Originally Posted by
Otterbox
AA is not DAL. You're not the only AA pilot looking to go to United in the same base. It may be worth going to UAL but you'll have a better ability to judge how much you're giving up once the actual class date at UAL is assigned. How old are you? Are you going to be able to be a WB CA at AA? If not, but young enough to be one at UAL, the switch for that alone could be worth it depending on how important retiring as a WB CA is for you. AA does have better WB reserve rules than UAL (6 rollable days off each month for Global reserve) UAL is more profitable and has other opportunities available in the Chicago area besides flying the line.
Originally Posted by
Fly4FunAA
It’s just a hard decision man because of the current state of affairs. I have time on my side but also it’s like, is it really worth giving up everything to take the risk? I think the best answer is to just wait it out and see once I’m offered a class date. Who knows maybe things change in the industry and world.
Did you get a class date yet? I was offered a class in April and I'm 50/50 on leaving AA at 1.5 years to start over at UAL.
I did some side-by-side comparisons for my seniority vs some data my buddies at UAL provided and it looks very similar in terms of seniority. The advantage is UAL has vastly more WB flying and volume out of ORD.
Here's what I could work out:
https://imgur.com/a/j0eGzKv
These are worst-case scenarios and from what I've heard there are unfilled vacancies at ORD, DEN, and SFO consistently in the 737, so upgrades would be likely as soon as you're clearing probation. Can anyone confirm this?
I'm curious if you had any further thoughts on the decision.