Quote:
Originally Posted by Zard
(Post 3186729)
Cloud, thanks for your post. I'm still trying to make the leap from SWA to FedEx. It's a good job, but it wasn't number 1 for a reason and the longer I do it, the more those reasons become apparent.
The WARN letter didn't necessarily endear me to the LUV airline, either.
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Sure thing man.
Purple has its own history of management vs. pilots... the "Red Letter", before my time, then 4a2b... it ain't perfect here and there are plenty of issues that need to be fixed/improved.
Bottom line is, you already have one of the best gigs in the industry (THE best, in the opinion of many). So, careful what you wish for in coming here, you might just get that choice. Like the OP's "friend", now faced with a very tough decision. Most pilots out there would be ecstatic with either SWA or FDX. Can't say I know of anyone having left FDX for SWA, although I'm sure there are a few. However it does seem at least every other newhire class here we have a SWA guy/gal starting Basic Indoc.
For me, this great job is a means to spending quality time with family, traveling, skiing and surfing. Another 20+ years to go hopefully, and plan on doing flying about half the year or less (something I wouldn't say at my interview, and I know would not be the norm at SWA). I won't give my best years to a corporation in exchange for a high W-2. I plan to retire with way more than the almost 1,000hrs I have in my Make Up bank now (hours dropped over the years, without mil leave in my case). I make the same now than I did as a NB FO. But every upgrade (WB FO, NB CA), I just take 20% more time off, instead of a 20% pay increase.
I'm not faulting those who fly a ton, sell back vacation, etc. to make a killing. I totally get that too - specially in light of our outgoing Union MEC tasking our Negotiating Committee with selling our Pension away for pancakes. I expect that new plan to be sold hard to us this next negotiation cycle, by our own union. It's important you know our union will probably manage to lose our pension in exchange for an untried and unproven replacement retirement scheme, ahem, I mean, negotiate our Pension in exchange for a Variable Benefit Plan, sorry, I mean, Stabilized Benefit Plan. I think that's the last name the plan was branded with for sale. And even with that said, this is will still be a phenomenal gig.