Originally Posted by
FangsF15
You choosing to stay an FO loooong past your first opportunity, so that you would enter senior enough to reliably hold weekends and holidays off is not remotely the same thing as what is being discussed here.
Some folks act like 15 years is the norm. It's not. It may have been typical for a time, but that's what happens when you hire barely 1000 pilots in the 12 years following 9/11. That was due to a confluence of factors, including 9/11 furloughs, raising the age from 60>65, consolidation in the industry, and the 2008 housing/market crash. Compare that to the 11 years since then, where we have hired nearly 12000 pilots... Which period is closer to "the norm"?
All about perspective my friend. For all the reasons you listed, it most certainly took those of us hired in 2000-2001 that long to make and hold Captain. Just a fact. We didn't choose to wait to be top 20%. That's when our "wall" fell and that wall didn't include 7ER. It was B717 and M88 and, eventually, the B737 and A320. Categories will probably trend more senior now as hiring slows and aircraft get parked like the B717, A320 and B767. It's a cycle...but no one wants to believe that anymore. History is so last year and irrelevant. This industry is replete with booms and busts. We have been in an epic boom but that won't last. Things will slow...not necessarily precipitating a furlough but it will slow and maybe even regress through some contraction. It always has. Then maybe your "norm" will reset.