Exactly this!

I personally am going to make it feel like 2005 and I’m done at 60. There is a beach calling my name around that time and after 40+ years of flying, I’ll be glad to hang it up.

Of course everyone’s mileage will vary

I have followed this thread for entertainment value, but I really liked your statement. If more of us learned to find our happiness outside of work, we would be happier at work and better prepared to retire both emotionally and financially.

when you're approaching retirement wouldn't you be senior enough able to realistically drop trips down to 8-10 days or maybe even 6?

definitely. I can do it now at 50%.

The economics of this depend on how much money you are passing up by not retiring. In other words, for guys who will get a pension (former NW guys at Delta, not sure about United/Continental guys), you have to subtract the pension you could be collecting from the paycheck you are collecting to arrive at how much you are actually making by continuing to work. If you have a healthy 401k, IRA, and B plan as well, you might actually make more in retirement than by working 6-10 days a month. Food for thought and incentives to save so you can cut the cord from your “benevolent” employer sooner.

Great problem to have!
 

You'll be so good at either!

Anyone who says “irregardless” shouldn’t opine on the state of the industry.

Roger that! I’ll actually be closing my account down now. It’s been great, folks! 😀

Back to the top
 

Now that Delta and United are both hiring again - and hiring like gangbusters for the foreseeable future, I am interested in the crowd’s opinion of the two airlines. Delta had been my #1, but United seems to be on the upswing. I’m most interested in the company’s financial stability and work rules.

financial stability can come/go with CEOs. Work rules are close, and change with contracts.
to me, the biggest factor would be where do you want to live. Live in domicile, if at all humanly possible. If you commute, you turn a great job into a good job.

SLC is a little higher than Denver on my list, but it’s not a deal-breaker. I have no plan on commuting. It’s kind of a moot point right now… I’ve got a United class date and Delta hasn’t called. I’m just wondering what I would/should do when they call. It’s hard to argue with being on the front of a hiring wave. I’ll probably choose to sit a lot of reserve, so the reserve rules matter quite a bit to me. It’s about QOL and not the money.

id say probably UAL right now. UAL seems to have better work rules in a lot of ways. (Like deadheading, Crew meals, layover hotels ect.) they do significantly more INTL already and seemed poised to expand mainline flying domestically, and they have hired fewer pilots in the past 10-15 years which means more upward movement as senior pilots retire. IDK how UA builds their trips but DLs NB trips now look pretty rough, especially in NYC. While this may come and go, we don’t have much to protect us from some pretty bad trips. No clue how it is there.

bases aside, the only areas I can think of that DL beats UA in contract terms is profit sharing formula ( I think), WB reserve, and premium pay (always 200% at DAL)

contracts come and go and things always change, but that’s where i see things today.

I’d say both are probably ok on financials.

EDIT: looks like you already have a class date at U. I’d go to Denver and not look back.

cheers

I think DEN is pretty senior at United. SLC isn’t that senior for us. Something else to keep in mind if DL calls soon

DEN is trending more junior. About a dozen new hires got it back in May and Pre covid it took about 6 months to hold it on the 737.

even more importantly than work rules and their financial stability is United’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. As a person who just finished trans-ethnicity surgery it make me proud to want to some day fly as an airperson on their planes.

How long to upgrade in Denver at United?

7-8 years currently, however we will see what happens on this next vacancy bid in a few days.

If only that procedure existed when the movie “Soul Man” came out it could have drastically changed the plot.

Congratulations!!

How about JetBlue where you can wear a dress to work?

Now that’s fun!! And WOKE

And a JOKE too, geez!

Working through this problem now. Still unsure.

it’s unknowable. Live in base and move on

while I mostly agree with your outlook, I never take into account where the airline stands today and how there contracts are. All Legacies are in some sort of section 6 negotiation and it’s going to change a lot in the next year to two years. I’d also Advocate that Delta just shed almost 2000 pilots offering the early out package. Delta is in the process of replacing those pilots and getting the airline back to pre-Covid staffing levels which is great for anybody who gets hired in the next six months. Delta traditionally grows on average between 2 to 3% per year in their ranks. The forecast pre-Covid was to go to a 16,000 pilot airline, as fleet standardization continues and demand increases I think that number is quite possible in the next 3 to 5 years. I would be looking to get on the front side of that instead of worrying about minor differences in contracts. The other option I’d be looking at for potential employment is geographical location to current living situation. I believe that trumps all.

i’ll also add that as it stands today Delta Airlines market cap is $26 billion whereas United is 15.5 for roughly the same stock price. So to say that their financials are similar would not be necessarily true. Delta is a much better run airline from a financial perspective.

