LAX 7ER or LAX 73N - Local New Hire
 

Anyone have any recommendations on if I should bid the 7ER or the 73N at LAX as a new hire living locally.

7ER. Much better trips and QOL, higher pay after year 1. It’s typically understaffed as well (great for premium flying GS trips)

73N in LAX is a very small category. 7ER is much larger, more trip variety, higher pay. Training is a bit longer and you will not move up in seniority very fast but it’s a great category.

757. You will get a displacement as the ER's consolidate east and be out of a seat lock.

The only downside with the ER is that you are most likely guaranteeing yourself another month long training event at some point in your first 2 or 3 years. Even more of a pain if that time is spent in ATL vs SLC. Our training footprints are not very conducive to getting home much during that month if you are a West Coaster.

This! Virginia Ave sucks. Virginia Ave for a west coaster is somewhere between the 3rd and 4th circles. Keep in mind that they can and do give out A periods to west coast people for IQ. That’s a nice 1 am wake up body clock time every sim.

ER. On reserve you’ll probably get some cool charters, random Hawaii trips, maybe the occasional HND or PPT. In the summer you may draw a Europe if you’re lucky. It’s a cool fleet and even though I’m leaving after a little over a year on it (NYC) I consider myself fortunate to have flown it and to have gone to the cool places we fly it.

You have very little to lose living in base. Might as well do something cool if given the opportunity.

the boomers on the LAX ER made me want to leave that fleet desperately. Its been about 3.5 years since ive been in that plane so it may be different. Every FO says that the 73 lax captains are fairly young and chill.

this is not an anti boomer rant per say, but starting in 2016 it felt like every captain was losing their mind on every flight talking about politics (both sides). You’d be amazed how long someone will talk at you before they realize you have not said a word back. Some don’t even realize it at all lol

7ER so you can tell your future FOs how awesome it was!

I’ve been off the ER for a few years and the trips have changed, but easily the best flying I’ve done at Delta so far.

Lots of ER captains have made the jump to the 350 over the last couple years so there is a lot of new blood so to speak. I get along with almost everyone I fly with.

If this person displaces to a 737 or 320, they will likely get SLC which is not a bad place to hang out, even in training. Again, no seat lock either.

A month on VA never bothered me. Lots of running and time spent at the GO fitness center and no redeyes. Its not like the time there is challenging anymore. I was always able to make it home for two days during my career, quite often had 3 days off between 4 on. In many ways with PS it was better than being on the road and working.

This person should fly the 757. It will be the last plane they ever get to fly with 200 pax that climbs at 4000 fpm in the teens. Its the best airliner we have ever had, its downhill after that (systems engineer/programmer). Everyone needs to have flown the 757 once.

Yawwwwn. Who the heck cares? Does anybody really get a kick from their VSI? Or by getting to cruise in 15 minutes instead of 20? It’s a transport category aircraft, it’s not going to be thrilling based on performance.

Also, you are just as much a programmer on the 757 as on any other fleet.

Bid an aircraft for base, pay, comfort, trips, or seniority. But do not bid it for “performance.”

I enjoyed flying it when I did. Roomy, reliable, 767 destinations etc. I recently jumpseated on a 757-300 and realized how archaic the flight deck was and that's a perspective from a 737 driver. I realized the thing I enjoyed was the variety like pro team charters, Europe, Asia (gyoza at the spiral staircase) efficient transcon trips, Alaska, Hawaii, Caribean etc. not manually setting speed bugs on a round dial.

Absolutely. Comfort, charters, and destinations are great reasons to enjoy an airplane. A number on a VSI is not.

That said, speaking as a guy who's flown the 7ER, 73N and 320, it is nice to be able to comfortably climb above weather in the 7ER that I would be getting beat up in waiting to get lighter in the 321.

Or being able to meaningfully impact arrival time without riding right at the overspeed warning.

757 has a much wider mach band it's happy in at normal operating weights. Planned for cost index 40? Crazy EDCT or deice delays? 80 or 100 will usual shave a good chunk of that off on a transcon while still being able to land above planned fuel. 757 doesn't seem to really get crazy with the gas burn until you go above .81

But its also happy flying at CI 0, down at .74.

flown 75/73. I would drop all those in a heartbeat for the comfy 320 flight deck. Unfortunately they do the preponderance of red eyes out of lax. Sucks

Is reserve going junior on the ER? As much as I would love to fly the ER, I think commuting to reserve would be a deal breaker.

A couple points of order.

They may or may not get SLC for an IQ as everything I had seen was they would be doing CQ only in SLC. Obviously that could change down the road.

