus. Second year pay will be $45,000.

At EDV, you will make $55,144 first year, and either $51,255 or $53,253 second year (200/900). Third year, the gap increases a little more.

Live where you want to live. Not commuting is nicer than commuting, but commuting is not the end of the world. Some chase the money, some the jet, and some QoL. That’s entirely up to you. Some are not willing to move, and I think that may be the reason many say “never commute”. Meanwhile, I talk to and have flown with folks who have commuted between 1 and 25 years, and they are still going strong. Living in base, it is easier to pick up more on short notice. Means more money, and faster upgrade.

Good luck in your decision. Personally, I would go PDT over PSA, if I were to leave EDV for another regional. Not sure if they fit your “budget” as a choice.

I’m curious, why Piedmont over PSA?

I would make the drive to DCA and commute to LGA from there. It’s super easy. To the point you feel you’re almost being positive spaced every time. Commute to ATL so far hasn’t been terrible either from DCA. Not quite hourly flights like to NYC, but almost, but all on a 321, I’ve so far generally gotten Comfort Plus.

Well for me, I remember when envoy was trying to make gains by standing and then psa came along and said, we'll take concessions if you give us their flying!

I have tons of depends there who like it fine but that all day the same thing. Management is adversarial and tone deaf, scheduling readily ignores parts of the contract in hopes you'll just forget to grievance it, and that their reserve is the worst around (not sure about this one, ours is no picnic)

But like was said above, go where the base works best for you. This is a great company but I've seen plenty of aawo pilots far hired by Delta while they're waiting on the flow.

But come here and make a lot of money if that's also important. I clocked 125 hours this month with 14 days off. As an FO I'll clear $7800 gross for this month. (I'm fairly senior in base, but not very senior overall)



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I find it interesting that the regional who's forum this poll is listed in gets the most votes. I wonder if that trend would continue if the poll was placed into some of the other outfit's forums, say Mesa and ExpressJet.