Personally I don’t even ask. I assume most FOs are tired of being asked and getting told “you should go” or “why leave, legacy airline work rules suck,” and then they have to smile and listen to the guy in the left seat give their thoughts on their career plans.

I figure each FO has a network of family and friends who are better discussing it with versus me; and simply, it isn’t my business.

Says the guy who gets to look across the cockpit and find an experienced pilot... Wish we were all so lucky.

Ignorance is bliss

1) There’s an underlying assumption that I am somehow a 1500 hour hire at NK. I am not.

2) All I did was instruct and then go to a regional. Also not the case.

3) You’re salty at a situation that won’t be fixed any time soon.

4) Boomer CAs are by far some of the worst people to fly with, not the young folks.

I take a different approach to it…. I ask “when’s your class date at xxxx <-insert legacy???” I’d say at least 75% of those under 2 years have an interview, waiting on a class, or have an actual class date. My batting average on the right legacy guess is about 66% correct.

The ones less than 2-ish years that are staying either have a nice side-gig and truly want the work rules, or are on an E3 visa.

I'm VERY impressed.

Knew you would be :rolleyes: Glad I could impress the almighty Bluedriver :cool:

Ah, got it. You are being responsible... Even if you know that the info they ask for is really not the info they need, because that's not your responsibility.
And when someone questions if that is the best way, you throw a hissy fit.
Take a chill pill buddy.

I don’t ask the FO’s I fly with if they are leaving, it’s none of my business what they do career-wise outside of my flight deck. If they want to talk about it, cool, but think it also sets a bad tone when those who want to be here to start out the banter that way. That being said, my anecdotal experience over the past several months is that fewer guys are proudly chirping about the interview or class date they have at a legacy, and more talk about how happy they are here. I haven’t flown with an FO who has told me they planned to leave in several months. We’ve both flown with equally small slices of the pie, so it’s tough to extrapolate that out to a general junior FO sentiment.

And the seniority system tends to bias that as well. IOE excepted, the senior CAs tend to fly with the senior FOs because they both tend to get awarded the better schedules. But those FOs are also the best paid and with the best QOL, hence the most to lose stepping back to $100K and a crashpad in EWR or LAX. And even if it would be a faster NB upgrade sometimes, they’d still be junior to thousands of pilots and on reserve in EWR or LAX even longer.

Giving up a lineholder slot anywhere has costs. Giving up a senior lineholder slot at NK - while it will pay off in the long run (at least if you are young enough) - is more difficult. I don’t think we actually lose many senior FOs or lineholding CAs. The bulk of the attrition seems to come in the first 1-2 years.