Originally Posted by Zeroto4
Pay: AirTran does pay captains better the longer they are on the property. JB pays them better in years 1-7. If you only have 10 years to go to retirement, it's close to a wash depending on how many hours you base your projections on.
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I won't dispute the above comment. However I'm just curious if you have factored in the 1.5Xbase pay above 70 hours that JB pays. I'd say 85 hours is a pretty common monthly block. That adds about $10/hr to JB/CA salary. Now I have heard some complain that they don't consider adding in "overtime" as part of the salary but IMHO it would be silly not to factor this in to a decision. Also JB has a 75 hour reserve gaurantee and of that, 70 are at straight pay and 5 hours are at 1.5X.
Last month (Dec) I flew 86 hours, got paid for 107 with gaurantees and some DH time. Then, unfortunitely due to my junior seniority I had to fly on Xmas and got an extra 6.5 hours of holiday pay. Sucked to work so hard in Dec but I was financially rewarded for it and had the first 14 days of Jan off.
All in all I agree with most of the above posters that you want to work where you live. If you can move then crunch the numbers, if you can't then I would pick the carrier closest to home.