Originally Posted by
Noisecanceller
I don’t expect anyone hired today to be a WB FO or NB CA in 2 years. This isn’t 2022 anymore.
If you’re a Spirit CA making north of $400 W2 going to $120hr on on guarantee is yeah about an 80% cut
You also have to calculate the difference in earnings each year it takes to get back to that pay you left and then the earnings you could make on that money and the lost retirement contribution. It’s a massive investment to start over. If you’re young and/or junior it’s a no brainer. If you’re middle aged and senior the math is much more complex.
If you have kids in influential years and you only have a few short years before they leave home it makes giving up the schedule voluntarily very hard. When you know you can get any day off you want for anything it’s hard
Went from yr11NK commuting to in base UA yr1. So from about $300K (4 19hr 4days a month) to $120K is a 60% cut before tax. Average about 85 hours on reserve with the sit pay (any sit over 2 hours pays 1 minute per 2 minutes), "long" duty day pay (any minute over 10 hours pays a minute), reschedule pay (assigned trip got "extended" into my last day of reserve and got 8 hours of pay and a compensation day) being home more than at NK. Yr2 should be $190K, Yr 3 $240K. Lost income $350K if I can upgrade year 4, and then it will be about $100K per year more, so about 4 years to break even.. And if I don't get the upgrade and stay on the NB, taking my lost commute time into account it is pretty close if you get some profit sharing and the higher contribution. Yeah, it is not fun seeing the hole in my account right now, but after tax it isn't close to 80% less. Worked Xmas, but was off the 4th of July. Definitely wasn't my plan a few years ago, but I am still happy.