I did the same thing. Took around a 60% pay cut just on base salary, not including total compensation with stocks. It’ll take a year or two to get back to where I was but the quality of life increase is way worth it.

A friend of mine I helped get hired just went through this. Without divulging details about his life, he saw he could just barely make it on salary and eating into savings, but was worried about some unexpected things that may come up. We have the same bank and I suggested a home equity line of credit since they have good terms. Now he has access to a large sum of money if he really needs it, otherwise they just tighten their belts a bit.

There are always options if the juice is worth the squeeze.

I figure I took an 80% cut first year...6 years later...the juice was so worth the squeeze

Flew a trip with a nearly 30 year regional captain.

He told me he made more money his second year here than he did his last year at said regional.

As a commuting First Officer.

On reserve.

Whatever you guys are going to do, do it yesterday, because someone else just snagged your seniority number...

Yep. My paycut is in excessive of $100K before my yearly profit sharing check from the current company. It’s going to be tough, but we will get through it.

Great points Gringo. I was definitely a bit near sighted in that post. I appreciate the information, and did not realize how much I could be making at Spirit by year 3. I have never dreamed of making anything near 250k - a little pain for a year to have that 5 years down the road is completely worth it!

I’d assume most regional captains started when year 1 regional FO pay was around $20/hr. It’s not an excuse, but if you can survive that you can definitely make it through year 1 pay here.

I was a O4 over 10. When I transitioned from military (non pilot with a few hundred civilian flight hours) to airline pilot. I went from O4 over 10 pay plus $2200/month BAH and military retention bonuses to $18,000 first year as a regional airline FO and $32k 2d year as a 2d year regional airline captain. Was hard to do - the wife had to go back to work and newborn meant we qualified for food stamps for the first 6 years as a regional airline pilot family.

I didn’t break back to parity to what I earned in the military as an airline pilot until second year pay at Spirit (old contract at $72/hr as a 2d year FO) which happened 11 years after I left the military.

Not to be one of those guys but I remember making only $38.50 1st year not too long and finding out a way to make it work. Was that money good enough? No but I made a plan to be able to afford that first year pay until the 2nd year boost. Pilots with family will have a hard time crunching the numbers but lets not act like its going back to the days of riding a bike in the rain to the airport because you can't afford a car.

I believe the union response and therefore the voice of the pilot group (Yes Voters) was, “We don’t want to waste negotiating capital on guys/gals that aren’t on property.” :mad:

Just because that’s the way it’s always been, doesn’t mean that’s the way it always has to be. Opportunity for change missed.