Thanks! I landed at SWA. Under the current contract, moving over after 1.5 years at spirit is almost exactly dollar-neutral because of the earlier upgrade at Spirit, but otherwise compensation is nearly identical with spirit actually coming out slightly ahead on base salary but having slightly lower 401k DC and no profit sharing. So it was essentially a zero-zero decison regarding money. It came down to management's attitude towards employees. I will say that the spirit pilot group was great and leaving that did cause me a little thought, but 2 years ago I was working with a lot of great people in the USAF and I quit THAT job due to mis-management also.

Anyone with over 3-4 years at Spirit would make more staying at spirit vs. switching to SWA, from what I saw with my amateur earnings calculator. I used "typical" credit rates for the calculation, not min guarantee and while I'm sure people could make the numbers show whatever they want, the pay scales are very similiar with the upgrade time being the major difference between the two, financially. That's why I figure that someone joining Spirit *today* ought to really be considering staying long term especially if they get anywhere near upgrade before they think they have any other options. Once the money is about the same, which it is now, a job seeker with options is basically picking what management team they want to work for. SWA has decades of consecutive profitability with no furlough history, and that's also a consideration. After that, the benefits living in base simply cannot be underestimated. It's much harder to DROP flying at SWA but pretty easy to ADD flying if you're in base, so living in base can add an easy 20% to your paycheck once you're senior enough to pick up the easy high credit or premium pay trips.

Of course, SWA will be redoing it's contract in 2020 so that could tip the money scales pretty far if the industry trends continue.