I was 91 corporate before. No more papers/ice/coffee, no more filing yourself, no more having to order catering, no more coordinating rental cars or sedan service, no more ramp fees, no more on-call 24/7, no more wiping down the leading edges, no more doing the lav, checking tires, negotiating training contracts, staffing contract pilots, company meetings, annual personal “goals” requirements, sweeping the hangar, salary surveys that never get considered, unusable vacation time, cancelling of pension plans, uncompetitive benefits, and so forth.

Bid your schedule, show up, fly, go home. Speak to nobody on your days off. Never speak to a chief pilot unless required. Use sick time without a carpet dance.

There are always things to ***** about, but this is better long term.

 

With the exception of UAL does any 121 major have shorter than 2 hr short call callout?

Most 121 carriers, the norm is 12hr + callout on reserve. 2 hrs is still pretty short notice if you wanna ski or golf etc.

 

Another 91/91k/135 guy here that made the jump into the airline world. I echo exactly as everyone has already said.

Love it. No ragrets. ...not even one letter.

 

I did the move from a very large 91K job to SWA about five years ago, and I haven't regretted the move for one single minute. Not during COVID, not when I saw my classmates finally upgrade (after more than a decade), not ever. Did I enjoy the 91K job? Overall, yes. But I enjoy SWA so much more, for two main reasons:

First and foremost, my circadian rhythm doesn't get screwed with. I'm a night owl; I have been since the day I was born. So I work the afternoon/evening schedules (PM trips as they're known here), and it works great for me.

Second, I'm home more, and I can control the days I work to a large degree. I do this by bidding lines that work days I want, swapping with other pilots, or picking up days in the open time system as needed. Example: the air conditioner on my wife's car blew out, and it was about a $2000 repair. I went into the open time system, and was able to pick up an extra day trip that pays 12.9 TFP (about $2000) to fly to Chicago and back, and go back to my own bed. Simple as that. No committing to a higher-paying schedule for months at a time. Just work what I want/need at the time.

Other things... I'm never gone more than 3 nights at a time aside from some training events. When I commuted, it was sometimes 4 nights away at a time if I couldn't get home after an evening trip, but even as a commuter, I was home way more nights than at the fractional job. Now that I live in a base, I'm typically in hotels 9-10 nights a month. When I commuted, even as a brand new pilot, I was gone max maybe 12 nights, whereas I was gone 15+ nights a month at my fractional job. Home life became dramatically better when I came here because of that.

I can also pick schedule lines with cities that I like. I can find a line with a long overnight in a city where I have friends or family, and actually make plans in advance. (Sure, we get rerouted occasionally, but it's the exception, not SOP.) I see friends and family far more than I did at the 91K job. If you're on the west coast bases (OAK/LAX/LAS), you can go to Hawaii if you want. I enjoy that greatly.

As a commuter (from a large city to one of our bases), it was still better. Now that I live in base, it's dramatically better. Living in one of our bases and during a hiring boom, I doubt you'd have to commute for more than a couple of months, so I wouldn't let that dissuade you at all if you had to work out of OAK or LAX for a couple of months.

 

Lol. I see it.

 

Did I take it to heart, no, but I did take it for what they said and passed it along. Time will tell what happens with the 7/max.

 

This right here!

 

Make the jump and don't look back.

 

I got it, good movie!

 

I’m over at a Part 135 on a Hawker and was on a PC-12 before that. Anyone know if SWA looks favorably at PC-12 time as part of the 1,000 hrs of turbine time they want to hire a FO or does it need to be multi jet time only?