Tons of trade labor did too.

The last of the baby boomers created a huge worker surplus.

 

If only...if it were an accurate statement (it's not).

I found the Pan Am contract for various years some time ago. It was interesting going through it. At the absolute peak of their pay, the 747 CA was hitting $500k in todays dollars.

Thing is, that was the very absolute peak, it lasted for just a few years (at most) and there were very few of those jobs. In fact, the entire industry was significantly smaller pre-deregulation in general, and most of us wouldn't have jobs had it not been for the massive expansion the industry enjoyed.

That doesn't even touch on how much better the current job is, as we don't have to endure yearly layoffs in the low seasons anymore (that was SOP back then).

So top end senior UA Capts were to make $80,000 in ~1977, a current inflation adjusted amount of $440,000. I think we can all agree that that is only the lower end of NB pay these days, not a senior triple CA.

The 80's were a bloodbath, with de-regulation coming later in the 70's that saw the rise of discount carrier SWA and bankruptcies and liquidations galore.

 

Trade labor is now done by a certain demographic, which killed the career aspect of it for many. Like it or not it was pushed by both parties for a multitude of reasons.

 

If you didn't own a home pre-covid, housing inflation has absolutely decimated the average person. There will be a large segment of our population that will never be homeowner in any major/medium city. The good news is even second year FOs outearn the lion's share of the population and can afford to buy nice homes on single incomes in the majority of the US, the usual suspects notwithstanding. But that has always been the case.

 

My dad made $200,000 at PAA in the early 1980's as a 747 Captain. Roughly $600,000+ in 2024 dollars. Lasted for a very short time.

Yearly layoffs in the slow season? Yeah, he went through that once in the 1950's. But the mid 1960's it wasn't a thing even with him being a newbie at 2 other major airlines in consecutive years (1963, 1964). PBI had furloughs every winter going into the early 1980's??? Summer flying to ACK and MVY was much busier than the winter schedule in Florida so manning had big swings.

Frank Lorenzo was a huge factor in the late 1970's until the early 1990's. Operated around 15-20% of the entire industry, with almost 500 a/c under his control, while the next largest airlines had around 250-300 a/c.

https://airlines.org/wp-content/uplo...14/08/1987.pdf

 

What should someone in the 95-99% range seniority expect their month to look like on reserve? If you had the choice to go 320 and be 99.9% in DFW or 737 and be 90ish% what would you choose for the long term best QOL? I realize it will be reserve for a while, just not sure what to expect yet.

Thanks!

 

I don't think there will be much difference between the two in the short term. Long term, no one knows how things will play out. Reserve is going to suck either way, being junior. Try to bid 4 day blocks or less to lessen the suck. Plan on working the 85 hour limit. The good news is that even if you are flying min credit trips, you can only be used for 16 days. If you get a couple of decent higher credit trips, you might be able to trim that down to 15.

 

Living in base on short call really isn’t that bad. It’s when you don’t live is base it sucks. Operating 40-50 hours a month is pretty easy, you just can’t usually get that long stretch of days off you are looking for or have much flexibility.

 

Used towards your month max of 85 hours during the busy flying months, around 60 hours during the 3 or 4 "slow" months of the year. Seniority movement has always been quicker on the 737 system wide and I do not see that changing. Everybody and their mother wants to fly the Airbus. So let them and enjoy better seniority while getting paid exactly the same on the 737.

 

around 80% is where you will be able to choose the days you work on reserve. Junior to that, expect to be on reserve every weekend, due to mandatory “coverage days” that are determined by the days the company needs the schedule filled out that those above you bid off (usually weekends).

80% is also the magic number where you can (usually) hold a Line. the 2 combined factors (line option, days you want off on reserve) are a big QOL bump.

next big QoL bump in DFW probably doesn’t come until about 40% seniority IMO, at which point you’re safely senior enough to get good trips you want in PBS without having to work the trading system to trade for them.

So both these numbers will come quicker for you on the 73 in DFW.