Originally Posted by
KSwift76
Can anyone born before 1985 imagine the thought/opportunity to upgrade at a legacy carrier inside of a year and be upset about it?🤷🏿♂️. Strange, exciting times we are living in. It took me 17 years for my first CA opportunity. I wasn't waiting around for quality of life...I wanted the money! What a time to be an airline pilot!
Major airline pilot contracts of the past had tighter line construction constraints, didn't have PBS, and had vacation override. We used to have a very tight window on monthly credit. I believe it was only 5 to 10 hours difference between the floor and the ceiling. On all fleets. Not the 20 hour range we have now. The lines used to be more homogenous and we had a credit cap (I believe 85 credit hours) where hours would be banked and overages would be paid in future months. Nobody got a check for 100 credit hours in a month. So rates were more of a factor back in the day and there was more incentive to continue to move up than to camp out.