Originally Posted by
Justabusdriver1
I don’t mind being junior that much. I don’t care about weekends or holidays off. I just get my schedule and when I’m working I’m working, don’t necessarily care much about the destinations either. The one thing I can do without are straight red eyes. Just curious what life on wb vs nb are like and how they differ. Do people who have been on both have a preference and why. I prefer to actually work 3+ day trips. Ideally I think I’d like to do 330 or 350 at some point. But if it’s available during indoc as someone who will have their choice just curious what life would be like on the various fleets. 5mo reserve in base ain’t bad on nb. But if it’s gonna be years of reserve on wb that might be a big difference and reason to go nb first.
It depends. Some months the 330/350 have lines that go all the way to the most junior pilot, other months the most junior line will be at 5 year pilots. I know NYC330B will take about a year to hold a line, however, that’s currently around 90% so if things go like I think they will, there will be no more new hires getting the 330 or 350. This could mean you’ll be in NYC330 stuck on reserve for the next couple of years.
Currently there are no other 330/350 openings. Just NYC330 and even that may have ran out (the last new hire class got a couple spots I read). It’s up to you. Red eyes are mixed in with the 320 fleet in every base. A lot of senior pilots seem to like them so odds are you won’t even have to worry about them. I am 20-30% in my category and I bid for red eyes and I cannot hold them unless I work over the weekend. (Granted I have a lot of other bid preferences in before “award red eyes.”)
The next AE is in a couple weeks so that’ll change everything! Most guesses are the days of NEWBIES getting the 330/350 are over. I’d bet on street CAs before I would say a new hire will see a wide body moving forward. Some NB trips have become 4-leg, 12 hour overnights for 4-5 days straight with a red eye in the middle to a 10 hour day layover so it’s either RJ-style trips with a mid rotation red eye or wide bodies, relaxing, one and done kind of trips.
Unless our pilot group is completely nuts, I’d bet wide bodies will be going to 4+ year pilots on this next AE so basically the question shouldn’t be “WB vs NB FO”, it should be “NB FO vs NB CA” for new hire openings. This is all just my opinion.