Originally Posted by
GoodJet
Irony was that I got the month of turns as an FO the month before I was going to class for upgrade. I knew I would never see that good of a schedule again for the rest of my career.
Nothing ironic about it, nature of the beast.
The top 20-30% of FO's are financially situated to not "need" to take the first upgrade, and they hang out in the right seat either for years or forever.
It's actually possible to be the sole family breadwinner on $300k
If you're solo, DINK, retired mil, etc it's pretty easy to "get by".
If the pilots (or the company) really hate that, it's possible to negotiate a contractual provision that you have to upgrade when your number comes up, AA used to have that, maybe others too. Ripping the bandaid off would be pretty hard though, all the senior FO's would be pizzed off, and all the junior CA's would be *really* pizzed off as they stagnate for years. New hires would love it though.