Reviving the thread
 

I’d love to hear your thoughts… Delta was my #1 choice, but by the time they called, I was wrapping up training at United. I’ve got a Delta interview scheduled for a month from now, but I’m not sure what I should do. Frankly, I’ve been really impressed by United thus far. For my family, the domiciles are a push - no preference either way, so it really comes down to pay, opportunities, stability, etc.

United has more WB flying (a hell of a lot more. I could hold 787/777 FO in multiple bases as a brand new guy). They seem to be aggressively trying to capture market, grow, and fix their culture and I was impressed by what I saw during training. Their strikes are poor reserve rules, financial stability, and lower profit sharing.
Delta has a better reputation and financials, much better reserve rules, and healthy profit sharing. What they don’t have is nearly the WB fleet/opportunities, or the pilot seniority that I’ll enjoy at United. I should also mention that because United called so early and their biggest retirement numbers are in the future, I’ll always have about a 1000 seniority advantage at United over Delta (according to the retirement charts).

It’s a good problem to have, but I want to make the decision with eyes wide open and try to get it right. I’d be interested in thoughts from guys with major experience, because I have none!

Interview. Go from there!

For anyone who is agnostic about domiciles, United is clearly the better option in my personal opinion.

United. There are many good things at Delta, but if you are already at United and don’t have a reason to leave (like domicile) I would not. UA seems to have a ton of potential, a large and growing WB fleet with all the opportunities that brings, and like you said retirement numbers favor them over DL.

Seniority is everything as they say. I'd do the interview if you are really curious, but with the retirements at UAL vs DAL it's a hard sell to recommend leaving UAL.

Famous last words, but with the movement coming up you probably won't have to sit much RSV (assuming you don't continually bid senior airplanes). So the RSV rules sucking at UAL might not matter much. Profit sharing is great at DAL, but with the increased seniority at UAL you could 'buy' better skeds, premium pay, sooner upgrade, etc.

I'm at DAL btw.

If you just finished training you got in at the start of a big wave. Don’t leave

I’m sitting waiting for OE… and I got a pretty decent schedule for my first bid month. I may sit reserve in Jan/Feb, but otherwise I expect to hold a line.

There's no profit sharing right now so they're pretty matched up there. Structurally, the formulas are pretty similar (DL comes out a bit ahead) and DL has had better years in the past but "past performance and all..."

Congrats,

I believe United is behind pilot size, so most things being equal you would become senior faster at United. as some have mentioned of United starts you first, go there and see how you like it, then decide to stay or start at Delta. either way you can’t go wrong. it’s an amazing problem to have. good luck.

TIme to hold a line at the junior bases is less than the time to finish OE. So unless you're intending to bid reserve to leverage seniority into specific days off, I wouldn't factor reserve rules too heavily. Global Reserve notwithstanding, of course; if you bid 777/787 expect reserve for years. But at Delta you wouldn't be int'l widebody for a while anyway, so maybe that's a push.

As for seniority, I saw a slide somewhere that said 50% of the United pilot group will have turned over by 2030. To put it another way, as a new hire you'll be 50% seniority in 8 years, assume no growth or shrinkage. If true that's an amazing thing to think about. I have no idea what long-term seniority looks like at Delta though, maybe it's even better. Either way, yours is a good problem to have. Good luck!

I say famous last words because well, it's an airline. :) When I was hired at my first airline upgrade was 2 years and everyone said you'll barely be on RSV so don't worry that the RSV rules suck. Instead I slogged through 2.5 years of RSV and never held CA in 9 years. :rolleyes: But I digress.

We just had a bid at DAL and WB FO just went super senior because the NB skeds are not great...so if he wants WB UAL is the place to go.

I appreciate all the replies. I’m really surprised that the near universal advice is to stick with UAL. I figured it would be more split. Definitely food for thought.

You only give up seniority at a major for a very compelling reason. Absent a base preference there’s no compelling reason to move between united and delta either way

I'd take every inch of seniority I can get. So I'd stay at United

DL has hired almost 6000 since 2014. United not as many. United has more in house international.

Stick with UAL. Scott Kirby seems to want to run the airline well for the long run.

-Delta pilot