Originally Posted by
selftitled
Hello. I’m looking to get some outside feedback/thoughts on this question:
I have been at JetBlue for 7 years. I enjoy flying the bus and really have no complaints about the job itself. The people are great and the company has been good to me. I feel no need to fly wide bodies. However, things are obviously not good and long term the future looks much brighter at DL (I have 25 years left). I can move anywhere in the country and I do like the bases Delta has to offer.
I know it’s not a good time to go to the bottom of a list but I would not let that stop me. The main thing I am concerned with is how long would it take to “break even” on the move assuming things stay relatively stable? 4 years maybe? The profit sharing certainly would not hurt. Career advancement would likely be much faster at DL but in the back of my mind I am concerned about the possibility of B6 merging with AA, UAL, or ALK after I leave. I know hope is not a strategy and I can’t stay just to bank on that; there is the possibility of BK and shrinking to death.
Any advice/feedback is appreciated. Thanks in advance!
For reference I’ve been at blue for 11 years and I have 21 to go. I decided to stay here when I upgraded back in 2019 and things were more or less looking up. I felt super fortunate to be in the left seat when Covid happened and never would have guessed how the industry would shape up just five years later.
Earlier this year I went through the existential leave or stay crisis as you’re going through right now. I called up all my buds at other airlines to pick their brains and get their thoughts on moving on but ultimately decided again I’m going to stay.
Being in the left seat nearly topped out in pay weighed heavily in my decision. There are a lot of ways to do the math on how long it will take you to break even, but I suspect if you haven’t upgraded here yet it will be no more than 3-4 years as you said. For me, it would have taken a minimum of 5-7 years. It would take me 3-5 years just to hold narrow body captain again and to get back where I am today. There’s no possibility for someone my age to ever hold wide body captain anymore and even if I did it would only be for a very short while on reserve. For you being four years younger, it might be a possibility but you’ve already said that type of flying doesn’t interest you, so that’s one less variable to consider. That’s as things stand today but they absolutely won’t be the same in 10 years. That much we know for sure. We just don’t know in which direction it will be different.
Hiring at Delta and the other legacies has slowed compared to what it was 2-4 years ago but the retirement numbers are strong so I suspect there will be steady movement there, even if they stagnate a bit. We are at a point here at blue where our best case scenario is to remain about the same size or maybe a bit of growth with relatively low retirement numbers. Your (our) career progression here has come to a standstill and will continue to be that way for at least a couple of years.
I know I’ve used a lot of words to not say very much, and much less anything you haven’t heard or already know, but what I will say to you is what I would say to any FO going through this career crossroads. If you’re serious about getting out, go out interview, and get the job offer. Only at that point do you really have a decision to make. Before that time you’re not really asking if you should leave, what you're asking is whether you should put the effort into leaving. It’s hard work and there’s no 100% guarantee that it’s the right thing to do. That being said, if I had your stats and your flexibility, with a job offer at hand, I’d leave yesterday. That’s my $.02 (.05 in 2025 $)