I’m close to upgrade too. I’m bypassing til I can hold my base. I’d rather have a senior FO schedule driving to work than commute to weekend rsv. For me, it’ll prob only add a month or two. Understandable if you’re ATL or MCO though.

 

You say that you don’t care what you fly, but after 17 years in a 737 (like me), trust me when I tell you that you’ll care.

 

I've flown a 737 for 21 years now, and I'm here to tell you - I still don't care. On my GAS list, 737 is convincingly dead last.

The other things I listed are what matters.

 

Making a decision on a career based on speculating what it will look like 15 years down the road is a fool’s errand, no offense. It would be better to look back 15 years and look at real events in a case like this.

You will get many varying opinions here, and the opinions of a 47 year old who started in 121 back in 2000 is going to have a much different viewpoint.

It wasn’t that long ago that the average class experience was 6000 hours, degree, type ratings, PIC turbine, check airman and multiple interviews at many carriers. Most had experience with poverty wages, mergers, bankruptcies, furloughs, flowbacks, etc. Many had applications out everywhere for years on end.

I will upgrade this year (less than 200 away) and am not seeking to go anywhere else. I used COVID and the 1221 WARN notices as my impetus to get out of debt (finally). I have a reasonable furlough fund, make a good income, and live an FO lifestyle which I intend to keep.

I get my widebody flying fix by using my vacations to nonrev around the world.

Plusses about WN:

—PM/AM schedules
—Vacation drops because no PBS/line bidding
—Domicile choice
—In over seven years never had to speak to a chief for a sick call
—in an emergency I don’t have to try to get home from another continent
—Regular Plan insurance
—Excellent people up front

The negatives are all the same from other posts and mostly revolve around the contract and amount of block time we fly every year (I think I average about 680/year).

The choices you make in how you live your lifestyle outside of work will have a very large impact on your quality of life at any carrier.

You have a good problem to have. You have to go with what you know today.

 

[QUOTE=FastNeatAvg;3587004]Why? What are your reasons?[/

I’ll start with your If WB flying is something you’re interested in, you will get there quicker with UAL, DAL than AA. I’m at AA, and we just don’t have the airframes they do. It’ll be attainable within a few years with our retirements, but right now with our NB schedules being awful, it’s sr in both seats. Sounds like you have kids? Seniority movement for you is a plus. At your age you can opt to be a sr fo at some point with vacation and holidays. So if that’s important to you, something to consider. We need a major contract overhaul of QOL. No doubt our weakness right now. We will have movement, it’s fairly quick if being a jr CA is something you’re interested in too, which is right at 3yrs for our jr bases. I’m 7yrs in, I opt to be a sr fo for a bit, with kids, and the wife’s schedule.

If we can a get a descent contract, it’ll make life better, no doubt. Lots of options now a days. I have friends at every place, probably like most people commenting on here. I think the best advice I ever heard was, get married once, and don’t commute. Good luck.

 

The way you said, “The negatives are all the same from other posts and mostly revolve around the contract,” strikes me as kind of brushing off the importance of the contract an airline pilot works under as relatively inconsequential. It’s kind of like saying something like, “Except for the contract, this place is great.”

I don’t know if that’s how you meant it.

But for the guys who don’t have a lot of experience working under a collective bargaining agreement (contract), it functions sort of like the DNA for an airline pilot’s life. DNA specifies how an organism looks and behaves.

Similarly, the contract defines how much of your life, and a lot of your family’s life, at work and outside of work, looks and feels. It determines how much you get paid, how hard you have to work while you’re at work, how many days off you get, how much vacation you get, whether you and your family have access to life-saving medical care without going into bankruptcy, how much money you will have in retirement, and on and on. The contract you end up working under is not an unimportant thing - at all.

Chimps and humans share almost 99% of the same genetic code. Yet, there are huge differences in the way chimps and humans look and behave. Its kinda the same with airline pilot contracts: you might be tempted to dismiss the differences between different airline pilot contracts as trifling and insignificant. I’d say that’s a mistake.

 

I’ll throw my hat in here and a paltry two cents for what it’s worth (nothing). I’ve been on line for a year. I’m a single commuter, and when I’m not flying I’m working for the family business. I’ve flown with two db’s here but everyone else hasn’t let me spend a dime. I turned a week of vacation into three weeks off and credit of more than 100tfp, I average 15 days at home even with the loss of a day commuting for each trip. I’d love to retire on a wide body on the beach in the Mediterranean during overnights, but flexibility right now is demanded. Trips here are fatiguing, no way about it regardless if it’s a 2/3/4 day…so enjoy your days off.

I believe UAL is on its way back to Bethune’s Continental, but Delta is the standard. I can’t turn a blind eye to AA’s financials-next black swan event very well could require Ch.11…But their outlook is hopeful. We have good financials at the moment; but every meltdown to the tune of $800M and our $13B starts to shrink rapidly. I worked in headquarters for this airline and I can tell you Dallas has no idea what happens on the line. It is two separate companies and headquarters is completely devoid of any idea what the front line people endure daily. That concerns me greatly! Since the technology meltdown, that wasn’t actually a technology issue 🙄 occurred, I’ve never been more embarrassed to wear our name in public. The current CEO, I suspect, is a puppet and sadly won’t be gone fast enough to let the COO take over and actually run this airline. But that would require the BOD (GK) to p**s off and let an operations specialist run the OPERATION of our airline.

It’s the same technical skills regardless of who’s name is on the airplane. That being said, my apps have been sent elsewhere, and if they call I’ll interview. If not, I’ll keep showing up and doing my job with the great crews we have; but also, I’ll continue on with the family business and bet on that to be my retirement nest egg - because my retirement from this airline will be less than my friends who are at UA & DL.

 

your reality is definitely not the norm. The truth is somewhere in between. 13 hour overnight is consider very short. I can’t imagine that is the norm. I definitely don’t do 4 legs most trips. But I do specifically avoid bidding them. If I have a trip that have too many legs, I almost never had problem elitt them to something I prefer.

 

Nope—just for brevity I didn’t feel like beating a dead horse. The contract is extremely important and needs to be industry leading.

 

Yeah I’ve been here about 5.5 years. Just know that none of these airlines are the pancea for the ultimate QOL. Everyone’s better in some ways, worse in others. Once you pick a place don’t look back or you’ll end up back on APC ranting for eternity. But if it’s SWA (or AAL) you’ll more than likely be just fine.