Originally Posted by
Sigfried
Why would you give away your command? You get a command you need to move but you're a captain and have a chance at your base later on again. If you move to the middle east, you won't be captain for probably 10 years if you didn't do anything wrong . By 10 years you'll likely have left back to Europe to start as an FO all over again. Join the middle East as a captain in a few years if you want to try but don't go as a FO as your career progression is stalled. All my friends who were FO who left to join QR over 6 years ago are still FO and many of them already left again back home since they can't bear the rosters basically wasted years of career progression for some extra cash and to start as an FO at a base they didn't like on minimum salary all over again!
I appreciate that insight and I know I'd be taking a risk by doing that but I right now I think I would value more a job at a company I feel better about than command at a company where I'm not really happy at.
The problem is that command should come by the end of this year or beginning of 2023. Seeing how I'm climbing the transfer queue for the base that I've requested, my base transfer wouldn't be offered before command. So when I become a captain I would go to the bottom of the captain transfer queue for the base I'm requesting. It could take another 5 to 6 years before I end up based where I want. That's another 6 years based who knows where (Bulgaria, Lithuania...). If I end up in a base in a place hard to call "home", I would spend my days off jumpseating home and living in a cheap room during work blocks. For every colleague who got upgraded recently it was "
Time for that fourth stripe! Now start looking for an apartment in Riga...". Honestly, if it turns out I'm happy with the job and the city, a longer wait until command wouldn't be that bad.