I was just wondering if you had any challenges swinging your payments during your second year as FO for the regionals. I will be living with my mom during school and as an instructor so I’m not worried during that time. I will likely be moving out to another city to fly for the regionals so I will have rent and other bills to worry about. Some regionals offer a signing bonus for the first year which will help ease the stress of making payments, but what about the second year when you still haven’t made captain and there is no bonus? Did anyone struggle at this time? Did anyone take their signing bonus, pay down the loan and refi for lower payments?
Pay at the Regionals has come up considerably in the last few years. Without the bonuses first and second year are in the upper $30’s. While no one these days would consider this “good money”, it’s definitely a livable wage. No you can’t party like a rockstar but it’s better than many entry level positions out there. When Chris and I started first year was $18hr and second was barely $30. It’s called sacrifice.
It was definitely tight the first few years at the regionals, but it was doable. Most people live with roommates or commute from areas with less expensive housing. I certainly was not enjoying filets, but I was not on a ramen diet either.
Do you mean that you take home high 30s annual salary or you mean high 30s/hour? How does the pay work? Is it just straight up $/hour times hours or is there some sort of base or other income?
I’m talking gross (take home will depend on many factors). Airline pilot pay is a combination of flight hours plus other “soft” pay (per diem, deadhead, etc). A quick and dirty rule of thumb is take the hourly wage and time 1 thousand (so $38hr means $38,000).
As for roommates, crashpads etc WHEN you get to your specific airline and base there will be plenty of people to help you find something. At this stage being your 2yrs away and have no idea who you’ll be flying for or where you’ll be based there’s not much point.
I believe that a lot of people use Craigslist or roomates.com to find roommates. But I have to say, I wouldn’t be too worried about that right now if I were you. You have a long way to go until that is an issue.