I’m asked that a lot. My wife sacrificed her career growth for decades over my entire military career and it was extremely hard for her. She is now in her dream leadership job. I complain about the commute more than her and I know this is a blip that will eventually work out. Her career goals are just as important as mine these days - so moving is not an option.

I’m convinced of this 👆

******.

……🤬

I have zero fondness for STL. I’m just placing my bets on it as the new base.

I dunno…I’d think if that were the case they’d have announced it at the Spirit party there. Didn’t they announce BNA at a party there or am I making up stuff?

I can’t remember. I thought they had a BNA rally that everyone thought would announce but didn’t. Not sure what happens behind the curtain when approaching a base opening. Is the delay in announcement due to negotiations with the airport? Or are they actually not sure where they’re picking as a base next spring? I’m assuming the former.

That’s interesting. I’ve been here 8.5 years and have been a captain for the last two…

Nothing interesting there. You were fortunate and caught the dip before the yoyo went back up.

run it for 62% because of the bypasses.
I've been going backward for 2.5 yrs and actually have a worse schedule as a cpt than I did when upgraded.
Hopefully this hiring moves people around, a lot. To where they wanna go of course

I had the same phenomena in Denver and that was my main reason for bailing. I held a solid hard line of good weekend stuff or Sunday start blank. Slid all the way back into bottom blanks/reserve. It is what it is, I guess. One of the few advantages of commuting is that you can switch commuter bases without adding much to your plate. Just glad I didn't get displaced and hope me volunteering to leave freed up a spot for someone who lives there to stick around a little longer.

What part of STL do you not like? The three huge runways? The easy, short taxi to the gate? The wide open ramp? The lack of a major presence by any other major carrier? I’d rather live in AUS or SAN, but operationally, I’ll take STL all day. I’ll concede that the terminal is a dump and all the bathrooms smell like low tide at a fish market.

Additionally, I like SAN and AUS overnights way more than STL. We make one of those cities a base and there will be a lot less overnights there.

STL is fine operationally. I was referencing to it as a choice for residence. It was in response to Whack who is hoping for Tampa. I had a super long overnight in STL that kinda forced me to finally go see the arch. I’m glad I did. It was actually pretty great! Far better experience than I expected.

Been a bit but I remember that museum underneath being pretty neat. Grant's Farm is about 13 mi away from downtown....has Budweiser Clydesdales and is an urban animal refuge/has Ulysses S. Grant's former home and you can grab a beer or two there. Forest Park has the STL Zoo which is one of the best free zoos in the country. Metrolink train will go to most of those spots, along with Union Station. City Museum is pretty neat if you've got kids tagging along on a trip. Good BBQ (Not by TX standards, but the Ribs are good), The Hill has excellent Italian food....Lots to do there besides hang out at the hotel. I wouldn't move back there if it opened as a base but cost of living is relatively low and it's an easy airport to get in and out of. City isn't growing like BNA or AUS so who knows...

I am a 2017 hire at 62% system wide. myseniority.com has me 133 away from (bwi) for upgrade. Also shows 824 away from my base I live at. Maybe we'll have another hiring wave but I see our current hiring numbers not even covering attrition.

Figure 600-800 will always bypass. You’re very close—close enough for a surprise—I’d make sure your bid preferences are where you want them.

Yep….keep an eye on the monthly projections…you never know how people will bid…especially with a new base opening (maybe)

60-62% system seniority has been the spot for being able to hold left seat at SWA for years and years now.

Seems like the closer ya get to that 60-62%, the longer it takes to actually get there! Like that carrot in from of my face that’s tied to my hat. It’s always…almost… right…. there….

You should upgrade this next vacancy or the one after.... hang in there.

It is annoying, I agree. Hiring has always happened in fits and spurts of full bore hiring followed by screeching on the brakes for some event that nobody ever predicted. I hung out as a fairly senior FO for a few years after the max grounding and then covid. While I definitely made the most of it, being that close for that long definitely was annoying. Plus flying with the middle of the week crowd/guys on the premium train got old quick in the base I was in as they tended to be the typical characters.
I did fly with a 130 something the other week and asked him how being 2 months away from upgrade for the last two years was. I don't know if he appreciated the joke.

That’s pretty funny! Great description.

We didn’t fly together.

Pretty sure there is a secret note on our schedules that doesn't allow that.

had the same thing. Flew with a guy 2 away from upgrade in his base when it all stopped last yr or so. He was not happy at all and had a real **** attitude about it. So naturally I rubbed it in every chance I got.

That definitely stinks but ya gotta just laugh and cry…having a bad attitude about it is a bad sign of a being a bad captain.

for sure. The guy was an FO project pilot who probably just wanted his trips pulled at a cpt rate.
Everything else was fine and if it wasn't for the upgrade issue he was pretty ok to work with. Who knows, maybe caught him on a bad day or his girlfriend and wife both wanted expensive trips and he was having a hard time paying for them. Weve all been there

You must be prettier than I.

