United has been hiring all year except for a summer pause in June and part of July. We have new hire classes almost every week and going to hire 2,000+ in 2025.

 

If you're not a commuter and leaving for a legacy would turn you into one, that's a great reason to stay. I think being junior *and* commuting to this company, though, yeah I'd tend to agree... except that the bottom 1000 may not be as marketable as they once were. A lot of 1500TT/0 PIC guys/gals in that group.

 

I guess there's now a fourth legacy........a good pilot is always learning right?

 

It is true that legacy hiring is becoming more competitive.........however some cold hard facts remain:

1.JetBlue is not a regional or fee for departure carrier

2.Contrary to what some influencer pilot may claim, leaving a regional for an ULCC/LCC is NOT a lateral move.

3. Being on property at B6 already makes you more competitive than a Regional pilot.

 

Well, Alaska and hawaiian are legacies. So there’s that.

 

For years pilot recruiters SkyWest claimed "We are a major airline, we just operate as a regional" ................

yeah and at the time they paid about as good as Pizza Hut with no Union.........what a deal!!!

 

I don’t think you understand the difference between a major, a legacy, and the “big 3” or “big 4.”

 

Well how I see it the TOP of the FOOD Chain is:

Delta, American, United.......

Tell me how I am wrong?

You can call it what you want. I don't really care what some legal footnoted definition is.

 

The big 4 are Delta, AA, United, and Southwest. I didn't make it up; this is widely accepted in the industry. Remember, Southwest is still the largest US carrier by passenger count.

 

It’s not some legal footnote. It’s industry standard terminology that apparently you missed at some point when you joined this profession. A legacy is any airline that participated in interstate commerce when deregulation happened, hence why SWA isn’t one (they were only flying within Texas at the time).

Why do they call it the big 4? Well, what did your ex-CEO tout the whole time he tried to get the NK merger approved? That 4 airlines control 80% of the marketshare, and B6 was such a small player they couldn’t compete. So, yeah, the “big 4” are a lot bigger than everyone else. Why do they call it the big 3? Well because they are the 3 largest global carriers in America (and the world), and SWA is largely just domestic, so sometimes people exclude them for that reason. This has nothing to do with Skywest, legal footnotes, your own personal food chain, etc. You’re welcome.