e6bpilot

This is generally true.
Trips for pay doesn't really make a difference. It is a combination of guys hustling and working harder, reroutes, soft pay, etc.
Pay rates are great and are super important but contract and work rules are equally if not more important.

ackeight

It’s because of a mix of things. We have more efficient schedules compared to everyone else (pre max). It wasn’t uncommon in the summer to get 14hr 2 days, 21 hr 3 days and 33 hr 4 days(converted from tfp). The lines are 11-13 days of work. People would then grab another trip or two. Depending on seniority if you cleared your board and did all premium or are jr and just get a few a year you could average 110-130 TfP a month easy. The players were 150+ without killing them selves. The record holder was a mdw CA in 2017. I can’t remember the exact number, but it was over 400. He paid more in taxes that month than I made my probation year.

RJSAviator76

This pains me to write, but if I had a choice between Spirit or Frontier and Southwest while living in LAS, I think Southwest would be my last choice of the three.

Do you want to upgrade to captain within a reasonable timeframe? If so, scratch off Southwest.
Do you want faster movement through seniority list? Scratch off Southwest.
Do you want to stake your professional existence and the future on a non-controversial airplane? Scratch off Souhwest.

When Southwest bought AirTran, I initially wrote it off because they hired such a young pilot group, the upgrade times skyrocketed. To make matters worse, Southwest got rid of B-717's but kept all AT pilots. Now you have a young pilot group to boot.

Enter 2014-2020 hiring at Southwest. We hired over 3,200 pilots. While some of this hiring was driven by expansion plans and "banking" of pilots in anticipation of shortage (it gets harder to leave once you hit year 3 or so), a great deal of hiring took place to eliminate premium. It was even stated as such by the Sr. VP of Air Ops. The net effect of this practice exposed the many weaknesses of our contract. Our contract was written with "picking up" in mind, but with zero protections against the company doing exactly what it's done right now. This is all now further aggravated by the grounding of MAX.

Legacies are all upgrading into NB equipment within 3-4 years because the pilots there tend to prefer to be WB FO's, i.e. they have options. Spirit and Frontier have a very aggressive growth schedule with aircraft deliveries that will result in much faster movement for them. Conversely, any Southwest new hire will have at least 3200 pilots hired in recent years ahead of them, at an airline that has grossly stagnated due to a single type of aircraft with the future staked out on a highly controversial airplane with hugely negative media and public attention, with a relatively very young pilot group with not very many retirements coming up, and with the pilot contract negotiations coming that will likely take years.

Don't get me wrong about Southwest, it is a great company. I love the people I'm working with. I enjoy the type of flying we do. I don't mind flying the 737. But our progression and compensation is based strictly on seniority basis, and given what's going on here and in comparison what's going on elsewhere, why would you do this to yourself?

I hate to sound bearish on Southwest, but if I were looking for a job today, Southwest would be on the bottom of my list of places to go. If I were a 1st or 2nd year FO here, I would be aggressively pursuing other options.

ZapBrannigan

Just kidding. I agree with you.




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RJSAviator76

Touché!

But gotta call spade a spade...

flyguy81

The Max will be back and we’ll be firing on all cylinders by next year. People will forget all about it once the news stops sensationalizing every little unimportant thing. There’s an election coming up.....

As far as the new contract...time will tell how long that takes. I think once 1 of the big 3 sign the rest will follow quickly for the sake of competing for talent.

I agree that if looking right now....this isn’t the place to be unless you like commuting and weekend reserve. Upgrade should drop to the 6-8 range eventually but I doubt we match the 3-4 range others are currently experiencing.

Overall it’s a great job and beats anything the regionals are offering. Take who offers a job first and keep options open since it’s a buyers market.

dawgdriver

How quickly times change. Who would've ever imagined this even being a serious consideration back when aspiring pilots resorted to writing 'HIRE ME SWA' in corn fields. Soft pay, schedules, rigs, lean staffing models, etc, allowed pilots to make more by picking up on their days off, but that hasn't been the case lately due to reasons stated above. The Max will likely come back, but premium pay might not; from what I gather, attitudes towards lean staffing models began to change well before the Max debacle.

Hopefully the leadership in Dallas is reading this (sarcasm), and isn't deluding themselves into thinking pilots still have SWA at the top of their wish list. Hopefully they don't follow their tradition of scoffing at industry comps and dragging out negotiations for years, while legacies with WBs and 2-3 year upgrades are granting unsolicited mid-contract raises (AA).

SWA vs. ULCC. Sadly, only a matter of time before this question got asked.

P.s. to the OP, Allegiant is LAS-based too and they're home every night. Best of luck with your decision.

RonnyK320

If I were you, I'd apply at Delta, United, and American as well. They all have bases in LAX, and it's a quick easy commute from LAS. You can get on a wide body eventually and fly 9 days a month.

I'm at Spirit, LAS is pretty senior now, someone hired now may not see the left seat there for 10 years, if ever. It's not growing much and we have a young pilot group. Also, we don't seem to hire many fighter guys. Maybe we don't have any applying, I'm not sure.

Southwest is a better job than Spirit, we have guys leaving for them once in a while. I don't think anyone ever left Southwest for Spirit or Frontier. I would just hate to be stuck in a 737 for the rest of my career.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

Excargodog

Maybe. But the MAX wouldn’t be the first aircraft whose civilian commercial success was doomed by a couple of early accidents if it happened :

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...938-story.html

Alaska and Southwest have all their eggs in one basket and while it will PROBABLY work out, remember, the generation currently coming to adulthood is the one that wasn’t permitted to play dodge ball in school. There are a lot of risk-averse snowflakes out there with little ability to tell the perception from the reality of that risk.

flyguy81

The Max is no Electra. More like the 727....which ended up being hugely successful.

While Boeing screwed up the MCAS situation, the planes crashed because of who was sitting in the seat. I seriously doubt a US crew would’ve put it into a crater. This has more to do with 3rd world training and global politics than anything about the plane. I’d fly it today without the software patch.