Battlinbear

Was hired March 2018 as a flow, hate to talk about cash but last year after it was all said and done I took A 57k cut 1st year at AA. 2nd year will also be less, but not that bad. my year two pay didn’t show up on a check till June 15, major ouch... And this month, July, was First month I actually made the same as I did at PDT. Took 99 hours to do it. I. I bid rsv for aug for a break and hopefully play OG game. but I’m prepared to see basically a zero paycheck the 15th going from 99 to 76. It’s witchcraft how the pay works.

FlyyGuyy

Flowed in May from PSA, it's been a slight pay cut. We saved about 30k in advance for the first year here, so far haven't had to touch it.
For what it's worth I'm not a cheap person, looks like it'll be about 10-15 less then last year. And that's mostly based upon the old PSA rates.

mainlineAF

This isn’t a slight against you but i never understood why people don’t like to talk about money, especially in this profession.

The pay rates are published. It isn’t a secret.

rondonq1

Why not stay at psa? You already AA pilot. Stay there make more money. You can flow over later.

ORDinary

That's because it is hard to answer. How much extra flying you can get depends on a lot of factors: lineholding vs. reserve, commuting vs. living in base, which equipment, which base, which time of year you're talking about, staffing levels, whether you can hold weekends off, how quickly your relative seniority improves, etc.

HardLemonade

I understand what he's talking about though. Before I started I couldn't get a straight answer on how much we got paid during training. And that's a flat rate for everyone. Even from guys who had recently flowed..they wouldn't/couldn't give me any numbers. Which is why I went out of my way in this thread to give exact amounts.

ORDinary

Yeah you're right about training. But after that my pay has really fluctuated based on reserve/line, commuting/not, but also from month to month it varies. I'd say if someone wants to know the pay after training, take the pay scales, multiply by guarantee on the low end, and add 3-4 days of 5:15 for the high end (not that you couldn't make more).

chrisreedrules

That’s a little bit more than I’m factoring in but it’s closer than it is further away. I was thinking it’d be about a $45K pay cut year 1 and about break even year 2. I usually average 13-16 days off and I regularly credit 95-115 hours /month now. The way pay is figured at AA is a little confusing.

I’m hoping to get 737 MIA LGA or honestly wherever I can hold a line the quickest since I’m commuting and want to work to help make up the pay difference year 1.

Name User

Not to be pessimistic but if losing a couple thousand a month (after tax) is going to hurt you, you really need to consider that you will be at the very bottom of a 15,000 long list of a highly leveraged company that has the weakest margins of its peers.

Your main concern should be what do you do if you get furloughed in the first couple years. FWIW I had roughly three years living expenses in cash waiting for me when I left my regional and that didn't include my wife continuing to work. I wanted worst case covered.

If you can make that work, you can find a way to make first and second year work which is a best case scenario.

Save your money now and if you don't need it, you've got it and can invest it when you feel you can start to take more risk. That is what I did at about the 2.5 year mark and it worked extremely well for me.

Centurion

Go with this. First year pay is gonna hurt but if you budget and think like an FO at a regional you’ll do fine.

For me, I made about 1,300 - 1,500 less a month my first year at AA compared to my last year at envoy. If money is going to be tight for you, I would stay at a base where you can hold a line the fastest. That way you have lots of options in trying to get your hours up.