Originally Posted by
Maddoggin
It really does depend on your longevity and fleet. I’m a senior 7ER FO on 12 year scale. Routinely bid with LCA. Some months they all get bought and some months one or none. But the ones where you do get bought off you are already at GS trigger and a couple GS and you can rack up some high credit months. I need to make around 109 hours in the right seat to equal a reserve CA on 7ER which is where I would be at 95 percent. That has been easily doable with alot less work than a Junior Captain. Only worked 13 days so far this year with the majority of those being GS. Granted I did have a week of vacation in January and February. Tomorrow is my first real bid packet trip since early December. Just not worth it for me yet to make the move. I’d at least like to be a line holder with weekends off. So I’ll probably be waiting a while longer which is fine with me. If I could hold CA at 4 to 5 year scale I think it would be worth it without too much hit in quality of life. Just wasn’t an option for me.
I agree with the mentality that everyone has their little corner of DAL. Yours sounds quite nice, but how many can do what you do? 5 per base, per fleet? Don’t take that as criticism in any way. Same goes for Trip and his Caribbean turns on the 73, sounds great, but few get to execute that life. The good deal situations don’t move. Not a lot of top 10% in seat moving unless forced. We are all just trying to find our corners. It will be interesting watching the generational shift at the airline, and every where else, to see how behaviors change. Contracts, pay, pandemics, aging, kids and new fleets will force everyone to adapt.
It’s one of the things I love about this job is flying with people with all sorts of situations that make this career work. It’s also why giving out advice is so hard… well giving seems to come easy. But actually saying what works for people totally depends, and then … reroute.