aa73

He is not wrong Arado and neither are you.

Both ex AWA/US management are notorious for bringing the ULCC style to airlines. Cost cutting at its finest. They took a well known legacy international carrier (AA) that business travelers loved to fly and transformed it into what we have today.
And APA being APA, well we all see the results with the type of contracts AA pilots have worked under for decades. Always trailing everyone else.

So you’re both kinda right, and you can’t specifically blame one or the other.

dwightkschrute

If it’s a major and you can drive to work, pick the option that gives you the best seniority. 1 year Delta or United captains are not exempt from a furlough should the worst occur. Seniority is king and right now, AA, while not the best place to work ATM, is the best option when it comes to accruing seniority and having a safety net.

ObiOne

That seems to be the case, and has been my thought, but is it really noticeably different than it would be at United for someone still in their 20’s?

LAXtoDEN

Sorry I missed your reply. You can hold both ORD and LAX quicker at UAL. You can upgrade quicker at UAL with LAX. You can bid WB quicker at UAL and you can probably hold 777, maybe even 787 out of training with a short commute to SFO. UAL just makes more sense for where you want to live. I compare it to NYC DL vs AA, DL wins.

You will have faster seniority at AA but UAL is claiming they’re still going to hire another 6,000 pilots and keep growing. I call BS, the same person claiming that said they’d be first to a contract. UAL has hired over 4,000 pilots since the beginning of 2022. If the economy goes into an actual recession in the next year or two you’re hosed at UAL. UAL is over staffed at the moment. Those growth aircrafts will become replacements and maybe even orders cancelled overnight. I personally think SK is a master BS’er so UAL feels like a wildcard no matter what to me.

UAL has hired younger pilots than AA over the years. I think more of that has to do with AA hiring more MIL pilots on average over those years. I’m in my mid-late 20’s as well and would have retired close to 1% at AA when I ran the numbers last year. It’s not just about retirements but average age of pilots hired ahead of you.

It’s actually a tough choice but if you’re dedicated to the Los Angeles location I’d take the slight seniority hit and go to UAL.

I do believe if AA management can get their stuff together this could be a hell of a time to be hired at AA. Just like the 2013-2014 Delta hires who hit it perfect.

ObiOne

What did you find to be the most effective way to run the numbers to project your seniority?

LAXtoDEN

I have a few friends at AA who wrote me internal
LOR’s. I used them as guidance to figure out my retirement position. The crazy part about AA is how fast you move up the list in the first 7-10 years or whatever it is now for half of their seniority list to retire. Delta has Widget seniority, you don’t need to be hired or have a Delta friend to access the list. Delta hired a lot of 25 year olds, United has hired a lot of mid 20 year olds before and after Covid btw… problem is those younger pilots hired before me will always be ahead of me until I retire. I’ll still be able to hold WB CA at DL.

It would be nice if AA had some type of seniority application to run your projected hire date and age. As far as I know, to get the info you’re looking for you have to phone an AA friend.

Brickfire

Noticeably - absolutely
Significant - yeah lineholding captain vs reserve is a big deal, senior fo getting anything he wants vs a line of weekends is a big deal
Fundamentally life altering - maybe. Depends on when the next bad thing happens. Or maybe AA is the launch customer for the single pilot B808 and you get hosed on the back end

ImSoSuss

First you are going to have to tell me how each qualifies as being mutually exclusive.

ComingInHot

Thank you for all the information! I really appreciate it. I've been thinking about it for the past days and it's a tough decision to make, although I'm very humbled to be in this position.

Zerosilver84

I came from a dal WO.. And for these exact reasons why dal would be #3 for me... Plus delta left a sour taste in my mouth.