Originally Posted by
Blueskiess
What is the ACTUAL company culture like at each company? I have always wanted to work for United, however after my recent interview experience at Delta I really enjoyed their culture from what I could see and was wonder how is the culture at each airline on a day to day basis? How does the company view its pilots? How does crew scheduling treat pilots?
It seems DAL is more snooty and is arguably a slightly better run airline at this moment in time, beyond that you're flying still flying from A to B with boomer, conservative captains who are going to rant about politics and the contract and the unions. You're going to stay in nice hotels. You're going to work about the same amount of time, you're going to make more or less the same money, the work rules are more or less the same. Both scheduling departments will absolutely use you if they need to, and both companies will furlough you at the drop of a hat if they need to. Each will have 80-90% of pilots be great folks you're happy to work with a few a-holes sprinkled in. No matter which airline has the better contract or CEO or performance, the order of who is #1 or #2 can and will change during the course of the next several decades as new leadership and new contracts come and go.
What you really need to be worried about is A- which one has a base you'd rather live in and B- if you really want to get into wide body flying soon, because that will be a far bigger impact on how happy you are than your or other pilots' perceptions of what the "culture" is.