Let me speculate, your friend is/was a LC or full Bird and now has a full retirement that he is taking as we write these things down. He has Capt. seniority at UAL, assuming he was hired in 99, now, but chooses to enjoy being a F/O and the benefits serving the USA has earned him. Not a bad life at all.

Now considering you’re in your early 40s and have all the experience and offers from more than one airline, I would also speculate you too are a similar rank to your UAL friend. Sir, people come to this business for a variety of reasons, but in the end we fly airplanes, civilian ones, filled with people and freight. This is what we get paid to do. Pretty simple.

If it’s just about the $$$ then maybe ask your investment banker friend how you can break into that business.

Good luck and may the great white powder pig (a reference from my skiing days) in the sky bless your future efforts.

Not bent out of shape at all.. I've been here for 22 years, personally I'm glad I won't have to listen to your drivel as a new hire f/o that seems to know EVERYTHING about everything. I'm sure you'll finish IOE somewhere and feel that you have the whole operation mastered. The only head scratcher is, if you indeed received a job offer, how you managed to hide your megalomania through the interview. News flash, sport, you're not that special.

Funny how you came here to lecture us hubris.

My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.

But you aren’t being hired in 1999. That was a bad time to be hired. Guys hired 4 years ago are just a few hundred numbers from a left seat (probably get it in the next year) and guys hired 2 years ago are sitting in the right seats of 787s and 777s. Now is a GREAT time to be hired at United with 400-700 retirements a year for the next 12 years guaranteed.

Using the opinion of someone hired right before 9/11 is stupid.

PettyCr@p has displayed plenty of that quality on this forum. Hopefully Petty is teachable, or the Southwest bubbas are gonna hate him.

If your mythical 20 year FO friend says you’ll make more than him on year three SWA pay under current contracts... that’s his fault. I barely try and usually do more than reserve narrow body captains.

A glimmer of optimism from The Godfather of grump. Times do change.

A lot of thin skinned folks here. Good luck guys. Hope it all works out for all of us. No hard feelings. UAL severely lags the industry in operating margin in a time when airlines are kicking butt. That was very concerning to me and I just didn’t think UAL would be a wise choice for me. It’s nothing personal.

Fetty

When do or did you start at SWA?

It obviously is personal if you are repeatedly posting negative comments with just your opinion to back it up. You are coming across as naive and salty. The idea that anyone can foretell the future of this industry is naive. UAL has a lower profit margin but a more diverse reach. We have a lot more international exposure and less domestic exposure. We missed out on a good portion of the domestic feed boom of the past 10 years where domestic flying was twice as profitable as international flying. Our passengers also tend to be wealthier and we derive more of our profit from those that are more insulated from a market downturn. You are correct that UAL has a lower profit margin but there is a lot more behind that one metric. Choosing an airline based on what happened in the past is like picking a stock on what happened last year... prior performance is not indicative of future results.

Enjoy your career and hopefully SWA and UAL will be around when it comes time to retire.