Until Alaska gets widebody flying, the big 3 will siphon off jobs from all the LCCs and Southwest. We haven’t seen times like this since the 80s. Even if narrowbody pilots made $20k more at Alaska than a pilot at a carrier with widebody flying, widebody flying will always pay more and be easier. A redeye transcon in a 737 or a 320 will never be as lucrative or comfortable as a trans pacific flight in a widebody with crew bunks. A 3 day with Alaska’s new TA will pay 15 hours to go to the islands, but at the Majors, that same amount of days would net you 21 hours for 2 legs by flying to Asia, as you’re dozing for dollars.

The other issue is the big 3 will all lose about half of their seniority lists in the next 5-10 years. You will either be a senior FO or a junior captain there for quite a while. At Southwest, Spirit, JetBlue or Alaska, you will stagnate for a while because none of the LCCs have as many as retirements. If you go to do There are some realties that even the best contract can’t solve.