Are you assuming you’ll get a Delta CJO or do you have one in hand?

 

Ultimately you need to be going to Delta since there's no commute, but how long do you suppose the wait is? If you have a CJO I can't imagine it'll be that long....

 

This. Seniority is king and securing it asap is usually the way to go. One exception is this scenario. No amount of seniority can compensate for a life of commuting vs driving to work. I would roll the dice and wait for the Delta class date.

 

Take the first legacy class, always. Jump over to DL if it seems like a good idea when you get the class date.

 

Get to AA then update your application as an AA FO and lateral over to DAL. When age 67 passes (and it probably will eventually) you’ll be either stuck at a regional waiting to flow up or at the bottom of a legacy list. Which do you prefer?

Any soon to regional improvements will be slow rolled as much as possible while age 67 is being lobbied and won’t need to be implemented once it’s passed.

 

One might bet that they will do better sometime after the covid depression than after it, so yeah they are betting the airline may be more profitable later.

 

I have a DL CJO and no class date yet. The concern with taking AA immediately then jumping to DL is that 1) It doesnt help my DL seniority I'll still get what I get 2) Although well prepared for first year pay, that could mean 1 1/2 to 2 years of first year pay which hurts leaving a very lucrative position that I have a the top of my regional. 3) I only have about ten years left.

 

 

Tough call. With half the economists saying recession,

https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/26/econo...hnk/index.html

it is possible you could end up furloughed for a few years at any major, even DAL. Not likely, maybe, but certainly possible. And even if that didn’t happen you’d be on reserve, your QOL and pay both taking a considerable hit. Going through it once - then starting over a second time would be rough, unless you could somehow get DAL to give you a quicker class date by leveraging an AA CJO.

If you had even 15 years left, taking the first legacy offer would be a no brainer, but potentially being furloughed for a year or two when you won’t have a lot of time to make it up changes the financial calculus considerably. But when economists who have devoted their careers to the field are split 50-50, about all your fellow pilots can give you is sympathy. It’s a damn tough call.

Good luck whatever you decide.

 

I guess you think that nobody leaves a ULCC and gets a job at a legacy. Oh the huge manatee!