Originally Posted by KC135

I'm sure Margarita will answer with some combination of seniority, qol, age, home based and the fact that making lateral moves in our industry with respect to seat/longevity/seniority is not possible. What he says has merit and shouldn't be taken lightly, he's giving honest perspective to a potential new hire today with multiple CJO's.

All of my post on here may come across here as negative but I'm actually just trying to keep it real. I have never posted my personal experience here because it would be misleading and give a new hire false expectations. I was given 2 CJO's in the same week, it was not easy but I chose G4 over an offer from 1 of the big 3. My timing was extremely lucky, hired in 2014, upgrade was less than 1 year, I moved rapidly up the list with high attrition and the airline doubling in 2.5 years, my base grew significantly, pay was terrible but a new contract came and life was good. Yes I have had days where I wish I took the other offer just so I could be treated as a professional, not have to ride in a company ordered lyft, constantly fight pay errors and file grievances monthly but I would not change my decision if I could. Being home daily with the wife to see our kids grow up is priceless to me.

This type of progression is not even remotely possible for a new hire today. More than half of the FO's I fly with are actively updating their apps with some being very disgruntled. A lot of them feel they were given misleading information and regret coming here. They did not understand that the majority of future growth will not be in the older bases and they won't upgrade for a very long time in the base they want, they didn't realize it could take a couple years to get their home town base and when they finally do they could be TDY's out. Most importantly they underestimated just how un-commutable and non tradeable the junior schedules are. A lot of junior schedules only allow you to only be home 1 or 2 full days per month as a commuter, especially in the summer. This is why I post what I post and don't portray how much I enjoy the job here. The gap between junior and senior, no growth base vs growing and a base structure with an average on only 22 crews per base is vastly different from any other airline in the country. I just want new hires to fully understand what they are getting themselves into before they accept a CJO, whether they are coming here as a stepping stone or for a career.