Originally Posted by Zoomie

Hate to be a Debbie downer here but:

Talking to friends at SWA and AA and DL, I would say we have one of the worst scheduling contracts of any of them.

1) It's not easy to drop trips, or trade, even if you are senior. Our work rules for trading doesn't have the flexibility of other companies. I have a buddy who's a newhire at AA that I talk to and he tells me he's got 2 weeks off without vacation(as a NB FO), I don't see that happening here.
2) Lines are close to 89 hr lines prior to the Sept pull back, so while you might get a reprieve here in Oct, Nov/Dec will be busy. Jan/Feb will draw down, then Mar will be busy, then Apr/May draw down then Jun-Sep will be busy.
Management is on record that they won't "draw down" the way I have described above. The draw downs are typical of our company and the UAL NEXT plan says we will be busy year round.
3) Reserve sux everywhere, especially if you commute. If you get 777/787 as a newhire you will be on reserve for 2 years, almost guaranteed, unless you decide to upgrade to NB CA at the end of year 1, then will be on reserve as a NB CA for another 2 years. If you live in base and don't like to fly, this might be awesome.
If you are commuting to reserve, you will spend a lot of time watching Netflix in your crashpad. With the pullback we just did in Sept, management pushed reserve percentages which are typically 80-100% in base to a much higher level

None of these are direct comparisons. You can never apply an apples-apples comparisons on work rules even though we try. I'd say that here at United, you will benefit from rapid growth and a quicker CA upgrade then our competition in this point in time. With the amount of growth we have right now, you will struggle for about a year for QOL, but will probably (assuming we grow as anticipated) gain so much seniority that you will gain any QOL back within a year or two. If the TA fails and we stop growth mode and stagnate, I expect that this is one of worst places for QOL as a junior guy.