I’ve done two long schools and two short schools in my time at Delta. In both of the long schools (month long footprint) I could make it home 3 or 4 times in the month, but for never more than 36-40 hours per visit. One short course was a 5 lesson 7 day long footprint which I did not make it home during. The other short course was 9 events (including DCLC) and a 14 day footprint. I could only make it home for one period of 30 hours. And I am one who always goes home even if it’s only for 30 hours. This is why VA sucks. You basically don’t see your family for a month.

You are correct in saying what we are there to do is not challenging anymore, but that had/has very little to do with the Virginia Ave suck factor. Me personally I would never choose an airplane that is going to knowingly force me back to a month long training event in a couple of years. The ER flying out west isn’t even on the same planet of coolness that it was 5-10 years ago, and it’s going to quickly continue to wind down out west.

And also be warned you have very little control over the scheduling during that month. At least now with the new monthly AEs you have a real good idea as to when that month will be.

To the OP:
Welcome to Delta! You are going to love it! I just want you to be aware that our training footprints leave something to be desired and historically are much worse for West Coasters. By picking the ER, you will guarantee yourself a second month long trip to the school house in your first couple years.

Flying 10 hours to eat gyouza at the spiral staircase is a culinary crime against humanity. I don’t get the unsophisticated food palate of people who fly all over the world/country - to some of the best food cities in the world. There are places all over Japan (around Narita nonetheless) that hand-make gyouza. And yet people rave about the all-you-can-eat frozen gyouza that you can actually buy in the USA, from the same company that the spiral staircase uses, even at Costco. You only need to go to the spiral staircase once to know that you just wasted a meal opportunity in Japan. If you aren’t going to bed disappointed after the spiral staircase then I implore you to venture out and expand your horizons. There are some seriously good food places in Japan. The spiral staircase is not one of them.

I never said I was sophisticated and yes, I liked the gyoza at the spiral. I've had others too. The texture was a real treat. Just the right amount of crisp on the fry without loosing the rest to over steam cooked. And the price was right. My brother in law is Korean, he liked it too. Sorry for the enjoyment. I'll do better to find distain in the usual haunts. Is it OK to still eat cheese from the bakery across from Notre Dame? They only serve 4 fresh cut varieties not like the snooty shops on Rue Cler. Oh, and the price...is...right.

it’s ok, Nant is also too good for Duke’s in Waikiki

If I could make the perfect plane:
767 Power Seats
320 Stick/Tray
757 Thrust Levers/Auto Throttles (not a fan of the 320s manual thrust when you need it)
321N Displays Radar
73N TOGA Button (just push forward and hit button, not tell other guy to hit EPR)
757 Rudder Pedals/Foot Well.. 320 pedals are narrower between the outside ridges than my shoes are wide. Size 17EE problems.
767 room in the cockpit.
767 Jumpseats
320 Bleed Air System
320 "just put switch to RUN and watch it" starting system.

Pegasus FMS maybe with multi color.

I hate the MCDU on the 320. It's just klunky as hell, even after years of similar boxes (PL21)

757-300 Digital Mode Control Panel.. NO BOUNCING DIGITS!

737 FMS and VNAV. Never had an issue with the VNAV on it, the guys who would get worried about it over speeding were the ones letting it fly cruise cost index on the way down.
320 Overhead panel
Neo footwarmers

220 start/run switches, they're better than the 320's
220 checklists
220 screens and map

Throw in the vertical profile view from the E170's and im sold.

Ill hijack the thread real quick, im also looking at the possibility of potentially taking NYC ER or DTW bus. I live in ORD, which seat would be easier to commute to? I saw ssomeone mentioned that reserve on the ER may not be as desirable. Can someone elaborate on how commuting to reserve would be different from the ER to one of the narrowbody fleets?

So basically the 777 with a side stick?:D

737 FMS can't figure out the path to save its life, and that's after you force it to start down early & give it a fighting chance...

Give me a 200k box and bouncing digits any day.

Did I miss it or did no one mention the VSD?

Commuting to ER reserve in NYC is pretty tough. I’m back on reserve after holding a line all summer and it’s bad enough to the point of my bidding off the plane. Granted, I live in a base, so commuting was a choice. The everyone gets short call has made the reserve commute pretty bad. We have a lot of 2359 and 05:30 SC periods daily. Many SC periods are uncommutable on one end or another. But. At the same time, the flying is awesome and the plane is great. So far this month on reserve I’ve gotten some great places. But at the same time, I dropped a day of reserve so I could back into filling up and avoid 4 days of SC.

If seniority progression is important to you, the ER probably isn’t the plane for you. I’m perma 83-85% in base for the last 7 months after a pretty good boost when I first got here. The reality is, the fleet is shrinking and the 76 retirements are happening. There won’t be a steady stream of people in behind you. If you don’t mind commuting to SC and want to go cool places for a bit, then this is the plane for you. I don’t regret at all having come to this fleet for a bit. A great start to my career here.

Ok. Delta commuting rules in a nutshell. 2 policies. One FOM, one PWA.

