Just Another "Help Me Pick" Thread
 

Hello, friends.

I know that these "help me decide my next job" threads can be extra repetitive and posted by people who generally haven't searched the forum even a little bit. Despite my incredibly low post count, I have been a long-time lurker and I pinky swear that I have done extensive searching through this forum to find answers to my questions regarding where I want to go for my final airline destination. A great many of them have been answered in my searching, but I want to ask the ones that haven't. I am specifically looking at American, Delta, and United.

First, I am a captain at one of the regionals who has been doing a trans-con commute. I absolutely know that I absolutely need to stop doing that to survive, absolutely. I'm not even sure I can make it to tomorrow somedays. With that being said, I live in LA and that means that basically any major can give me a base that stops this punishment.

I am a person who, surprisingly given my intolerable commute, is driven by quality of life. And all of my questions to you fine people are related to that:

1. How flexible is your schedule really? I understand life in this industry is tied very solidly to seniority, but I am specifically looking for how flexible I can expect my schedule to be as a junior pilot...especially a junior pilot based in LA.

2. Can anyone speak to how easy it is to take a leave of absence for personal reasons here? I have taken a gap year before I got into this industry traveling the world and have aspirations to do things like climb the world's biggest mountains and volunteer abroad for an extended period of time.

3. What is the flying like out of LA? I can read the base drops for every major here and have been, but I am really looking for what I can expect if I stay in the Los Angeles area at each place.

As a final comment, I do have interviews with all three of the airlines listed. I have friends in all of them, but I wanted to spread my questions just a little bit further.

Thanks for the advice. Flame away! :)

Frontier 😜

Pick the one you're most likely to get furloughed from and you'll have plenty more gap years to come.

United LAX straight as a new hire on pretty much any of the planes.

From a UA perspective.

1. Too difficult to say what the future holds, but dropping trips is difficult. Seniority makes you get what you want. As a junior lineholder you get the leftovers, but that doesn’t last long at junior domiciles.

2. Personal leaves of absence are uncommon, but approved for good reasons. Not sure if yours meets that mark.

3. Kind of a non-answer, but depends on the fleet and seniority.

Not likely due to employment law. They have to treat all employees equally... so if they give YOU a LOA for X reason, they'd have to grant the same to every subsequent applicant. Maybe possibly UAL if you were going to serve some woke cause and they could piggy-back some brand recognition on that?

Other than waiting for a downturn and taking voluntary furlough, you'd probably need to go out on disability to get that kind of time off (but then you can't travel).

Sure you can, just on your OWN DIME.

Atlas Air has a 74 and 77 LAX base and a 76 ONT.
Major(s) narrow body pay now so don’t be too quick to burn me at the stake.

Lol. I guess he did invite the flaming, didn't he? :D

This makes sense, union labor and all.

I for one will be woke as hell if I gets me the QOL I want. Color me curious about the responses here....

Follow up for number three then, what fleet type at UAL is most junior in LAX? That's probably what I meant in the first place, but it's a long way from my fingers to the ole noodle.

To ABQ for the weekend, sure.

But you'd miss too many medical follow up appointments if you want over seas for months.

Says who? I've known multiple pilots out on medical leave, still traveled on their own dime.

I know a pilot at Delta on LTD, he travels for free as a non-rev, but at the retiree level of priority.

He has lot's of time off (and sizable LTD monthly benefits in excess of $200K) but he'd give it all up to get his medical back.

WN has junior bases in OAK and LAX too. (I know you said you were only looking at AA, UA, and DL but everybody else was throwing out additional options so figured I would too)

is that you chip???

LTD often requires regular follow up exams with a Co. approved doc.

That might not be the case for some conditions, such as ones which requires an FAA-mandated waiting period and you're running out the clock (ex TBI, LOC).

In general I wouldn't join an airline with the intent of taking LTD and traveling the world, unless you research the requirements. "Subjective" conditions will usually require regular follow-ups, for obvious reasons.

Wow, ya don’t say…….:rolleyes:

Yet doesn’t change the FACT that people on leave are still free to travel.

Don’t make absolute statements (as you often do) only to be wrong and try to prove how right you think you are, while STILL being wrong….


…….just a thought.

UA and AA are in some serious debt but you’ll get the seniority.

Delta is in a better financial spot but you are on the tail end of the major portion of their hiring wave.

Picking a career is like betting on a horse race. Good luck and let us know how it turns out in 30 years.

Haters gonna hate!

You're spinning semantics to somehow make a point which didn't need to be made.

The comment was OBVIOUSLY tongue in check, I wasn't seriously suggesting LTD as a career plan. In the context of the the discussion (guy's intent to hit the road for a year), LTD would almost certainly not be compatible with that, that's an obvious fact for anyone who knows how it works. I wasn't saying you couldn't go to vegas for the weekend, I was saying it might be hard to arrange for company or state-approved follow-up appts. in Prague, Timbuckthree, or wherever. If you think the company and/or state will pay you indefinite LTD with no obligation for any sort of follow up or accountability, we'll have to agree to disagree on that. It's not in their best interest to make it that easy, and some even require that you do office work.

I was on LTD for approx 3 years. I don't recall any restrictive follow-up appts.
I did a month long trip to Asia with my daughter during that time. We nonrevved; not able to ID90.

Thanks for the plug. I haven't completely ruled out Southwest, but through the searching here I know there is quite a bit longer delay to upgrade at WN compared to the big three. How do you feel about your scheduling flexibility? I have read here good and bad in my long lurking...

But I need to know who is winning the Derby next! :)

Upgrade is lengthy and the pilot group is young. No doubt. The good news for you as a west coaster, is that those are the most junior captain bases too. So while many from the middle and eastern parts of the country are bypassing upgrade due to the challenging commute, it may work in your favor.

Scheduling flexibility isn't bad once you are a line holder. There are a variety of mechanisms to move and trade trips to make your schedule work for you. The things that WN is lacking compared with their legacy counterparts are the ability to drop trips - you can't do it. (You can try to give away a trip in the hopes that another pilot will want it) and long call reserve. It doesn't exist here.

The CBA is also a little lacking with regard to reroutes and junior manning, but SWAPA acknowledges it and is trying to work on it. The good news is that chaos pays, with most schedule disruptions resulting in premium pay or double time.

Not sure it would be my first choice if I were in your shoes, but it's a good safety school!

I think at least a couple of majors farm the verification part out to Harvey Watt. Each condition/disability is probably handled differently. My friend has a progressive condition and as such there is no known cure or follow up required once you have the diagnosis. He gets paid, all the time off, and free travel till 65, but I know he'd rather give all that up for his seat back in the cockpit.

Understood though that when one starts this career, almost no one plans on going on LTD, but as I've had a couple of friends that didn't make it to 65 (one as young as 52) the details of our LTD became a reality before they ever expected it and thank goodness they have been happy with their $$$$ circumstances cause in those times you have other things to worry about.

Just Another "Help Me Pick" Thread
 

Disregard…

The right answer is FedEx

Also, if your are a quality of life guy then you should’ve moved long ago.

Just Another "Help Me Pick" Thread
 

Just because one is a commuter, doesn’t mean they are not a QOL person. Although his comment about upgrade time concern at SWA makes me think, maybe he really isn’t? Anyway, he already has interviews at the legacies so unless he gets turned down by all three, it’s kind of pointless to discuss FDX and others with a socal base.