Being a 'career legacy FO' may be ok financially, but career satisfaction is not solely monetary. I wouldn't be happy if I was in the right seat for the entirety of my career at a legacy, especially if I had never been in the left seat of an Airbus or Boeing in a prior life. I guess it just depends on what you're after.

Good point, but it's hard to imagine how a F/O hired at a major at 40 would be forced to stay in the right seat very long. We're supposed to retire ~ 5,000 out of 12,000 in the next 9 years at Delta (I don't have the exact numbers, but that's the ballpark). Junior CA is in the 9,200 range, although you could call that an aberration. But ~8000, you can get a junior left seat without much difficulty.

12,000 pilots at Delta and junior CA is 9200??? Holy cow! Is CA that bad of a gig over there? We at AA just passed the 10,000 pilot mark and junior CA is still around 5500, or roughly a mid '98 hire.

Well, it is on the NYC M88, and very few people have the stomach for either NYC or the M88. We have bridges and tunnels, road rage, erratic foreign drivers, and that's just on the ground at JFK.

No one really understands how the 88 gets airborne, or stays that way. It'll run out of gas before you get through the NOTAMS for either JFK or EWR, assuming you would trust it on A/P long enough to read through them anyway. Nobody knows exactly how long that might take, because it's never been done.

I'm pretty sure NYC M88A is going to be junior-assigned to newhires soon. It's awful, awful, awful.

Really awful, so stay away.

I don't plan on leaving Spirit, I am really enjoying it, however I have to upgrade to make a decent check, DAL 777 FO pay rates,I would yank gear forever:)

A 20 year stint at a legacy isn't bad. You really have to look at retirement plans as part of the whole package. The typical legacy DC 401k plan is pretty good, not sure what LCC's offer, but I would be surprised if they came anywhere near the big guys plans.

Could you imagine being a relatively new guy at SWA and leaving to go to TWA in the mid to late 90's. Wonder if that ever happened - hopefully not.

Guess it's anyone's guess what can happen - but... With the consolidation of late with the legacies, it does seem relatively stable as compared to previous eras.

Can't speak for AA or United, or NY-based Delta guys for that matter...but my Atlanta-based Delta buddy says he'll hold CA on the 88 or 717 long before he'd ever be able to touch one of the "true" international/widebody FO positions in Atlanta. Very senior indeed.

That's a good point.

Let the international flying stay senior! That type of flying ruins you for the rest of your life. Yeah, you may have a couple more days off than domestic, but at what cost? Have you seen what those guys look like at age 40? 50?

The time to do that type of flying is when you're young. The older you get, the more you should stay on your own time zone and fly body-friendly schedules.

I will gladly fly 737 domestic CA turns between DCA and DFW as a double digit seniority captain. That's because I actually want to live a few years after my retirement!