Estimating long term pay / Which airframe
 

When looking at 12 year captain payscales at the legacys, there's a big difference between the left column and right columns for pay. For instance between the 737 and the 777. So if I wanted to know what I would make with an airline after 10 years, 15 years, & 20 years, or total pay across my entire career at a major, how do I figure that?
I'm looking at American, Delta, United, & Southwest a few years from now.
So how does airframe assignment work?
Do pilots change airframes often or much at all at majors?
Upgrade times to captain?
Upgrade times to better paying airframes?

You'll make a lot of money.

Just leave it at that.

Anything else is pure speculation, totally up to chance and a wasted effort.

Pick the airline with the bases you want and the culture you're looking for. Then roll the dice.

Look at the max and min possible. Lineholding widebody captain, reserve narrowbody FO.

Hope for the highest. Plan for the lowest.

No one will be able to tell you anything more accurate than that.

For an idea how much you COULD switch airframes... I have a friend at United who was a 757/767 FO for several years. In the last 3 years he's been upgraded to 737 capt, downgraded to 787 FO, and just upgraded again to A320 Capt. he also could've bid 777 FO at one point but he knew he'd be bumped off it within a few months and didn't want yet ANOTHER training cycle...

The "airframe assignment" as you put it, like everything else, is based on seniority.

But to even have a chance at any of that, you have to actually get at least one of them to call you and offer an interview. And THAT is by far the hardest part/biggest hurdle.

Ok thanks for all of the replies. I always hear pilots talking about waiting for one of the big 4 to call or waiting for a major to call and that makes a little more sense now with the above info.
I now have more questions for career advice but maybe I should go post that in the forum titled "career advice" instead of here under Majors.

You should browse the "True Comparison for Pay vs Quality of Life" thread on here. It was absolutely eye opening for me. There are 17 and 18 year narrowbody FO's at Legacy only making 150-190k and not even in the top 20% in base. I would guess it would take 20+ years to upgrade to a legacy widebody CA in the base you want and you will stay junior for another decade? UAL and DAL just hired almost 4,000 combined in the last couple years with a large % being young in their 20's or 30's. For me it's not worth it to leave the ULCC day trips and spend an additional 60,000 hours away from home for the rest of my career to chase maybe 10 years as a widebody CA.

I would say very few are in their 20's being hired by DAL or UAL. Some but certainly not many. Most are mid 30's or 40's.

Actually a large percentage of new hires at Delta are over 40. Average age is around 37. Senior FO's with profit sharing can easily make 300K. 2nd year pilots who work at it can break 200K.

Lost decade. The upgrade time will steadily go down as more retirements happen assuming everyone continues to hire.