Originally Posted by eagleatr

The aircraft you get is determined in class. It varies from class to class. You won't know until the first couple days, because they won't know til the first couple days either. Of course, whatever they tell you is subject to change at any time.

Forced TDY depends on your base and aircraft. If there aren't enough in the TDY base or volunteers from your base, they start at the bottom of the list with involuntary TDY. There are no limits to how many times you can be TDY'd, and you get an airline ticket in the beginning and one at the end. Getting home during the month is up to you to make it work.

Getting the base of your choice depends on the aircraft you are on. It could take a few months to maybe a year.

Work days depend on your aircraft and base, but don't expect generally more than two days off in a row. Certain months of the year, I would expect all single days off. Typically, you should expect Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday off.

The amount of work days/days off various from month to month, and aircraft and base. In the busy months, depending on if you have training, you can expect as few as 8 days off. With no training, expect 10. During the slower months, expect 13 or 14.

Right now, schedules usually start with an early report the first day, and finishing late the last day. During March and December, show times can be as early as 0415, and finish as late as 0030, assuming your are on time. There are no red eyes, and generally no scheduled overnights, right now, unless you break down and have to stay the night, which is not unheard of.

The length of duty day depends on aircraft, base, and time of year. If you are on time, it can be as short as four hours, or as long as sixteen hours if you are not on time.

As for your change for the better question, that's actually pretty fun. The only thing that I would say was a change for the better was going to the Airbus from the 80. I wasn't sweating all the time, and the cabin didn't smell like crap.

The amount of hiring going on is a combination of limited growth and attrition. Mostly attrition in my opinion. People are leaving for a lot of different places: JetBlue, Spirit, Alaska, Southwest, United, American.

As for the contract, who knows how long that will take. It depends on if the company becomes serious about negotiations, or if the NMB suddenly decides there's no point and releases the pilots to a cooling off period.

All of your questions have been answered elsewhere in this thread or the other one that was closed. Yes I know, it's a lot of reading, but it will give you a lot of good ideas as to what's going on. While some of the things people say may be slightly exaggerated, there's is truth in everything said. I couldn't tell you about all the problems I had, or emergencies I've had to declare, or the amount of air returns I've done.