Iceberg

But how does it taste? I like to wake up to a fresh cup of coffee, not the leftover remnants of someone else’s airplane coffee dried and paired with biscoff crumbs covering the flavor of someone’s dinner the night before. If I lick it and gag, I’d rather bring my own.

badflaps

I'm trying to visualize that. All I ever used was a little bity Telex ear plug. Worked fine.

Whoopsmybad

If you think 9K/month is a 4-6K pay cut, you really need to look at pay charts again. Even with losing medical (if not in the reserves) and BAH.

Auto29

Math time: new contract rate is $108/hr. This month’s reserve guarantee is 79 hours on my fleet. That’s $8532. Min guarantee at 72 hours is $7776. Pre-tax numbers.

My last month take home as an O-5 was $12,300, a hefty chunk of which is untaxed. So yeah, 4K pay cut checks. Sorry, $3800. Plus my last pay period is currently being held up by finance for some as yet undermined reason and who knows when pension will kick in. So the first few months require creative solutions on the money front.

Whoopsmybad

I understand that. But most people leaving the military by and large are not retiring as an O-5, they are generally leaving as a senior 3 or junior 4. And the pay on your retirement holdup sucks, not belittling that, but if it didn’t happen, that’s not a 4K pay cut, you probably would make more.

Admittedly, I had to re-check the pay rates again and I was looking at the last pay table, not the first, so the disparity it a little more than my math showed.

GMK35

Assumptions:

- 2023 mil pay with no bonuses/retirement considered
- Using non-locality BAH (which is going to be lower than what 99.9% of guys coming here are actually getting)
- Some sort of Tricare (so not accounting for paying into DAL healthcare)
- New TA pay and ALV of 80
- No paycheck withdrawals to things like 401Ks, IRAs, etc.

1st year pay FO: $8640 pre-tax
Get out as O-5: $13.3K/mo pre-tax / $4660 diff
Get out as O-4 at commitment expiraiton: $11.5K/mo pre-tax / $2860 diff

Now, those diffs above are PRE-TAX and not representative of take-home diff. 55% of mil pay for a pilot is non-taxable, where as 100% of my DAL pay is taxable. Spitballing, but you can easily add $1K (potentially even more) to those diffs when finally accounting for the tax disparity (and God forbid you made a clean break from the mil and no longer have Tricare). That's how "$4-6K" was born. And unless the new TA fixes it, you'll still have a 1-1.5 months of basically no pay during the training to OE-complete transition, then the pay **** ups you have no SA on and don't catch, etc.

The point of all this is for anyone bailing on the mil for Delta, internalize this and go into it with eyes wide open. It will be the best life decision you've ever made, and the above is only a short-term problem in the grand scheme of things, but it can be a huge problem if you haven't planned accordingly. By the way, now throw in you're moving and buying a house all while in this financial point in your life (which many mil dudes do, because the **** if you're going to live in XYZ location the mil last put you at, either by choice or because you're overseas).

notEnuf

That's interesting because my cut was $3800/month when I came to Delta 15+ years ago. I was civilian and because of the hiring environment at the time I had 2 different former airline employers so I did that twice. This was a typical civilian story back then.

Crown

to the OP:

First off, congrats and welcome to Delta.

Go slow. Learn a few things every day, and enjoy the process. Soak it in. It's a lot of fun. Indoc will have its moments of boring, but overall, it's a good experience.

Ask questions. Find the previous airline guys/gals and ask questions. You'll learn a lot. When you get out on line, ask your captains questions as well. Learn from experience. There's a ton of it out there, and the vast majority of us here are happy to teach/impart wisdom.

This company is awesome and the employee group you work with will be MOSTLY great. I used to say at my previous regional that the pilot group was a 20% group (20% A-Holes). Here it's like 2-3%.

Lean on your mentor your first year. They're there to help, and the vast majority of them are good at what they do. If your mentor isn't helping, ask for a new one.

Get involved AFTER you get off probation. There's a ton of opportunities here to help out with various jobs and opportunities.

Do NOT use a ship headset. I got ear infections from using them at the regionals. Invest in a Bose A20 or a David Clark. You won't regret it.

Enjoy it, my friend. Congrats.

Auto29

All good…I just wanted to make the point that there is a sizable difference regardless of when you get out (8 years or 20) at least for the transition period. The main point is to consider your tax situation (such as no longer qualifying as a non-income tax state resident) and monetary outlays that are inherent in a career change.

And yes I know that pension being held up is a first world problem, but what else do I have to complain about.

To the OP- come in, the water’s great!

WhiskeyKilo

Seconded. If you've never had in ear headphones, every store has a 30-60 day return period if you hate them. 100% worth it to try.