QOL at Allegiant is unparalleled to Delta with the exception of the very few that can hold day trips. Don’t get me wrong.... I’m not advocating anyone come to Allegiant over Delta. Delta offers a retirement package that Allegiant pilots can only dream about, but if you live in base and enjoy spending time at home, you will not find that anywhere else from the top all the way to the bottom.

If your seniority can hold it and you are lucky enough to get assigned the right aircraft out of training, sure.....but you know as well as I do that those are very big “ifs.”

Delta’s bases aren’t exactly awesome. I can’t imagine commuting or moving to DTW, LGA, MSP, SEA or ATL. None of those places trip my trigger and the thought of commuting again is enough for me to give serious consideration to getting out of 121 flying for good.

Now, if you’ll scroll back a few posts, you’ll see that I told the OP to go to Delta, so i’m not hating on anyone here, but considering most of my friends think that I either don’t work or have a part-time job and that we have several pilots who bypassed recall to AA because of the lifestyle offered here, I’d have to say that we’re not wrong making such bold statements, at least generally.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything except to point out that the exact schedule you describe is available to pilots at Delta too. And at far better pay and benefits.

I personally fly short 2 leg one or two day trips in and out of Atlanta. The "day trips" , which we call turns, pays 5:15 for as little as an hour (or less) of block time. The two day trips pay 10:30 for the same but with a short layover involved.

My favourite is one leg to CHA, a short layover, and a deadhead home.

It is 23 minutes flying time to Chattanooga, my wife picks me up at the CHA airport and we drive about an hour and 15 minutes back home and I'm done. Pays 10:30 ($2600) and Im gone from home a total of about four hours from when I left. I've done it many times, sometimes on a double pay greenslip for over $5000. Not counting the additional profit sharing and 401k inputs and this is on Delta's lowest paying aircraft.

Delta or Allegiant? Hmmm....

Assume the ring is where you hook your finger. That way, when you plug it in, you can verify the current is flowing at that very first instance. Very smart of them!!

Your unparalleled thing is a little off.

I've credited 150hrs the past two months and blocked 1.2 hours.

The bottom is a long way to go. There are lots of small outfits that only do day trips. Look at any of the local Alaska carriers for an example.

At this point it feels just like moving goalposts. Are you talking about the credit per month to say that pay is better than the rates make it appear?

The bottom line is that DAL has some day trips but it will take at least a decade or 2 to hold a full month of them in the left seat on the most junior equipment in most domiciles.


Here is a more realistic thread on DAL QOL from their own.

Living in Base: Typical Schedule?

I don't think that's a fair statement either. I don't think being left seat really belongs in the QOL discussion since there are right seaters at Delta making more. And considering the amount of retirements due, the timeline isn't realistic for left seat anyway.

I will give you that it sounds easy to have day trips only at Allegiant, just there's no need to add more qualifiers.

It's completely fair when UGBSM post pay for a left seat trip yet does not site the fact that it takes a very long time to hold a month of all day trips in that seat. If we're going to compare QOL we need to disclose both sides of the coin for both seats. There are 8+ year FO's at the top 15% in base not holding any day trips. This may seem obvious to most but some people reading this thread might not realize that day trips at DAL are rare and senior after reading some of your coworkers post above.