Lizardpilot78

I just recieved my class date and thought I'd see what you guys think about your bases. What the flying is like and how senior they are and so on. I'm trying to decide where I want to bid and settle down at. I'm pretty much open to all the bases at the moment so any info on which bases are the most junior and which bases have the best flying and so on would be appreciated.

bluespoon

Congratulations! You’re really going to like it here, it’s a great culture. As far as bases go, the original bases like CHS, MSY, and ORF are pretty senior now, especially for upgrades. Even BDL and PVD are pretty well established although there’s way more flying there and more opportunity for movement as well as commutable schedules. TPA is pretty senior at this point. The Ft Myers base will open up in October and that should create vacancies at other bases. Pretty much all bases are attainable at this point except for maybe CHS or ORF. Of course there are a lot of airplanes that are still yet to be delivered so there’s still going to opportunities for movement and possibly new bases as well.

Unfortunately right now our base structure is kind of a Hybrid between allegiant style and traditional hub basing. It’s still unclear if the company wants to have a couple of large bases or just have lots of small ones all over. Basically the only way to get any kind of good seniority now is to already be here once they announce a new base so you can bid that.

Lizardpilot78

Ya, I'm really excited to get started. I'm 45 and am very open to riding out my career there. The idea of starting at 45 and retiring at no lower than about 500 on the senoirity list is very apealing to me. I have a lot of friends near PVU so thats on my short list. Living in Florida is also high on my list and CHS sounds awesome too. What are upgrade times looking like at Breeze? I talk to one of my best friends at United and he's 777 and he said his upgrade time is like 19 years haha. But is it like 2-3 years or more than that right now?

bluespoon

They’re hiring DECs, so upgrades now are basically as soon as you have the time.

sailingfun

Upgrade time at UAL is zero. They are assigning 737 CA seats in training.

PNWFlyer

yeah, but United’s CEO didn’t start 5 airlines.

bonvoyage

And the truth is every airline that our CEO started was total crap until he was gone. And the only one that has turned out to be ok is JetBlue and that took most of 20 years to get it to be an ok place.

and we aren’t “the next jetblue”. We sell a crap product, we are a total different model airline. We strive to be one thing and one thing only, that is cheap and lacking.

bluespoon

Let’s put things into perspective better. Just because we made a slight profit, it doesn’t mean it’s all great and we’re ready for velvet ropes to part and have the champagne flowing. Southwest is about to furlough if they can’t find unpaid leave takers, Spirit is expected to lose even more money, other ULCCs not doing great at all etc etc. I mean when we got the last pay raises, there was a post on FB where one AA guy said we made same or better than a AA 737 driver under some of the years. That didn’t last long because of their new contract but you get the point. For an airline that wasn’t making money and only been around for barely any amount, I’d hardly call that cheap.

60av8tor

🤣🤣🤣....filler....🤣🤣🤣

bonvoyage

Did they mean a Breeze Captain made more than an AA FO? What did they mean, because that’s pretty far fetched. I can count on one hand the amount of pilots on year 6+ pay longevity. A large portion of the rest have been getting screwed at a lower pay rate for 2+ years now (yes it’s changing finally since we are going all A220 fleet). But hardly any Captain here makes more than $245 per hour and most are making around $215. Sure the pay scale says $280. But it would be years to reach that. The old contract at AA paid $278 for narrowbody and that doesn’t include the 3% raise year after year. So they were getting closer to $300+ on the old contract. I love breeze and the people I work with, but you’re living in a dream if you think we are breaking the bank and have it good here. And I mean cheap as we offer a cheap product (bare bones airplane, no onboard screens, just preloaded entertainment). It’s not like JetBlue that feels all inclusive. If any pilot at Breeze really believes they’re cutting the line and going to magically get equal pay and treatment as legacy pilots, they are bat $hit insane!! It will take ALPA years to get us an Allegiant style contract. Have a reality check