This site, via airline profiles, gives a good snapshot of pay and bases.

The 200 hires looks to be for Part 117 and vacation accrual from a maturing pilot group. Doesn't appear to be any growth in the near term but hiring is hiring.

Junior bases out west, on reserve for a good while ( reserve rules stink here but we are trying to fix that), and probably most probably an 18-20 year upgrade.

Pay and bennies good, never missed a paycheck.

Good luck.

Sad to see that Southwest is still requiring the type rating. You'd think that SWAPA would fix that. Soon, when the legacies really ramp up the hiring and movement there is swift, Southwest will not be the most desirable place to work.Now that the legacies have similar payscales, do not require you to buy your type, and have way quicker movement, you will most likely see Southwest drop the mandatory type rating and 1000 pic. They will have to in order to compete for candidates.

I agree, I don't see the type and TPIC lasting long when the other airlines don't require it. But then again, they've always had those requirements from what I can tell, so who knows. Southwest is still very desirable by a lot of people and probably will remain that way for a long time.

They won't "have to" anytime soon...there's a good 12,000+ CAs with well over 1000TPIC wanting to move from regionals who are qualified without black marks of death (DUI, multiple failures/violations, etc...). Maybe in 8 years or more, but "have to"? No way.

As long as they get applicants, I don't see it changing much. No sense in lowering the bar if you don't need to. As you said, SWA is still a destination for lots of people.

Not to mention a large number of pilots from national carriers - most of which also have thousands of hours of PIC from their prior regional or corporate jobs. It's ridiculous how many crazy-qualified guys are out there looking to make the next and hopefully final step.

I did hear, during the last window, that the number of people with 737 types were dwindling a bit. So I think it would be beneficial/competitive to have one already. I think requirement will remain for quite a while, in addition to the 1000 PIC.

Why would someone go to WN anyways if they had any other options?

Pay is coming up at the other majors. WN's days of growth are over. You're looking at being a career FO flying 1960s technology into tomorrow with great overnights in places like Lubbock and Jackson.

My guess is hiring starts to pick up a lot there as a lot of junior WN pilots realize that they can do better elsewhere and start to jump ship.

I'd be pretty shocked to see people already at SWA jumping ship to be at the bottom of AA/UA/DL. Yes, there may not be 10,000 applications for 200 openings, but it will still be upwards of 5,000.

This is the sentiment right now. My friends tell me almost every week they fly with FO's who are planning to jump ship asap. They are tired of being on reserve for years on end, being displaced every other month and zero prospect of upgrading.

Speaking for myself, it's because although I feel pretty qualified, when it comes to all these job openings at various legacy carriers, I also feel like I'm in the lottery.

I'd like to work at Delta, but so would tens of thousands of other pilots, and I'd bet that half that number are at least as qualified on paper as I am. Would United be a bad place to go? American/US? SWA? FedEx? Of course not, so even though I want Delta, my app is in at the other places because who the hell knows if Delta will ever call me.

Besides, it's all mental masturbation until (if!) I get called to interview. I'll make the actual go/no go decision then.