AA will have rocketing seniority a couple years before United. United has narrowbody fleet growth and a bunch more widebody and 757/767 flying. Retirements are the only way to ensure movement. You’ll probably retire in the top 1000 at United and probably in top 500 at AA.

A little perspective. While the retirement list shows a drop off 15 to 20 years out, it will not be quite that sharp. Not everyone being hired by AA are all that young. There will be some hired that are in their 40s+.

Short, simple, factual, and to the point. It's really that easy folks, the industry is cyclical and no one knows where the cards will have fallen when you hit 65. Drive to work, enjoy the ride and see you at the retirement party 🥳

How can we "enjoy the ride" with expired contracts and falling pay rates?

It doesn’t pay the bills, but morale/culture at AA is awful. It’s nice to feel like you’re working towards a common goal with motivated coworkers when you show up to work. A sense of purpose and common drive is nice for personal fulfillment. I feel like we are sorely lacking that.

That being said, AA has lots of retirements coming up. If you live in base that makes the job 1000x easier.

I don’t know enough about UA to comment on them. Oh wait. They offered 300% to fly over the holidays and our union didn’t do anything.

We just had “super negotiations.” Didn’t accomplish f&$k all though.

there is a ton of retirements at AA. You will move up the list faster. The one gotcha that few mention is AAL has slowly but surely transformed itself into a primarily narrowbody airline. Our percentage of WB jets is much lower than UAL. With the arrival of the 321Xlr and more 787s the 777 fleet will be at risk of being parked. I doubt our balance sheet puts us in position to order significantly more large acft. If you want to be a 320/737 CA go to AA. If you want to be a wide body CA or FO go to UAL.

AAL will have 88 787’s and 67 777’s.
The 321xlr is not a 77/78 replacement.

In terms of narrowbody to widebody ratios, every major airline is “primarily narrowbody”. Emirates and other Middle Eastern/Asian airlines that are state subsidized (yes, the US airlines are subsidized too) are the exception, not the rule. UAL certainly has more narrowbodies than widebodies. How many of UAL’s 777s are still grounded due to the engine failure over Denver? How many Group 4 equivalent airframes does UAL have if you subtract the grounded, ancient 777 non-ERs? Probably still more than AA, but much closer. UAL is going to retire their massive fleet of 772s, both ER and non, about the same time AA will… will they replace them 1:1 with the 777X or 787 variants?

In short… go where you can drive to work.

Isom was just asked a week ago if f he was going to park the 777s. He said it will depend on future market dynamics. 787s are supposed to replace the older 777s. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to just park the whole fleet and use 321xlrs for thin European routes, 787s for the longer stuff, and joint venture partners for everything we can’t operate at an easy profit.