The reality of the first year or two.
 

Hi everyone.

I have some questions about the reality of coming over to SW.

I have my 3rd interview coming up soon. The first two were in 2004 and 2006 while I was at a regional. Needles to say I was unsuccessful. Who knows why but it wasn't really uncommon. No presumptions on the upcoming interview but I need to be realistic about switching companies.

Ive been with a carrier overseas (based in the US) for nearly 11 years. Initially this was a great place to be with a bright future. Without going into a long story, this is just not the place I want to spend the next 20+ years of my career.

Ill cut right to the chase. Right now I am bringing home on a light month (I have no control of my hours) about $12k. With a family, mortgage, and all the things that go with it we do OK.

So what kind of numbers can I realistically expect if I were to get hired and make the jump? First year? Second year? I never like asking this kind of thing but the reality is I need to have some realistic figures to help me make the best decision for myself and my family.

Thanks for any info.

With the new contract, you can bring in 90-100k in the first year if you hustle and live in a domicile.
Second year 100-120 maybe?
Again, this is all a function of how much you are willing to work. If you just fly your line, you will gross about 1200 multiplied by your TFP rate. It is pretty easy to work more at SWA if that's what you need to do.
First year guys can get second year rates for any flying they pick up out of open time. That's a useful tool that many use to cushion the blow.
I would say you will be matching your current take home around year 3 without working hard at all.

The big thing is will you be living in domicile? Also, please tell us how many days a month you are working now so we can give you a true apples to apples comparison.

Not currently living in domicile. 45 min North of LAX.

My schedule varies but I'd say I work on the average about 12-16 days a month. That's with ZERO control or say in the schedule and long haul flying which I really do not like.

Thanks!

I live in base so YMMV.

1st yr I made $89k and I worked a couple extra days a month at the 2nd yr rate. (Also under old cba so old rates and rsv rules where we didn't get paid for unused days)

2nd yr so far I'm around a 125 tfp avg and if I keep it up will prob make around $150k. Summer I slack off so I'm guessing I'll end up somewhere around $120-130k without figuring in profit sharing, 401k or per diem.

By year 5 you can do $175k just flying your line.

Where are you at now? NCA?

Wow, so 5year guy at "just flying his line" guarantee making $151/hr, little less TFP can make $175k - so that's 96 hours, probably 105 TFP per month just on guarantee- pretty good.

I've got a friend that says he regularly makes 250-275 TFP every month as an FO - so I'd say if you want to work just little bit harder it's pretty easy to make over $400,000 as a 5 year FO.

From reading the SWA forums for a quite a while I find this hard to believe. And if true, very much an outlier.
And it wouldn't be working "just a little bit harder".

Anybody that nets 150+ trips/month is working two full time jobs. One flying planes and the other is finding more flying. To each his own. I work to live, not live to work.

This would take a LOT of seniority horsepower. You would have to bid bunches of mid-week turns, 2 days that were easy to give away. Then, once they were all gone from your schedule, you would have to pick up everything at time and a half. And a few charters etc.

Definitely not easy. Not impossible, but not easy.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk