For someone who just got accepted into Gateways program, can anyone speak on B6 QOL? Spoke with a current pilot recently and was told QOL isn't great, even 6-7 years in - getting stuck in the NE bases for years, nearly 40% red eyes, not much growth, etc. Is B6 worth the struggle of putting up with CAE Phoenix for 3 years or better off going 141 local to a legacy?

 

I think QOL is pretty good. Of course, it depends what you are looking for and where you live.

if you want to move to Boston area, you should come here. If you want to move to the FLL area, come here. If you want to move to ATL, go to Delta.

Yes, we have lots of of redeyes.

what do you want out of a airline career? What type of plane do you want to fly? Where do you want to live? I think answering those questions are important to figuring out what you want.

 

Trip design/quality is MUCH worse than a few years ago. Trip quality is most pilots QOL. So put me in the "not great" category.

 

I'd say the gateway makes sense if you really want to be at JB and be based in the northeast or FLL. Beyond that I would go to an accelerated 141 program like ATP flight school, get on with a regional ASAP, and then have your choice of any legacy or even JB at that point. Your timeline will probably be the same or even faster doing it at ATP.

 

You can get FLL at 10 months, less than a year on property.

 

What constitutes accepted? Loan approval?

 

If you are in your mid 30s or above you can look forward to a career being junior on the list of an airline that does a metric **** ton of redeyes, for less money, while living or commuting to the most expensive cities in the country. Imagine the health effects of flying for Fedex with none of the pay and benefits.

If you are in your mid 20s you may think about staying, but then remember you will be leaving millions of dollars on the table by not working for a legacy, even once retirements slow as our contract puts us 20-30% behind them in total compensation.

The only people who should stay are people who are already senior here, or people who live in Boston. There are way better options for literally everyone else.

 

Let’s debunk a few things in this post first before I offer my experience. JetBlue has better pay than Fedex and yet operates smaller aircraft (see contract extension rates). Our retirement is on par with them as well. We operate a healthy amount of red eyes, but unless you’re LAX based you can easily bid to avoid them within your first 12 months of employment; and less than 6 if you’re not on the 320 (I say this from personal experience and that of countless coworkers). Have any desire to fly widebodies? You’ll fly redeyes almost exclusively. Other than Southwest I don’t know if any major carrier where most of the fleet doesn’t do redeye flying. Welcome to being a junior major carrier pilot.

Living in base is better for your QOL regardless of your employer; that should always be your focus when considering a major carrier as your forever employer. Living in base at JetBlue means a significant amount of soft pay as you can easily manipulate your schedule (lots of broken pairings to pick up) and be offered 200% pay trips (VDA). regularly. Jetblue is doing their best to hire 700 pilots this year. That may not happen and they probably won’t retain all of them; that’s simply a product of this market. However if you have 30 years left in your carrier you’ll retire in the top 200 pilots; given our retirements. Pilots with 12 months on property average a bidding seniority of 70% in BOS and JFK. 190 CA has been awarded to pilots with 6-months on property at time of bidding. 220 CA was awarded to pilots at seniority 3800 of (roughly) 4200. JetBlue has hired (not retained) about 1,000 pilots since January of 2022.

I’ve made extensive spreadsheets comparing JetBlue pay to United (assuming they get a 20% pay bump). I used real data from many months of bid awards and paystubs from multiple friends in varying fleets at United. United would arguably offer the fastest path to widebody CA of any legacy. The difference in pay is nominal assuming a JetBlue credit value of 86 hours (living in base) vs a United credit value of 75 (commuting/no line modification) Even over 30 years it’s not even close to $1,000,0000 different, let alone “millions” as this guy would have you think. In fact in my case I’ll make more at JetBlue (hourly compensation) than I would if I left for United. Combine that with the fact that we have better work rules and a base I live in, it was an easy choice for me to stay.

 

Is it April 1st already?

 

He's not wrong. You can have a very comfortable career at B6, especially if you live in base. There's nothing wrong with being objective about the things that need improving while still recognizing the positives.

But we need more bases. B6 right now is basically deciding if you want to live in the most expensive cities in the NE (or Florida), or be a commuter forever. Hopefully Spirit merger opens up the country for us.