Goober1512

I am just joining the 121 world and I have started the hiring process. I was just wondering what opinions people have on having seniority in a company over other "benefits" other companies may offer. For example, is it worth it to join a regional and make plans to stay rather than "promote" to a major/legacy carrier and start at the bottom again?

I expect opinions will be along a scale of "it depends" on a variety of opinions, but I am looking for a rather generic answer to how much seniority really means.

Much appreciated! Look forward to hearing what you all think!

JohnBurke

There are those (most) who will tell you that seniority is life itself, or tha tyou live and die by seniority, which is of course, bull ****. Seniority does determine what and when you can bid and get an aircraft, a seat (left seat), base, etc, as well as your schedule and some things you can do with your schedule (depending on where you are employed). Rest assured, however, that if you do not have the highest possible seniority number, you will not die, nor will it bring the dead back to life. It'sa number, and in a field of sixteen thousand plus employees...that's all it is. Just another number.

Your earning potential at a regional is diminished over your career, compared to a legacy. You may find, however, that there are degrees of sacrifice which one is willing to make in order to haunt the vaunted halls of financial valhalla. The buzzword a few years ago that had to be included at least twice in every sentence on this site was "QoL," which is teen-speak for "quality of life," which isn't necessarily a function of seniority, but depending on one's fantasies and goals, may be aided by one's seniority.

One of the least desirable aspects of airline life is commuting, and many hold as their goal the ability to not commute. If one can fly from one's base, one simply drives to the airport and operates a flight, without the need to beg one's way while hopscotching across the country to get to and from a base far from home. Seniority is part of the magic sauce that enables one to eventually bid to be based at or close to home. The strategy to accomplish that is a chess game of bidding the proper equipment, seat, schedule, and base, not necessarily in that order.

There exists in the legacy world a tiered pay scale that varies with aircraft type, broadly narrow-body vs. widebody, and the path to the widebody world ("WB" in teen-speak) involves being senior enough to achieve celestial nirvanah. For many, that may mean leaving one's home-base to grab the big, brass ring, until seniority brings one home again via the mystical chess game of the senior piece.

Your whole career, however expansive it may be, is achieveing one high somewhere to start oversomewhere else and work your way up again. In today's artificial, insular world, perhaps it's just a few hopscotches up the ladder; for many of us who have been around the block more than twice, it's a few more than that. Get used to it. One day you'll be the smartest guy in class, and the next you'll be starting a new class as nobody. Life's like that. So is aviation.

Don't overthink it. Don't trade life for a seniority number, either. Use it, when you get it, but it's not everything, and you can burn up your life chasing it.

Remember: man wasn't made for peanut butter. Peanut butter was made for man.

Rama

Seniority is not necessarily everything, but it matters.
One of the reasons to go to a legacy sooner is to get on second and third year (etc.) pay and have the ability to bid into a larger aircraft which may matter.
Don't know anything about the regionals, thought the legacies do have a nice 401k contribution. That will add up quite a bit over a career.

rickair7777

Seniority matters a lot, but mostly in the context of the current employer.

It should not be a reason to forgo the next obvious step in your career progression, in general.

If you have specific circumstances, such as tied to one city by family, or have care responsibilities (elder care, shared child custody, spouse's job) then it might make more sense to stay. Also if you have good QOL with your current schedule and money, and no ambitions to fly to the four corners of the earth then it might make sense to stay at say a regional IF you're comfortable with the inherent long-term instability of such operators, and the fact that you be giving up more money and QOL in the future.

Skywest is about the only regional I might trust for the long-term, and even then past performance is no guarantee of future results...

But in general the majors will quickly provide better pay and QOL than other aviation sectors, and much better career stability in the long term.

It also matters how quickly seniority is moving... many junior folks have been leaving LCC and second-tier majors for the big three because the retirements and growth created tremendous opportunity to quickly move up the list a LOT. The lower tier majors don't have those kinds of retirement numbers, so it's very circumstantial. The details matter... seniority situation where you are, and the situation where you're considering going to.

QRH Bingo

The generic answer is YES, ABSOLUTELY, seniority matters. But as stated, it is much more nuanced than that. Many factors play into the seniority game, many of which, are personal. Asking for a generic answer for your set of specifics (which are not listed) is not likely to yield a helpful response.

If you live in a base that is only offered by a regional and you cannot move or refuse to do so, planning to stay put at that regional could be considered perfectly acceptable given a few factors: You will not commute, you are comfortable with the pay, QOL/company benefits meet your needs, stable base (i.e. IND for Republic or FAT for SkyWest) and you understand the dynamics involving regional airlines.

VacancyBid

Generically no

It's not quite the differnence of AAA ball to Major league, but it's close.

Sliceback

Yeah, no one ever quits Major League baseball and chooses AAA instead.

Very, very few people who got trained at the same time in the past said "I'm choosing a regional instead of a major airline." Once you're 40, 50, 60 it might be different. But there's STILL guys quitting their regional job in their early 60's to go fly for a major airline for the last couple of years.

Part of better seniority means you got there sooner/quicker/younger. Add a year to the end of your career and your 401K should increase by an average of at least 5%. Your net worth will increase more like 9%. You'll be earning $350-400K+ as a n/b Captain and $450-500K+ as a w/b Captain. Get hired 3 years earlier and it's $1.0 to 1.5 million PLUS 3 years of 5-8% returns in your 401K for another $300-400K.

That's not counting if you get hired a year, 2, or 3 years younger you'll get summer vacations 1, 2, or 3 years sooner. Able to bid Christmas off at 32? Gues what if you got hired 3 years earlier you'd have held it off at 29. Get hired at 35 vs 38? That might mean the difference between ending your career as a w/b Captain vs never being a w/b Captain.

Seniority matters every single month. It's more noticeable over holidays and bidding for vacations, or switching to a w/b FO job, or upgrading, or upgrading to a w/b Captain job. I did great but guys hired a year ahead of me often made 20% more than I did AND had Christmas off and a summer vacation while I didn't. I had it better than 95%+ of the guys I flew with. The guys hired ahead of me who were younger made out like bandits. What secret sauce did they have? They got hired younger/sooner/quicker which resulted in better seniority. NO ONE WISHES THEY WERE LESS SENIOR. NO ONE.

Bahamasflyer

Totally agree about most of the benefits of seniority except that I dont see why summer vacation is so sought after?

Its the worst time of year to non-rev, its the worst time of year to find lodging as well as massive crowds in most tourist spots. Sep to Dec not during a holiday is by far the best time to travel.

Unless of course one wants summer vacation for either 1) Easy to trade or 2) Premium pickup over it.

VacancyBid

Because that's when it's easy to take a big trip with children age 5-22 (be they your own, your 2nd wife's, your grandchildren etc)

rickair7777

It doesn't, if you live a bohemian lifestyle with no SO, or your SO is also bohemian. If there are school-age kids anywhere in the picture, it matters.

Actually I agree that I don't like summer heat, humidity, and crowds so we've done a lot of fall vacations, and just pulled the kids out (man those educators squeal when you impact their attendance and budget numbers). But my last kid is big on both sports and academics in HS, so we can't take that one out anymore.