Hypothetical question. If the music stopped today. Would you rather be a senior FO (30% ish) or a junior CA (85% ish)? In both cases you do not have to commute. Let's call it a less than 30 min drive to the airport which is relevant for considering you would probably be on reserve as a CA most months. Just curious to see what you guys/gals think.

The answer is WBFO

Doesn’t really matter, chances are you’ll become a junior FO as your union reps laugh about furloughing thousands below you so that they can still pickup open time.

Yeah I wish. Not sure if WBFO is the answer if I had to commute. I told myself I'd never do it again. I'm CLT based. Bottom FO on the 777 is 9 years on property. I'm not there yet. I could in LGA/MIA/PHL I just don't know about commuting.

So I guess the real question is... Where would you sit in the mean time.

Not commuting…JR CA over any FO job in a heartbeat. Commuting…it’d be close, 85% would be right on the bubble of LC vs SC (for my base) and I would not want to commute to SC. But if I could hold LC, then again, I’d take JR CA. Also depends on if you need weekends off. 85% might get some weekends off on SC and less on LC.

Funny enough, I found myself staring down this problem as a Jr CA with the possible 68 retirement age, looks like that’s not happening anytime soon though. Our reserve system is actually pretty dang good compared to the other legacies and you gross $20k a month assuming you fly less than 73 hours, and do zero OG or PM.

Usual caveats…this varies wildly by base and equipment.

Upgrade and work weekends again? Forget about it

I got into this business to be a captain as long as I could. My worst day as a NB CA is better than my best day as a senior WB FO.

Setting the tone is always preferable to being a gear monkey, it makes the job tons more fun. As long as you don’t have to commute to do it. I drive to my NB CA gig, would have to commute to WB FO.

The big question is kids…

Do you need the money? If not, FO for sure. Suck up that time with kids! If no kids… whatever floats your boat.

He gets it!!

yeah I am in the exact same boat as N10DJ and I had a long discussion about this with my wife…I have 2 kids 10 and 8 who are very busy with stuff that seems to always happen on a weekend…if I upgrade, missing that soccer tournament, missing the baseball game, forget about helping out as an assistant coach…long weekend in Charleston or HHI outside of my vacation weeks, forget it(unless I start burning sick time, which I don’t want to do until our STD and LtD gets fixed)…the list goes on and on. I make good money(good enough) for us as a senior FO to live very comfortable and would just regret all the stuff I would miss just to be able to make announcements for an extra 40-60k a year(it’s nothing to turn your nose up too)…if the music stops for some reason, so be it, I’ll have total schedule control and my kids and wife will remember Dad always being there, not in BUF or DSM….it’s a tough call for sure and I still go back n forth everyday…good 1st world problem to have.