I am.man prerty

There’s pretty then there’s Miata pretty.

Well it is a girl’s car…..so….;)

I see you played T-ball as a youth, huh? 😉

I've enjoyed SWA and I don't necessarily regret coming here, but I'd probably go to UA if I was in your shoes. UA and DL are practically printing money right now. We're keeping our head above water, but that's about it. We are totally stagnant and will probably continue to be. I'm not sure what the future looks like here, but it doesn't look great right now. As always, things can change. Just my opinion, which is worth nothing lol.

Those are the exact words that a Fed Ex jump seater was telling me as he tried to talk me into jumping ship. A very short time later….

I responded to the similar thread a while ago on the other forum but honestly OP you’d have a great career either way. Just remember there’s a lot of type A gifted kids on these forums who get all RARA when someone implies their air line or airline isn’t the best in the universe. Each have pros and cons.

I’m from Orlando and about a 3 year MCO WN FO. I have friends who are UA based at MCO and a few who have been waiting a long time to get in over there. They’re always surprised by my schedule. At about 58% in base, I may not always get the lines I want, but with our ELITT (company trading) and pilot to pilot trading I haven’t worked a day I didn’t want to work in pretty much my entire time here. Even if I get weekend trips they almost always end up as Monday or Tuesday starts. If you like working weekends you get a ton of choice in trips too with 0 effort.

Usually work 10-15 days (depending if I pick up extra or how much I game it) and on an average month I make the same as a 3 year UA guppy captain making 74 credits when I work 13-14 days. I have FO friends here that do way more and way less TFP so I’m somewhere in the middle. Haven’t gamed reserve under the new contract, but probably will start once reserve ELITT kicks on (it’s late thanks to company IT)

Orlando is absolutely still expanding and I’d almost guarantee you’d get it quick and your seniority wouldn’t be too bad once the commuters we have start working their way back to the bases they want. December vacancy shows a bit below 600 captains and 500 FOs right now. It’ll always be a super senior base for upgrading since it’s a retirement base, but a good chunk of the top is retiring within the next few years. Lotta people historically would take an earlier upgrade in BWI or MDW and work their way back. Lotta people just waited it out as senior FOs too.

Either way best of luck and hope to see ya on the employee lot prison bus some time!

OH NO!

He went there!

Stop speaking blasphemy.... it's all about the 4 stripes. 4 stripes is much more important than schedule or money. I mean think of the coolness factor of being referred to as Captain Stud, United Airlines. That's all it's about... Nothing else matters. ;)

When I first got hired, the draw for Delta was that 1 yr Mad Dog upgrade out of LaGuardia. For someone who worked their way up through the regionals, that amounted to a 10x pay raise to do pretty much what they'd been doing for the previous 4-10 years. For me living on the West coast, it sounded horrific. Fast forward 6 years, and the draw to United was a 1 yr upgrade to A320 out of LAX. I passed, my buddy didn't. We're both at the same base, I'm on year 7 FO pay in the guppy, he's on year 3 CA pay in the A320. Choices, and luck of the draw when it comes to industry timing. You can't predict when the next thing that's awesome for YOU will happen or where it will happen. MD80 CA at LGA was super awesome for a lot of people who were not me. A320 CA at LAX would be awesome for me, but I know some people who would chew off a leg to avoid a California base.

If your timing is lucky, maybe you can choose something that works out awesome. I don't regret not jumping ship to United like my bud, because what I've got at SWA has worked out really well for me especially through some really hard times at home. When your wife has cancer, flying turns out of LAX is a whole lot easier than sitting 4 days of reserve anywhere. At least that's how it felt to me at the time. So no ragrets here, I've been very blessed to be in a forgiving work environment with a good boss when life got hard.

You don’t say🤔

It's kind of funny. There are a handful of Delta posters that really form the nucleus of people who are way too attached to where they currently work on APC. If you go back in time, that was Southwest. When I got hired there, you couldn't get people to 5tfu about how smart they were and how SWA was going to rule the world. I jumpseated on Delta during the waning days of their post bankruptcy contracts, and they were miserable. 7-8 years later and those roles switched. United has never really seemed to be a part of all that and it doesn't seem like part of their company ethos to be that way.
Pride goeth before the fall. In this industry, everybody gets to eat a little humble pie. Today's Delta is tomorrow's Spirit. I try to just treat this job like the ATM that feeds my family and gets me cool vacations. I take care of the people paying the bills and the ones that make it all happen. Other than that, you won't find any bumper stickers, license plates, or t-shirts at my house that identify me as even working in the industry. My neighbors probably think I am unemployed.
It's just a job. Some of us had great timing and luck that got us to where we are at exactly the right time. Others didn't. I just need it to last for a few more years and I'll take my toys and go home.

In 3-5 years when AI drives the economy to high double digit unemployment, we will all be eating the humble pie. For now it’s time to enjoy life the way it is while we have it.