Some info on United and GUM with 1st year pay...

If you don't mind going to Guam, United has a pretty sweet deal for first year pay if you get lucky.

In GUM you get 2nd year pay during your first year per contract.

Thus if a GUM slot opened in newhire training, you would start at $90-92 per hour instead of $61 per hour. That 2nd year rate goes up to $97-101 per hour on Jan 1 2014.

In GUM, you also receive a $3000/month COLA, which equates to $36K per year.

In conclusion, if you have the opportunity to go to GUM, you can now make at least $122K first year, but probably a lot more since most people get paid more than min guarantee.

That being said, I would imagine since this has turned into a relatively good deal as long as your willing to move/commute, there are a lot of newhires trying to jump on it.