Mil to AA or DAL?
 

Hey all, looking for advice. I know there's no clear answer so i'm just looking for opinions and maybe experiences that can help me decide. I'm a military guy in the fortunate position of having a CJO at both Delta and American Airlines. They both have domiciles I'd love to live near, so i'm mostly torn at the seniority, flying, and benefits portions of each. I know I could progress faster at American, but one of the perks my family is looking for is to travel the world (for free) and Delta has more international trips. On the other hand I'll never advance in seniority at Delta, but they do pay well and all my friends seem to have gone to them. Any sage advice?

nonreving is a crapshoot regardless of where you are. With seniority you can both buy tickets and actually have time off when you want it. That said, AA’s allotment of vacation slots over the summer and holidays is probably industry last….

Yeah all else being equal seniority movement at AA makes up for a lot.

How old are you and which base(s) are you thinking about?

Pay rate is the same now at the big 3. Potential for premium pay at Delta is waning as staffing has caught up. Can’t speak to AA on that.

There is a lot of recent info here, and in the various sub-groups if you are willing to do some reading. Most of your questions have probably been addressed recently. I don’t say that as a copout, just that until you get some answers in this thread, there are some places you can go to glean some info.

It would be tough to recommend not putting seniority progression near the top of your list. If you are really willing to move to/live in either domicile. Dont pick DL just because you have friends there. You won’t see them much, just be able to talk/text amongst you.

Best of luck.

you dont have like 100 squadron bubbas to bounce this off?

"fly for free" is a non-starter as we all buy tickets (albeit discounted) for entire family, confirmed space travel.

AA is the worlds largest airline. Russa has AeroFlot. USA has American. It is basically the national airline of USA. With OneWorld network, the globe is yours.

all the Big-3 is basically the same. Go to the place in your hometown. If two exist (ORD, PHX) go to the place with the fastest upgrade / easiest work days / etc

yesterday's "culture model" (SWA) and "place to be" (FDX) is may be different today.

Drive to work, everything else is secondary

I've travelled the world for free or almost free on ZED fares, but like most people, if it's a big vacation, you're probably just buying tickets. Non-revving is good for unalocatted time, but not something you can count on far out.

Something else to look at also is the seniority dynamic at the domicile that you want. If the two airlines have places you'd like to live, and one domicile is senior and the other is junior, pick the junior one hands down. Seniority progression in general helps you avoid furthough, so you may be better at AA in that regard, but day-to-day, it's your seniority in your domicile that matters. Things way down the line like WB CA upgrade are so speculative that you really cant base decisions off that. Good luck!

Thank you for the insights. Like I said, most of my friends went Delta so I'm somewhat familiar with them, but this is a diverse forum so just looking for all the advice I can gather. This is basically the first time I've gotten to make a choice for my family and myself in over a decade so I do appreciate it! I've been reading the different topics for a bit now so I see a lot of the complaints and different things to think about, but most are foreign because I've zero Part 121 experience. It really does seem like there's no perfect answer since both are fine choices and that's a good problem to have I suppose.

Also good to consider not only the seniority to get into a base, but how it progresses. Some bases are very junior at the bottom but senior further up, either because it's a high COL or because senior folks never leave and people don't want to be stuck with low relative seniority.

Obviously you'll need to know somebody who works at the airline to get that insight.

From a purely selfish standpoint, I’d much rather fly with a 20+ year military veteran than a 24 year old who put in the effort but mostly got lucky on timing.

We all pay our dues. Not everyone pays the same fees though.

Big D loves military pilots; I suspect that’s all they’d hire if they could.

Just my perspective. Actual best advice would be to focus on bases. The aforementioned “drive to work” is APC gold.

At a certain age, international flying and the accompanying circadian rhythm stress becomes a factor so wide body flying loses its appeal to many. That 4 hours on the town in foreign capital “X” on the company dime comes at a lifespan price. There are much better ways to play international tourist.