Originally Posted by I was inverted

Widebody isn’t just good for those who want to fly widebodies. It makes all the narrowbody relative seniority that much better in both NB seats. The biggest fallacy I hear from LCC/ULCC pilots is they don’t have any desire to fly WBs so no reason to leave. I used to have that same mentality until I realized how it helps every other seniority bucket. My buddy who left frontier (reluctantly—I had to convince him pretty hard) for United, with that same attitude about only wanting to ever fly Airbus NB and how it would be the same as what he’s doing at frontier so he didn’t want to go and take a pay cut, is now on the 787. He now will never go back to narrowbody. And even when he was on the 320 at UAL he couldn’t believe he even entertained staying at frontier instead. But I digress.

But back to your argument. Just look at 401k. $50-$60k a year direct contribution in a 401k, compounding, is the biggest differentiator in a career at a major and a career at breeze.

And if you think that will get much better, just remember how Neeleman envisioned this airline. Fly airplanes in-between RJs and majors. Pay in-between RJ pay and major pay. Hire CFIs…as in, if regionals can attract pilots and pay them dog poo, he can have slightly bigger planes, pay them slightly better than dog poo, and attract from the same pool as regionals. After 2 years or so they can upgrade. After 2 or so years in the left seat they can move on to majors. And now he just resets the average longevity and gets someone new on 1st year pay to replace the guy on 5th year pay. Rinse, repeat.

He did the same thing with FAs…make them “part time” young college girls, pay them crap, they get a 4 year degree and then go get a real job/career. Then they get a new part time college student to replace them. Keeps them young and paid low….which honestly is genius. The experienced jaded FAs are often the worst.

Point is he found a way to try to perpetually keep pay down by resetting longevity. Keeping the average pilot at 2-5 years longevity instead of having hundreds or thousands of guys who will end up maxing out at 12 years, with more sick/vacation time, is smart from a business standpoint. Theres a reason when he was giving raises he didn’t really come close with 401k. He still doesn’t want you to stay there for long. He did what he had to do to get and keep enough meat in the seat, but once this pilot market cools off (it already has started), his plan will go back in place, and if you think you’ll get a CBA and a good retirement anytime soon, you’re nuts. They want their 401k to be like regionals’…crappy. Because they want their pilots to be like most regional pilots…just trying to build time and get to a career airline.

But, there’s other reasons staying at breeze might be cool (I almost went there very early on). I just don’t think fear of a pay cut going to a major is one of them. And I’d much rather be at the bottom of a major seniority list right now, with a bunch of retirements on the horizon, than anywhere on the list at a startup that still is hemorrhaging money and not close to breaking even, with no end in sight. I just don’t see a very viable path for Breeze aside from being bought, which I know is the hope for many breeze guys. Nothing wrong with that, just a huge gamble, while losing opportunity cost with pay, 401k and seniority at a much more sure bet with a much more predictable and stable future. Hope is a strong emotion though. Sometimes stronger than logic. Just my $.02.