That seems like the best way to hedge the bet. You can enjoy a livable wage for a year or two while we find out how bad this downturn is going to get. You may also discover that you hate the other job regardless of the salary.

The only thing average about aviation is the time between the boom and bust cycles. This industry has always had big swings, and always will. Other industries such as petroleum play the same game. Over the course of your career, you’ll most likely finish in a much better position than when you started, but everything in the middle is a wild ride. You can stay and ride it out, throw in the towel, or work on a second income stream to help dampen the boom/bust cycle. It’s all up to you.

I’m on the fence here.
3000 hrs is not a whole lot in the big scheme of things. Especially not without TPIC.
I’d be more comfortable with a leave of absence around the 5-6000 hr mark.
It seems like the no-upgrade disappointment is what triggered this.
Stick with flying and find a side hussle to fill up any income gap.

I second the LOA angle. In 2010 I took a five year LOA offered by my regional to train and become a firefighter/paramedic to see how I liked it. It offered me a chance to take a career change and keep my seniority number, effectively keeping one foot in each bucket. I ended up loving my new job so much that when my LOA was up I decided to resign my seniority number and keep doing what I am doing. I had never known anything but flying and it was frightening retraining for something different. Now I still fly and instruct on the side but no longer rely on it to feed my family. If there is a different career that peaks you interest I would certainly try and take a leave of absence to pursue it.

Yes, this.

I started out with a pretty tight group in GA days, most of us who stuck it out (and had a degree) were major airline CA's at the start of 2020, $200-300k+, good QOL.

Several others who had bailed along the way were slogging out in the white-collar grind, for about $100K. They were all considering picking back up where they left off as regional FO's, and collectively had almost worked themselves up to pull the trigger (fortunately they didn't quite work up the nerve before covid).

The industry does seem to reward persistence, but don't ever pass on an opportunity for career advancement if possible.

Re. my post above, the hard times seemed to drag on for a long time, but when things started moving, they moved FAST. You may not (probably not?) have time to catch the wave if you need to put your wetsuit back on and paddle out... better to be out there already when the swell comes in.

take a leave of absence and explore the outside world.

years ago, a very close buddy did this and started his own IT company. Not designed as such but it ended up exploding. 10 years later he is a multi-millionaire and has 50 people report to him.

his regional airline asked him to come back.

he did not

he flies the "company" Embraer 300 now

God Bless America

I started looking around for other jobs back in May when things were really bad and didn’t know what my company was doing. I have a background in finance and did the finance thing before I got into aviation. My entire life I’ve always had backup plans. I try and not let myself get caught without a plan to pay the rent and put food on the table. My goal like most people when I started flying was making it to the majors. Pandemic has pretty much put a stop to a that for the next decade I’m guessing.

I would prefer to fly but making regional FO wages for the next 2-5 years doesn’t seem very appealing right now. I like the idea of taking leave for 12-24 months. I’ll see if my company is offering it.

I know the legacies probably won’t hire for a long time. But what does everyone see about the LCC, fractional, corporate?

The real question is how much time you’re going to need to get hired by an LCC when they start to hire again. Certainly more than before. A lottt more. 😦😦😦

There's some really good opinions in this thread, lots to think about.

If you do decide to take a leave of absence, I recommend that you be completely honest with your management as to why you're taking it. Everyone realizes that aviation is in a really bad place right now. No one would criticize you for taking a non-flying job for a few months, and it might possibly prevent a more junior pilot from being furloughed. Just be careful to comply with any company rules or contractual language regarding leaves. For example, we're required to keep our contact information up to date and be willing to come back within six weeks if they call us back early.