" Your opinion is that your generation made AA great, sorry, that is not the case. It is not bad, my life is great, but AA comes up short when compared to others, if that hurts your feelings, so be it."
*****
I never said my generation made AA great and the last thing you could do to me is "hurt my feelings". LOL. We did live through things and fix them to the extent we could....things like B-scale, 9/11, bankruptcies, stolen pensions and the lost decade of the 2000's.
My goal is to leave this profession better for your generation, regardless of whether I think you deserve it or not. "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it."-Clint Eastwood. You'll get what you're willing to fight for. I am willing to help in that fight, FWIW. Always have been and always will.
Hopefully your generation will do the same. Here's some advice you did not ask for and probably don't care to read (somebody else may find it useful).
Project your career out to your 65th birthday. If you can predict accurately what's gonna happen, choose that path. Good luck, Nostrodamus and Godspeed, John Glenn !! As others here have noted, airline salaries tend to see-saw and pass each other. Two years ago AA had industry leading pay. Someday it will again.
So, what do you see? Do you get to wear one airline's uniform the whole time and watch your 401k turn into a few million bucks? Well, great...that's a victory. You got to fly airplanes for a living and feed your family. Hopefully that's good enough. Otherwise, press on. If you think money is going to make you happy, start a soft-ware company or be a land developer...do something stupid and get 3 million hits on YouTube.
Life is all about choices.