No one is trying to recruit you. Glad you're happy where you are; that's the goal. You talk to a few people, so you're refuting someone's experience who just hit the line. You want 2-days, bid 2-days. Dropping 4s to pick up 2s and day trips..? Yeah... way more difficult.

And what the guy gets now at 90% or whatever isn't gonna change much in 1.5 years. Not even sure what that comment means - what people are getting will be different in 1.5 years..? Has relative seniority risen faster for the '22 guy than it will for the '25 guy - for sure. But what you get at that seniority isn't changing much (barring massive events).

I didn’t mean to make it seem like you can trade everything into day trips. Point is, you can manipulate your schedule, with some work, and yes I’m fully aware of what Seniority is. Anyone on this board knows what hiring cycles are like and what it means to get hired at the beginning vs the end

again, point is, theres a lot of ways to make starting over and being Junior not so bad via the CBA, you may have it at Frontier, Im not sure…..

Not trying to be a D****, sorry if it came off that way, truly.

Everyone has personal preferences, but for me I like my consitency with my family and being able to drop off my kids at school or pick them up everyday. Doing high credit day trips 12 days a month is unbeaten in my book. I go to the same gym daily, and have routines that make me feel like a normal person. I even coach on my childs baseball team and can make it to every game. These are things that a normal airline life could never give to me.

I know i'm giving up tons of money for not leaving to legacies, but in the end of the day I make great money and am love just flying 24 legs in a month.

Like I said, sorry for coming off the wrong way. I was busy and sent it off before reading my response

Awesome. You got me. Did you have to stop meowing on guard to catch this?

I turned in my two weeks notice today 🤔, I wish nothing but the best for my Fellow friends and coworkers

1. who parks in the employee lot?
2. How long do you ride to and from a hotel?

3. Being at hotel you can’t do normal family things at home. If you’re a lonely bachelor that just GTLs everyday I guess that’s fine but some of us like to take our kids to school or be home at dinner time or coach a sport.

Tell me you didn’t spend a decade at a regional without telling me.

How many times can you do a layover before you’ve seen it? Twice? Five times? Now what for the rest of your career? And if you think those senior widebody pilots are bidding it for the layovers I’d say you’re mistaken. Some domiciles might only have a couple destinations on a given fleet so you just end up doing the same thing over and over again.

So while you’re enjoying that new restaurant in Billings in January, the dishwasher or washing machine just broke at home. Sure would be nice to be home and handle that for your lady. Don’t worry you’ll be able to post to your Instagram about that sweet poutine you got in Edmonton. F that! I’m never going back to that without a fight.

Just for the record the 2 year upgrades are gone right now at the Legacies. They are steadily increasing, I believe we already saw our min upgrade times at all three that we will see in a long time. Some people at Delta are talking about 7 to 10 year upgrade times coming back soon due to all the young people they have hired in the last decade.

You’re not wrong, it can be a bit more tiring because it becomes a 9 to 5 job for days at a time. But at the end of the day being home is better than being gone, especially if you have a family. And that’s a big deal in this business. The main catch to day trips is you have to live close to the airport. If you’re driving like 60 miles away then forget it. But no easy 2 or 3 day trip can beat the feeling of coming home by dinner.

Mine grew up with it. That don't ask me not to leave, just ask when I'll be back. My youngest learned to use a calendar at age 3, so as to be able to track Daddy.

They're happy to see me when I get home, so there's that.

You are kidding, right? I spent my whole career specifically bidding for cities I wanted to layover in. I had the chance to do some pretty cool things on my overnights, like skiing in the Alps and surfing in Hawaii, biking to a distillery in Scotland and mountain biking along the river in YEG. Concerts, running in cool places, eating great food. That's what I enjoyed. He'll, I'm still doing that in my retirement gig, although I have less control over where I go.

I had more time with my kids than most fathers who were ¨home every night¨. I look at my son, who is a lawyer and leaves the house at 7 am and doesn't get home until 8PM. If your wife can't handle minor **** while you are gone then it s going to be an issue even if you are gone all day. Good thing you are not military and are deployed for 9 months (Or longer).

Great thing about this profession is you can choose how much or how little you fly. The bigger the airline (or other operation) you fly for, the more choices you have.

Not all, but some. The nature of widebody flying is such that you won’t typically be staying in places like Billings. You’ll be in Haneda, Paris, Johannesburg etc.

You’ll be in large cities with rich cultural histories and lots of things to do 24/7. That’s not to say Munich is fresh and exciting every time, but you can’t really compare a domestic two day with a Tampa layover to a widebody trip to Berlin.

So yes, people do bid for layovers. When you’ve got 5 days to relax down-route, wives and girlfriends can come along for the holiday.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed my domestic layovers a ton (TPA, SAN, ORD are great cities), but international flying is a different vibe.

