Originally Posted by
Asiabound
Fair point, but I'm 40 not 30 and I'm hoping to retire at 60 (maybe I'm crazy for saying that out loud). If I was in class tomorrow at NK I would probably be in the top 10-15? percent seniority-wise by then, but it would probably be what? 4-5 years from now to reach 1000 PIC as CA at Spirit? By that point if I made the jump, I would be pushing 45 and would probably be only 50% on the UA list when I turned 60. I guess what I'm saying is I'm looking for what gets me the better QOL in the shorter term. Plus I hate starting at the bottom and really only want to do it one more time, unless I don't have a choice of course.
I would guess (at least) half the pilots on the NK list are younger than you, so to get to the top 10% Spirit needs to grow to 5 times the size it is now with 13K pilots. Not impossible, but for seniority progres nothing beats people above you retiring...
When I got hired here I had 20 years to go, and 30% of the group would retire before me. For AA in the same time frame 97% retirements, and UAL 90%. I love it here, but for seniority I would think UA is better. UAL has 12K pilots and between 2022 and 2042 just over 10K retirements. Even if you don't get hired until 2026, still over 8K retirements, so ZERO growth you would be at 33% relative seniority, and because of WB flying a very senior NB captain.