UAL vs SWA...what am I missing?
 

I wanted to keep this off the Major board as it usually turns into a ****ing match over there. I’m a retiring O-5, have offers from both, live within 2-3 hour drive of domiciles for both, and class dates are a month apart. I’m well aware of the major differences that are usually discussed, but wondering if there is something out there that I’m missing as I make my decision. Any UAL or SWA folks care to share anything they wished they had known about before they started at either company? Thanks in advance!


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SWA has a relatively young pilot group, with IIRC a relatively linear age curve. Ie, your seniority will progress slowly.

UAL (like AA and DL) has a lot of retirements coming up. Plus a wider variety of flying on bigger planes, more opportunity for better, and varied, schedules and QOL. Your seniority progression will lead to more pay.

Much as I like SWA, all else being equal I think UAL is a clear choice, especially since you're older. You might never upgrade at SWA.

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/h...s-fdx-ups.html

^^^^^ Exactly what he said.

Work where you live. No brainer. All other things being equal, UAL is a pretty sure bet due to their retirements.
SWA has been good to me and my family, but it is just another big airline. You really can’t go wrong with either.

Excellent problem to have, congrats.

My vote would be UAL, more variety.

Seniority progression is everything (QOL, time-off, schedule), everything. Another vote for UAL.

Go sit in a 737 cockpit and ask yourself, would it be nice to have options or can I live with this until retirement?

Two leg four days to far away lands and nice hotels sleeping half the flight does not suck. If you want to do the multi leg domestic flying you can do that too. Wanna take the family non rev to pretty much anywhere? Won’t do that at SWA. SWA excels at productivity, anything else is UAL.

If I'd gotten simultaneous offers from SWA and UAL, I would have taken SWA. SWA is still an excellent place to land. However, at UAL I will easily make a lot more money over my career than I could have at SWA, I project easily six figures more. Why? Faster upgrade - just four years in and I could hold CA. I am not bidding there for a year or two, because I like having whatever days off I want and I'm senior enough now to pick up premium trips to boot. Even with resumed growth, I can't imagine a CA upgrade at SWA in less than eight years nor having that much power over my schedule so soon. Oh, and I can change things up and bid WB too. In my case in particular, I put UAL's pass travel privileges to good use internationally - roughly $5-7k worth a year not even counting FC upgrades. Can't do anything remotely like it at SWA, at least not until they start flying to Europe. I would have taken SWA but I'm relieved now that I ended up at UAL. YMMV.

I’m at SWA, and it’s been great. If the choice were to live in base at SWA or commute to UA, I’d say choose SWA. If you plan to stay where you are and are choosing between driving to work for one or the other, I’d choose UA because of seniority progression driven by retirements instead of mainly just growth, plus variety of fleet types.

Of course anything can happen. An economic downturn could hurt, and SWA has a strong balance sheet. Or maybe they’ll get bought by Berkshire Hathaway and they screw things up. Maybe your base you’re planning to drive to goes away. Maybe UA or SWA merge with someone like JB or Spirit, and seniority progression could change drastically.

Even with the what-if’s my recommendation is the first paragraph.

Seniority = QOL.

Mandatory retirements in 5 years: SWA is 9%, UAL 18%. In 10 years SWA is 27%, UAL is 40%.

(I calculated this almost 2 years ago so it's no doubt better now.)