Originally Posted by
jrydel
I think with the new contract the whole “earn millions less” at Southwest isn’t really true. I ran the numbers for myself based on min credit. 36 year career. Upgrade at WN in 6 years. Upgrade to NB CA at UA year 2, and WB CA the last 10 years of my career (optimistically). Total career earnings were within a couple hundred thousand.
The whole “quick upgrade” at UA is a bit overblown too in my opinion. On 3rd year FO pay, if I worked 18 days a month I could probably credit 105-110. Compared to a reserve CA at UA, I could probably come within 2-3k of what they earn.
If you hustle as a captain on reserve at UAL with VDOs you can easily credit in the low 100s. I've seen guys get close to 130 hours of credit in the summer months. Even this month this guy on reserve in den 737 is at 110 hours of credit. Or he can bid short call and maybe fly 12 days in the month. Just because you can hustle as an FO doesn't mean you can't as a junior CA too.