Originally Posted by
Wolf424
That's just ATL flying in general. I'm not really sure it's any worse or better than the 737 or 320 in ATL. Instead of Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, you'll be going to Birmingham, Gulfport, and Memphis. The rotations for junior guys aren't drastically different. The biggest difference is on the ER, you'll get the occasional Europe/SA/Caribbean flying. On the bus, the best you're getting is a cross country. On the 737, you'll get the Caribbean. The ceiling on the ER is much higher.
Re: ER flying...
SEAER - Closing
LAXER - Red eyes, plus you're likely long-distance commuting if you're considering ATL
NYCER - You're likely commuting to NYC, and the junior trips tend to be non commutable. It does have the best Europe flying in the system though.
If the goal is ATL, the ER makes a lot of sense. One nice thing about the ATL trips (at least on last month's package) is that ATL had the most commutable rotations on the fleet. It's also the largest category at the air line. Lots of opportunities to SWP/Swap Board.
I wasn’t saying commute to LAX, I was purely saying if you want ER those are the only 2 bases with half the bid packet, at least, of good rotations. ATL 320 and 73N do have short smaller city layovers but also longer layovers than you will see doing the jumps in and out of Florida or the surrounding states. I’d much rather have 18 hours in MEM than 12 hours in FLL.
also, telling new hires you will occasionally get europes out of ATL ER is not factual. Some of the ER SA was even outsourced to our other intl fleets. Caribbean turns and Latin America turns, no thanks.
so sure the overall package is a “higher ceiling” but that’s not helpful for a new hire. That gives them false hope that they rough it out for that ceiling when in reality it would take years to maybe see a Paris (until that is removed off ER) or EDI once if they can pick it up off swap board.
All advice I guess should be taken with a grain of salt, we are all different. But I would not fly the ER in ATL, and I thankfully have seniority to avoid ATL ER flying in my bid packet for my said reasons.