What a crok of shiiite! Care to bring a fedex/ups/swa/dal pilot with the same hire date w2 to the party? Pilots are like everyone else, attorneys, doctors, architects, engineers. Luck of the draw and economic conditions dictate your "luck" when it comes to earnings. United got clobbered and you paid the price, believe me in 1998 united was a dream job for most pilots but stuff behind everyone's control happened and here we are. It might suck for some of us but many are having dream careers, heck co 2005 hires are now 737 captains at new ual/co wages, the same company you work for now. I was a 757 captain at little awa until the east pilots decided to steal our union and work for less, no one cares and the world moves on. Dal and Ual have made great strides to get us back recently that insure that for the lucky this is still a very lucrative career.