T6 Pilot

Good day -- career military guy here trying to understand the system.

I recently came across this post someone offered up:

The 777 FO's at DFW are dominated by guys who could be flying CA 10 or 15 years ago.

This strikes me as odd. I'm trying to wrap my hands around the fact of the career FO mindset. The mentality that I've grown accustomed to in the military is to seek upgrade in your airframe (wingman, 2 ship FL, AC, IP, etc) at the earliest possible moment assuming your skillset/timing allowed.

My question is to those who 'aspire' to remain in the FO position -- why *not* seek upgrade. I can see the 777 FO payscale at 12 yrs just as well as the next person (145 vs 231 CA @ AA for example)...am I missing something here? Why not seek the CA position and higher pay scales/more responsibility...?

WARich

QOL.....most likely. Being able to be based where you live, having a good amount of seniority to be able to bid whatever you want from trips to vacations to holidays off. Just my guess.

T6 Pilot

I guess I don't understand how the seniority system works in the airline with regards to bidding, airframe, QOL, etc....

Time to start reading more.

WARich

Your seniority number is everything in the airline world. Looks like your a T-6 dude. Easiest thing, walk down to the reserve office and talk to any of the TR airline guys, they'll be able to explain it better in person.

flap

If you are junior, you will have a poor quality of life.

Reserve means you are on call.
Waiting for the crew desk to call and assign you a trip.
They can call in the middle of the night and take away your days off.
You work all holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
Difficult to commute to reserve, so burn precious days off.
It sucks.

If you are senior you get the time off you want, you never have to talk to anyone, and you are buying the quality of life by taking less pay.

Worth it imho.

I sat reserve 25 years ago, and was abused so bad that i downbid and have been senior ever since.

Working 28 days in a row, all international, 136 hrs credit, yet paid 70. Yes it was legal, and yes it sucked.

senior flap

Jay5150

It's a quality of life thing like War said.

To keep it simple, imagine an airline has only 777s. The most senior first officer has his pick of trips. Let's say for this particular airline that's things like Rome, or Paris or maybe something that's worth alot of pay time vs how many days you work. He also gets all the holidays and weekends off - all of them. Matter of fact, he(she) can get any day off that they need because he's choosing his schedule first. (graduations, weddings, birthdays etc.) He also can be first in line for premium paying trips (those that pay 150%, 200% of regular pay etc.) The specifics vary from airline to airline, but often very senior FO's can make up the pay differential to CA in premium paying trips.

Now the guy 1 number senior to him, the most junior captain, is sitting reserve with little to no control over his schedule. He's on call every holiday and many if not all weekends. He also is making reserve guarantee every month and that's it.

One example I can think of here at DAL: The desirability of trips on any fleet of a/c varies from good to bad, but the difference is usually gradual. You know, this trip is a little worse than this one, which is a little worse than this one, and so on. Except often there are a handful of VERY good trips that the most senior will bid for. The 737 in ATL has some trips they call "dinner and a movie" trips. You fly to some Caribbean/Latin American city, pretty long leg: say 4.5 hours. You're not legal to fly back, so they have deadheaded another crew with you, who flies it back while you deadhead. At the end of the day, you've done a 9:15 day trip and for half of that, you were sitting in business class eating the meal and watching movies.....or sleeping. You bid nothing but those and you end up with a full pay month (half of which was riding in business), you were in your own bed every night and you worked 8 days (off 22) to get it. As a result (and if I remember correctly) you've got 737 FO's who could hold widebody captain if they wanted. If I'm wrong on that, suffice it to say they are very senior for their seat.

This is an obviously simplified explanation, but I think you can get the gist.

Twin Wasp

The other thing is (and I'm guessing here but) they won't have gone to the left seat in the 777. They would have gone from the top of the list as a 777 FO (see all the above about seniority) to the bottom of the list on a MD or 737. So you're not looking at as much of a pay jump. And they would go from international to multi-leg trips out of LGA.

XHooker

This is a huge reason. Long haul Asia (or maybe even Europe from the West Coast) flying on a wide body means schedules with 18-20 days off a month that are commutable on one or both ends of the trip, meaning one or two nights more at home each trip. The pay differential for the "Big Three" is only 10-15% between wide body FO and narrow body captain and a line holding WB FO can easily make more than a reserve NB captain. Throw in the ease of wide body trips compared to pushing a 737 around the system and it's obvious why the choice to upgrade is far from cut and dried. I live in base and retired from the reserves, so I upgraded to reserve NB Captain from line holding WB FO as soon as I could (at the time the pay differential at CAL between WB FO and 737 CA was over 20%), but if I was a commuter, there's no way I would have done so. I tell people my take home pay went up when I upgraded, but my hourly rate in terms of time away from base actually went down. If you're commuting, don't need the extra money, or have a job on the side, WB FO is often a better deal than NB captain.

T6 Pilot

Jay5150, and others...

Perfectly clear now....different mentality but in the end I know that QOL is what counts.

Thanks!

Trent900

Just had a 24 yr 777 UAL FO on my jumpseat. He said his QOL rocks and the upgrade is always there for the taking when he wants it.

Not a bad place to be.


T