Originally Posted by
Margaritaville
Well said.
I'm here because I'm concerned that prospective pilots and newhires at Allegiant are being lied to and sold a fantasy that they will someday have the great life of home every night where you want to live, fly when and where you want, and take vacation when you want, for 1/4 of a mil a year that the super senior pilots here have and love to brag about.
This travel company is a pyramid scheme. You will only have that life if you got in on the ground floor 10-15 years ago. It's different from other airlines because with a young pilot group there are very few retirements, and the senior folks, who have it so good and are vocally selling this place here to keep the crumbling foundation of their pyramid intact, aren't leaving. Anyone hired today probably won't exceed 30% in the company in their career unless they were hired in their 20s and spend 30+ years here. There is practically zero growth potential here now. It's about to become America's most stagnant airline. You will spend many, many years on the bottom of the pyramid, working under the lowest pay and crappiest work rules in the industry.
The mods have told me they don't like my tone anymore, so I'll make this my last post on the topic.
I left Allegiant well over a year ago to work at a legacy airline with a Florida base not far from my Space Coast home. I have zero regrets. I'll be back to A320 CA in a year or two and make back every penny I lost by leaving and then some. I'll still have 10-ish years left too.
I hope anyone looking at this airline (travel company) reads this sometime in the future and seriously ponders it, not what the recruiters and scared seniors are saying.
Best of luck to you all.
Glad to see you are so happy at AA that you’ve still got time to come slum it with us.
You are right, you were never gonna get the good Allegiant schedule sticking in Florida and I have been adamant to anyone who will listen that FL is the worst place to be based if you’re not very senior (see any of my posts about FL reserves and the abuse they get). It seems most on here have been very clear, repeatedly, that to get the good Allegiant qol you have to be willing to move to where the opportunities are.
I know several people that are below 50% seniority that love their life at Allegiant and are living in smaller bases. DSM, TYS, GRR, ATW, even ABE and FNT are not for everybody, but some people believe it or not are not dying to live in FL or the LAS/IWA desert. For those people, they come they fly and they go home and forget about work.
If you have your sights set on FL then this place is gonna very different than if you want to live in a smaller Midwest area.
I hope you do get that 320 CA seat back, though AA certainly has their obstacles over the next few years. No airline is insulated from a topsy-turvy economy (though WN and DL are positioned better than the rest imo) so hopefully you have some profitable years before retirement. I’ll miss busting your chops Marg, I hope you’ll come back and slum it with us on APC in the future.