Whoa that is heavy duty man! You can't leave us hanging. What did you do with that question?

 

sfoquioter - After 4 or 5 years with a company, and especially after you upgrade, most people become mired into it's crap and cannot just simply walk away.

Until you can make the 'right' breakout move, you have to bide your time and suck it up. I'm sure when the legacy of their choice calls most of these guys under 45 would leave. But a 5 year FO is at least going to give some serious thought before he/she just walks on 80K a year. People have lives, bills, kids in school, mortgages. And what about a 10 yr CA making ~150K? Where do you suggest they go? Over to another LCC at first year pay? Back to the regionals?

Young guys with low longevity can leave more easily, and I'm sure they are piling out in droves. The guys deeper in have one choice - to fight like hell to make it better, and leave only when one of two things happens: The price for staying becomes too costly... i.e. losing their family over it. Or the reward for leaving becomes more lucrative than staying... i.e. the right legacy calls.

This is why they're cautioning you so intently about going there, because once you start, the process of eating you (the years of your life) begins. And know this, if you're thinking you'll just grab some Jet time for the resume and springboard to the next place, you're only just feeding the beast, and it can turn around and eat you with the rest of them before you realize what's happened.

 

Never quit one job until you have another one in the bag.

 

Sulkair said it really well. Many of us have been here a better part of a decade. While the pay has always been reprehensible, the QOL actually was very good and everything was pointing in the direction of a promising future. Not to mention, when many of us were hired, Allegiant was the ONLY carrier that was hiring because the rest of the industry was still in the toilet.

Fast forward to today. Almost everyone is hiring, good regionals are handing out class dates like candy, and the whole industry is awash in profits. While I can't speak for other senior pilots, I am waiting to be called by the right legacy. I'm not about to throw away almost a decade of seniority to start over at another LCC.

The main point is that you and the rest of us looked at Allegiant during two very different times in its history. When I came it was a fledgling company that, while making a profit, was still on shaky ground. Today, this company prints its own money and they operate like Chapter 7 is right around the corner. One would not expect things to get worse as the profits get higher, but it has happened. We are being purposely stonewalled and strung along in negotiations while the higher-ups are paying themselves huge dividends (since they are the largest shareholders).

Still want to come here? Fine, go ahead. You might even upgrade in 4 or 5 months into a TDY base! Wow! What you don't realize is that you will be perpetually living out of a suitcase and flying into very challenging airports in a plane that was designed to kill you, not to mention the rash of engine failures/shutdowns over the past 3 months. Want to take the chance on a possible violation/incident on your record? But as long as you give your SCREAM briefing to your FA's, you should be fine during the debrief.

 

Thank you for the accurate response to quilter's question. It is this, plus what others have said - you don't get a phone call from a Legacy the day after applying.

These concepts seem pretty obvious to me, but I guess you have to spell it out for some. Sigh...

 

A little over a year after she said that, I had a different job.

This is so true I had been there almost 4 years, and it was still a hard call to leave, in the end it was the best move for me though.

 

Most legacies pay 80k or better during the second year. Even someone over 45 can have a decent run before retirement. Most legacies also throw in around 15% of your pay into a 401k.

 

I "settled" for this place when there were no other airlines hiring and I learned my lesson. I'm trying to get hired by a legacy and I have applied to all of them. I'm not willing to "settle" again for another LCC. I'm waiting for a legacy to call and like the others have said, when you turn in your app your phone doesn't ring the next day. In today's job market there is a lot of networking involved in getting hired by the legacies and I'm trying my hardest to get that phone call. Our management continuously asks the same question you just did in an attempt to show they have the upper hand and get us to settle for what we've got now. Asking that question shows arrogance and a lack of information to formulate a relevant question.

 

I’m curious what did the Spirit booth look like?

 

looks like 4 no shows, was expecting a few more