Originally Posted by flensr

I just did the numbers at min guarantee, 10 yr upgrade at SWA, upgrade in 3 more yrs at spirit (I'd been there already almost 2 years), plus 401k, over the 18 years I have remaining until age 65. With those assumptions, over the 18 remaining years Spirit income was almost $200k more than SWA, which comes close to about what I might expect from SWA profit sharing.

People say you can make quite a bit more than min guarantee at SWA and that's very true, but in my time at Spirit you could make quite a bit more than min flying extra and premium, so I think opportunities for extra flying and extra pay is similar at both places if you work the schedule with the same level of intensity.

So, that's why I'm saying what I'm saying. I did the math and over 18 yrs, starting from year 2 at Spirit already, the basic guarantee pay is very very close due to being 3-4 yrs from upgrade at Spirit and starting over again at SWA with a 10 yr upgrade. Obviously those numbers are significantly different depending on where you're sitting on the seniority list at spirit before jumping ship, and equally significantly different if the remaining time until mandatory retirement is longer. I was in that strange part of the salary/seniority/earnings curve where for me specifically, the higher long-term SWA pay wouldn't make up for the difference I'd see upgrade in just 3-4 yrs vs. another 10.

Before I jumped ship, most of the captains I flew with agreed that with the new contract anyone at Spirit who had already been there longer than 3-4 years might be better off staying due to all the usual reasons including scheduling QOL, historically relatively quick upgrade, salary, and flying new-ish airplanes with a good pilot group. I don't know how much the upgrade timeline has changed so I'm sure the considerations have changed somewhat since I left.