I'm making a point about the differences between NetJets and the majors for the benefit of someone weighing one career against the other. Those who try to reason that the health care at NetJets is worth so much more than that offered at the majors aren't really thinking it all the way through. It is good and it is worth something that we pay for with lower salary. However, that trade off is a much better overall deal on the major side of the equation in the vast majority of cases. I don't go around talking up my insurance or slagging other's. Honestly I almost never talk about insurance at all.

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Option 1, they certainly are.

A child birth will cost you $150 for mom and $150 for the baby. That’s the only special scenario.

Otherwise... hip replacement... $150. Hernia repair... $150. Mastectomy... $150. Broken leg repair... $150.

If you go out of network, that’s a choice and it may come with different financial realities.

$20 office visits.

It’s great insurance.

 

Best of luck with finding the best path. When you say you can see yourself at a major or fractional — I disagree. They are very different places to work. I don’t know of too many people that would fit in at both.

In addition to comparing pay and benefits, it’s probably worthwhile to compare how the cultures are different at a legacy vs. NJA. NetJets is a much smaller company than most airlines, it’s out of the media spotlight, it’s less regulated, has less diversity, FAR 135 is much less unionized. These differences create a different work environment that often makes comparisons difficult.

The ability of NJASAP to use leverage has declined significantly in the past few years, both internal and external factors are causes. If/when NJA wants to play hardball...well...ugh, I wish everyone involved luck.

And yes, I felt the healthcare at NJA cost much less. I think for the same level as NJA I’m paying probably $7-8k more per year at an airline.

Airlines and NJA are very good jobs. Saying which one is better is subjective, it depends a lot upon you and your needs. I got tired of the nonsense at NJA, but there are many things I miss about the place.

From my perspective, I don’t understand the allure of airlines if someone isn’t willing to live in a •JUNIOR• base. To me, the QOL just isn’t there...but many commute, they are fine with it but they are often stressed and don’t spend a lot of time at home.

 

It's good insurance, but I had a baby when I was working for NJA and it const me considerably more than you describe.

 

Having had both NJA medical insurance and a major airline insurance, NJA is good coverage. No argument that the coverage is solid and that solely looking at just medical insurance costs, that NJA is low, especially if you stay in network.

What is not talked about, is how expensive it is to provide that level of low cost coverage to NJA pilots. Pilot salaries are lower because of it, and airline salaries more than make up for the small premium cost per year. I and several of my NJA new hire class are gone, and not a single one has even mentioned that they miss not paying for healthcare.

My point is, nobody should go to NJA for the money or the low medical costs. Go there because you want to do this type of flying, and let the fringe benefits be a bonus to that.

 

I mentioned that very fact at the end of my post correcting your information about the healthcare.

 

One issue that has not been mentioned about the company paid health insurance is the fact that more claims have been denied when NetJets changed health insurance administrators last year. NetJets now uses Quantam Health UMR to administer NetJets health insurance and will be using them for 2020 as well. Another issue is that in-network providers have decreased too thereby increasing the out-of-network costs to the employees. This is a definite reduction in benefits. An the union is encouraging the pilots to switch to Option 2 which increases the costs to the pilots. Option 2 allows pilots to use providers out-of-network with higher deductibles.

This issue continues to be a major problem that it was part of the survey that NJASAP had in its recent survey to the pilots.

In comparison to the majors, NetJets health insurance may be a better deal, however, it is slowly declining to how it was in the past. Most likely due to the fact that the pilots dependents use this benefit which results in higher costs to NetJets. And as more pilots age and go out on medical the costs will continue to rise and NetJets will continue to push the health administrators to deny medical claims.

 

I’ll chip in. Been out of NJA for 2 years but after looking back at my spreadsheets it seems last year at NJA compared to my present job at a major....

NJA yearly premium ZERO
Out of pocket was 3774. I used 2500 FSA

Present Job yearly premium ZERO
Out of pocket was 2500 with no availability to have a FSA. Disclaimer is this insurance does not cover preventive care so we spent an extra 1665 on preventive care so a make cost of 4165 dollars.

Difference is 391 dollars. I got the spreadsheets with all expenses to back up my numbers.

Family of 5 total.

Cost of last baby at NJA was a little over 1K as not everything was covered in network as the hospital maybe but not all specialists are covered that work in that hospital.

It’s a wash on benefits.

 

You must have former US Airways east friends. They worked for a crap airline under bankruptcy wages. Now they can fly anywhere in any seat and they now make 3 to 4 times what they did before. But yeah, those 20 year f/os are miserable but they are the minority.

AA has rapid upgrades now, a bunch of widebodies coming, and a better contract coming in the next year.

I fly with people from all 4 groups, LAA, LAWA, LUS, TWA. And the Eagle flows that sat at Eagle for 20 plus years. I have had zero issues and we all have beverages together in harmony. Guys will ***** a little but it’s very seldom and it sounds ridiculous when we are making 250 to 400k per year flying to Europe or Asia.

 

At SWA, zero premiums for the family, $200 individual or $300 family annual deductible, 20% copays for medical and prescription claims up to a $2500 out-of-pocket maximum for the whole family. Coverage is the same for in-network or out-of-network, which is huge for us, as several doctors we need are not in-network. (On the NJA plan I was on, out-of-network had a $5000 deductible!)

Overall I'm just as happy with this plan as I was the NJA plan.