FOM 2 flights, second DL ticketed, reasonable time between two. (So not a 0900 American and 0920 Endeavor in different terminal). Call crew scheduling after not getting on primary, they can, at their discretion positive space you on the backup, or release without pay but also no discipline.

PWA 2 flights, 2 hours apart, any Airline. Shields you from discipline only.

They are similar but a couple differences. Know what you are invoking.

My take, depending on where in Chicago you live, DTW is driveable in a pinch. Factor that in if you have a "witching hour " where getting from your house, missing primary flight and then backup makes it hard to report in time. We have 18 hour call out, can be as short as 10 on day 1 if its on your schedule by noon day before but any pre 1800 report day one requires no backup flight.

7ER in NYC, 95% of your flying will be JFK. Occasionally DHs or charters out of EWR and LGA. EWR stuff goes senior as us denizens of the dirty Jerz don't like going to NYC when EWR is so much easier.

But, as long as you have tine commuting into LGA is ok. Sometimes crew scheduling will ***** about your backup not being to same airport. But as long as you can realistically make report at the right airport with normal ground transport times they are supposed to.

ORD-DTW shows 12 flights tomorrow 6 on mainline Delta so you could book the jumpseat.

ORD-JFK has 7, 4 on Delta Ticketed RJs. No bookable JS
ORD-LGA has 32. 3 mainline DL, 5 DL ticketed RJs
ORD-EWR has 17, 0 DL ticketed.

If you want to get a taste of the 75/76 and some international, the ER in NY isnt an impossible commute but not cake.

DTW is only 1 airport to cover, possibly driveable.

I commuted from Norfolk VA to NYC for years. I was 360 miles house to crashpad. Not a drive I wanted to make a lot, but when we went to one flight a day in the winter post holiday slowdown I did drive a lot.

The 320 isn't bad. If you're an older when hired guy it might be better to take the ER if you want to do some Europe while you can.

RES RULES are ssme save for min days in a row. Its 4 on the ER, 3 on NB fleets. Short call numbers and abuse thereof lately is the same everywhere.

for what it’s worth, the fom policy says they “will create a positive space reservation,” not that they may do so at their discretion.

their discretion is only mentioned in the contingency section where the backup flight won’t make it in time.

thanks for taking the time to respond in depth I really appreciate it. Im coming from ACMI 74 so I dont need fancy destinations. I just want good commutability and flexible schedule with some potential seniority movement being the 3rd criteria. Given these would bus be the way to go? The only reason I considered 7ER was the widebody "lite" schedule seemed like it would be more commutable, with the benefit of better pay over time. Is there a downside to the 220 that im not seeing? People seem to not mind the schedule.

Take DTW. Being drivable, it will simplify your life immensely. FWIW, this is coming from a guy who’s done both local and commuter, and won’t commute again, ever.

Yep. DTW. That's what I'd take.

ORD commuter here, based on your priorities, I would definitley recommend DTW. I used to be on the 717 in DTW, the commute is super low stress. Its 1 hour gate to gate, all mainline flights, and it seemed like our flights always had 10+ open seats. I never really even looked at loads, I always just showed up for the 7am flight and got to work no problem. Also commuter hotels around DTW are super cheap. As a bonus you kind of gain an hour commuting home since its a 1 hour flight with a 1 hour time change, ie 5pm flight lands in ORD at 5pm.

I bit the bullet and switched to NYC 7ER for widebody flying, and while its an awesome category, its not commutable most of the year if you're junior. ORD-JFK commute is pretty rough, our DL connection flights to JFK seem to always be oversold and loads seem to change up to the last minute, so majority of the time I commute to LGA and then uber over to JFK.

This is what I needed. Thanks all of you for the responses, its helped a lot!

This post.

My god.

I'm in absolute awe.

Takes a few type ratings to appreciate.

"If Boeing and Airbus had a baby with a pilot to supervise the delivery"

Talk about overpriced mediocre food.... Go to Duke's once to check the box and then don't look back.

it’s about the vibes and its a classic.. Monkey Pod has the best Mai Tai’s and HH views though

100%





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I’ve been in the LAX 7ER for the past 18 months. I live down south in sunny San Diego.

Goods: Nice trips (when you can get them)
75 most fun plane to fly
Get to fly empty airplanes! (Connected to charters)
Hawaii/European/Haneda

Bad: Very little movement in seniority. Might be changing with new hires showing up again, but that wouldn’t help you much. For reference, I’m 88% in LAX ER after 18 months. Would be 50% in the 73N, 75% 320. Also high utilization on reserve (at least for me). Not sure how other fleets compare.

I’m probably bidding to the 73 next fall for better seniority. Trips seem nice, and I’d get more of the days I want off.

Best of luck! And Welcome to Delta.