Originally Posted by
Anon1212
If on the fence, ask F9 peeps who have left what they think about their decision past a year or so later. I know a ton (including captains), and everybody says it was the best decision they ever made. I went legacy and am already at 80% system wide, 55% in base, and get treated like a professional. Get the number while you can. Looking back, I wouldn’t accept/trust water from F9 management if I was dying of thirst on a desert.
To be fair you're not actually making as good of an argument as you think you are. With a year on property here I bid 74% system wide, 35% in base, held a line right out of training and now consistently can hold weekends off, no red eyes, commutable trips with CUN/SJU overnights and 18+ days off a month easily (have friends who get 20-21 days off per month in LAS with just over a year on property without even using vacation).
The getting treated like a professional part and operational support are really the only selling points you are hitting on but realize that most people aren't leaving here because the QOL is better at the legacies. In fact, after asking a few friends who either went straight to a legacy (MIL dudes) or guys who left F9 to go on to UAL/DAL it doesn't really sound like the grass is much greener from what I hear. I have heard that with exceptional levels of seniority you can get similar schedule control. An apples to apples comparison IMHO is more like you leave here you lose schedule control and QOL flexibility but you gain better work rules and pay plus operational support at a legacy. Case in point, I was jumpseating home on a legacy just last week. I told them that I had a 3 day trip that was only commutable on the back end so I split the first two legs off day 1 and traded them away and just made the 3 day commutable on both sides. The legacy crew couldn't believe we can do stuff like that, let alone in a seniority-agnostic way.
I'm not saying everything's great here...there's a lot of pain at F9 in particular the antagonistic management team, poor leadership and communication, operational/front-line chaos and lack of support (not to mention how embarrassing it is the way we treat our customers). But I have asked friends at the legacies with 1-3 years there on property and not one has said anything that makes me feel like it would make my personal life easier by making the jump.