Frontier and swa
 

Friends ive been around a bit on the frontier boards and have flowed to them from silver but thinking of coming over to southwest now that the window is open and you have a orlando base because I live in gainesville. My question is this would you give up a few years seniority at f9 to come to wn? I feel in the short run it wouldnt be as good a decision but ten years from now when I upgrade it might be also I f9 had a base in orlando now where I sit reserve from home so that is a wash. Ive heard some bits about swa talking to them on the employe shuttle and everyone is chill but I would be chill to if I made 15% on my 401k lol I guess i would take the job but would also love some f-back

Stay where you are. You're already sitting reserve from home. You'll have a much quicker upgrade in a much nicer airplane. Plus MCO is the second most senior base at SW. What could you possibly gain by switching teams now? (I say this as a perennial team switcher)

Frontier is a good company and you have a seniority number that will be worth something if there is ever a merger or furlough.

My vote is stay where you are and congrats on a relatively speed bump free career thus far!


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Upgrade to Captain in 10 years or upgrade in 3?

run the numbers, early upgrade and Captain the remainder of your time (and seniority and QOL) at the company will likely win out

Frontier is a major US airline with $4B market cap. Sure, ULCC model. Big deal. The MBA's and smart people have decided that ULCC model thrives in any economy.

Before ULCC was a "thing" SWA built a very successful airline with the same concepts, back in 70's and 80's.

I am normally in complete agreement with Zap on most of his takes but in this case I’m going to disagree. At little background about myself. I identify as an Airline Industry pessimist. I’m triggered by overly unrealistic expectations or optimism and my preferred pronoun is “darkness”. All that said, I’m actually quite bullish about where Southwest is going coming out of the pandemic for the first time in forever. Gary Kelly says that they don’t have enough aircraft to operate the pre pandemic route structure with all the new cities that were brought onboard and for once, I actually believe him. With options that I’m convinced we will fully exercise next year we will take delivery of over 100 new Aircraft. I’m hearing about 1500 new hires in the next year and a half, and I fully expect that to happen as well.

I guess what I’m saying is that normally I would tell you to stay put at Frontier, but, quality of life sometimes Trumps those decisions and commuting your entire career sucks. If you were to make the jump to Southwest, you wouldn’t be able to hold Orlando for probably most of your first year. If you got on early in this new hiring wave, I would say your time to hold Orlando would be much shorter than if you got on toward the end of the wave.

The only caveat to you would be that I believe Southwest will be acquiring another carrier in the next 2 years or so. Who it will be is anyone’s guess. I only tell you that to prepare you for pilots from another carrier coming in above you. We had more than a few former AirTran pilots that made the jump to Southwest before the merger was announced. A few of them had buyers remorse at losing seniority to fellow pilots at AirTran that were junior to them over there now being senior to them on the combined list. Most everyone got over that and has moved on, but you have to be okay with that scenario should it occur and we merge with say Frontier 2 years from now.

Good luck with your decision, I don’t think you would ultimately regret coming over here if you do decide to make the leap. It’s a great group of pilots and I am actually identifying as an optimist for the first time in my career at Southwest.

I can’t tell you what to do. But some things I saw.

like they said 3 year v. probably 10 yr upgrade. MCO is senior but not that senior to hold. you would probably hold it in your first year. There were people in my class that got it in a month or two 3 years ago. From what I saw, y’all’s retirement contributions are scheduled to increase in the next couple of years up to 15%. I don’t think a couple percentage points for a year or two are worth it.

Average days off a month if you fly your line are about 17.5-17.8, awesome flexibility in your schedule most of the time especially if your willing to work for it, (aka be on the computer or get notifications of available trades etc.) Min paying three day is about 16.8 hours. (19.5 TFP).

Reserve is basically 15 days of on call a month and you get used (most of the time). (The pay you start out with on a reserve line, about 79 hours (90 TFP) is the least you’ll make, every day you fly there’s a slight increase and often times premium 1.5x is involved even on reserve). (Still better to stay home but it’s not like most places where you have to fly enough before you get paid extra. As a side note, most people don’t like reserve here but it’s not exactly apples to apples in comparison.

Hopefully that helps inform and good luck with whatever you decide to do.

While I also share Saluki's enthusiasm about Southwest's future and think the upgrade time is gonna drop substantially in the near term, I would not leave Frontier today to come here, especially if I was driving to work. At Southwest, MCO is the second most senior base. Many MCO FO's who choose to upgrade end up commuting to BWI, DAL, HOU and stay there for years because MCO is that senior for captains. Even if hired here at the beginning of this hiring wave, I still think it would take you 6-7 years to upgrade, and that's in LAX or OAK. To get MCO as a plug captain, I don't know.... another 3-4 years on top of that? And that's as a plug.

Hang your hat at F9 and enjoy the 3 year upgrade.

What I would do is apply, interview, get the CJO and THEN decide! What have you got to lose?

You say you’d “be chill” if you had 15% contributed to your 401k. Well, you currently have 14% contributed to your 401k at Frontier and it will be 15% come March of next year. So, be chill….

Bingo. And the current base seniority is irrelevant, because guys from all over the system turn 60, buy a pimped-out golf cart and a house in The Villages, and move to Orlando. It might be workable if you're a permanent FO, but if you plan to upgrade, RJS is exactly right. You'll be in for at least a few years of commuting before you're able to even get reserve in Orlando.

It’s that easy??? Folks just have to “think about coming over to Southwest”? Wish someone would’ve told me that when I tried to bail out of the regionals.