Originally Posted by
NuGuy
I wouldn't dismiss DTW as a place to live. There are a lot of very nice areas outside of town to live, like Ann Arbor, and the cost of living is very reasonable.
The guys who live in DTW clean up on the overtime. There are relatively fewer local guys, and so the overtime tends to go quite junior. In the long term, your progression will do quite well.
Nu
Let's compare "opportunity" for a new hire and compare Newnan GA, Long Island and Ann Arbor.
1) I found this Saline High School in Ann Arbor, scored 10 out of 10, I found a house for around $340K that looked very nice (4bd/3ba/2100sq ft). 30 minutes to the airport.
2) Newnan has a high school scoring 8 out of 10, add 1 bd, 1 ba, 1,000 sq ft to that house in Ann Arbor for the same price. 30 minutes to the airport.
3) Long Island, I went all the way out to Setauket, I know there are others, but the HS around that area scored a 10 out of 10. I recommend renting, $3K a month, which is at least 1K-1.5K more than the above homes would cost you. 1 hour to the airport.
Now compare a new hire today's position to their position in say 2017. We should have at least 575 guys retire between now and April 1 2017, so let's round to 600. If we hire 400 in 2014, 50/mo for 2015, 2016 and through March 2017, you've added 1350 pilots, lost 600, net we'll have 12800 pilots and said new hire is at 11,000 or 86%.
What does 86% buy you? DTW, ATL and NYC all have the 737, so let's use that. Let's say we don't get a new contract and said new hire flies 80 hours a month of credit. Straight salary would by 65K, 103K, 120K, 123K over that time.
Seniority wise, 86% in the company is like being 9993 today. In a quick run through, in all 3 bases you're a line holder with partial weekends off, NYC giving a slight edge. Seniority wise you sit at 78% in ATL, 48% in NYC and 40% in DTW.
So with this sloopy quick look, I say if you don't care, your spouse wants to be away from family, you don't want to commute... go pure Michigan.
YMMV