Originally Posted by
satpak77
I appreciate the great info so far. situation:
Age 50 at time of retirement from federal job, non-mil. I will retire in 5 years from now. Hopefully this is in the middle of the "dire straights" that AA is rumored to be facing due to mandatory retirements (year 2022). Unfortunately SWA is kinda going gangbusters now. Not sure if they will taper off.
Most entire career has been flying the King Air 350. 'nuff said. Will have federal pension with federal health care benefits in retirement. Pension will be approx $60K net, annually. No major debt (yes, home mortgage) and personal financial situation is fine. Any job with $50K annual salary after taxes will result in same income or possibly slight pay raise, in total cash to the bank, over my present full-time job.
Observation: To obtain "retiree pass benefits" at AA, one must have 10 years of service. Unless I missed something. This indeed is a goal as I have family all over the freaking country and will have two kids in college possibly on different coasts.
4 year degree, partial MBA completed (1/2 way thru) from an accredited university with a physical campus, Check Airman, Safety, etc experience. "Target" is AA and SWA, both Dallas HQ since I leave in the Dallas area. Loose medical, etc I can answer phones M-F at HQ.
6500 TT, 2500 Turbine PIC presently. TT Time not higher due to numerous "staff jobs" and expected "desk duties" when you work for Uncle Sam.
Gameplan is apply to Envoy, AA, SWA, and "do time" at Envoy while my app sits at AA and SWA. Worst case, i flow to AA via Envoy at age 55ish and do the next ten at AA. Better case, I get picked up after 2 years of 121 time and then AA or SWA. Ideal, super best case is I roll from this gig direct to AA or SWA but I recognize that may not be possible.
Have about 3 Captains at AA and SWA each who advised they will submit LOR's/try to help me, once I get closer to retirement. Everybody else has this too, so....
I have some back-up skills in my pocket to include project management, IT, data analysis (those visual presentations involving scatter plots and heat maps) that I can hopefully pay the rent with in the event nobody calls me and I need to eat.
Thank you again. Comments, ideas always welcome
** AARP applicant LOL
Sorry but the flow is only slowing down at Envoy. The flow doesn't get faster. It gets slower. I don't get why people think the flow will increase when it is clearly designed to slow down. 7-8 years will be your flow rate. This isn't counting attrition, AA not hiring in Dec or acts of Congress or God.
I clearly understand that the regional airlines are going to go through major changes in the next 2-5 years. I'm not smart enough to predict it. I am smart enough to do some division and multiplication and find out your flow rate will be slightly more trending to slightly less than 1% each month. Don't expect to flow to AA via Envoy and get flight benefits before retirement. Unless we get stapled to the bottom of AA which is more likely to happen than five year flow for you.