No, he's not kidding

Nobody here is "skiiing in the Alps" on a layover. We are walking over to the starbucks near the airport marriott BWI to get a coffee on our 13.5 hour layover before heading back to work.

Seriously dude, read the room...[/size]

I am reading the room. He made a statement that people don't bid for layover cities. And this is a thread about attrition, people leaving NK. There is a different world out there. I certainly understand that not everyone can leave but there are many who can. I really hope it works out for you folks.

I do know that Spirit had some great contract elements. But sometimes those parts of the contract that drive the scheduling optimizer to creating the most efficient pairings results in many shorter layovers, as well as marketing for how the flights are placed into the cities. That drives layover length as well.

Plenty of senior captains are way too cheap. My wife parks in the terminal garage when she does back to back day trips. Doing a day trip that's half an hour to 45 minutes shorter would almost always pay less than the cost of parking. She's pretty senior at 20 years. To each their own. I always park employee, because I'm gone for 4 days.


Also, any updates on attrition??

Agreed cactusmike
My airline has former NK guys. All great guys. The one thing I’ve constantly heard is that they were surprised at how good the QOL is. For sure, it’s not as good as the contract at NK, but it’s not as bad as they thought it’d be.



My goal in posting here is not to kick the NK pilots while they’re down. It’s to let the ones on the fence know that they may be working with some inaccurate information.

I assume it’s picked up quite a bit considering the furlough cancellations were barely single digits in early December and blew out to 49 with 27 downgrade cancellations last week alone.

I read the FAQ about the cancellations and it seemed to say they're going to do this every week; Wednesdays to be precise. I didn't get any email at all on Friday so I'm assuming I wasn't awarded a downgrade cancellation this round. Maybe next week.

just to be clear, the only things NKs CBA has that is better than any other airline is Red/Green and ability to drop most everything. The downside of that is Junior guys got absolutely fisted because of it. 4 days off was nice but most everyone waived it.

If They can hold on to Red/Green as it stands today, in a merger with F9, that would be awesome.

one other thing, Spirits Healthcare is better than UALs (at least for me and my family and where we live) and I believe better than Dals & AAs…….

(not LTD etc but just straight up healthcare)

Healthcare is much better at AA with various options. My quality of life went up quite a bit at AA vs Spirit, mainly because the operation runs much smoother on average. As far as days off and trip trading, I was able to bid for the days off I wanted after around 9 months on property.

Trip trading is worse than Spirit, no question, but it has steadil Improved.

Curious on the min 4 days off between assignments. And additional pay for FDP extensions. X / Y list can be pretty advantageous too. VFX/VFL is mad handy through out the year. Wish there was some kind of way to compare work rules.

Sure hope you mean wives OR girlfriends 😬

would
be a lot cooler if he meant what he said 😂😂😂

Can't argue with that!
Touche my friend! 😉

I don’t think anyone is disputing that you can have great QOL at a legacy and probably better than Spirit. It takes seniority just like anywhere. If you are at the top of Spirit, older than 40, and a CA you will never attain that QOL and earnings ever again. With some time you can have one but not both. The amount of time it will take to get one back is anyone’s guess. There are major family sacrifices to be made in that case that can alter one’s entire life.

If Spirit goes under the point is moot. Those sacrifices MUST be made. If there is even a small percentage of a chance Spriit survives, the choice whether or not to toss it all, and try to attain some semblance of what you had over what may not be an insignificant period of time, becomes much more difficult. So saying just go to a legacy and it will be better doesn’t always hold water. I just will not go back to working 4+ day trips over the weekends for a ton less money unless I absolutely have to. Write me a LOR when the time comes please.

I feel ya brother. Similar boat.. QOL, pay will probably never be regained if I jump to a legacy. Praying for a Hail Mary here!

@noisecanceller @sioux8ships

I hear what you're saying. It's never easy to decide to start over. I didn't mean to come across as saying "just give up 15 years at NK". If it's smarter for you to stay, I'll pray for that hail mary with you. The QOL vs money argument is of course a valid concern. I'll write the LOR, but hope you never need it. All the best!

Cant speak for AA or DL, but 3rd year FOs on the NB fleets would be making low $200s/hr with better than 30%-40% in base. Not CA money, but you’re holding mostly what you want by this point.

Getting the days you need off isn’t difficult either, just have to know how to bid and then trade with regards to timing in the month. Works 8/10 times.

My first month on reserve in the summer I was already holding weekends off at 93% (I don’t know how either) and similar schedules until I held a line. After holding a line, I was able to get at least 1-2 weekends off a month with decent trips.

Junior plane in a junior base with a huge pilot group that all want something different makes QOL attainable. Even on reserve where there’s 3 reserve types and everyone is LC at 18 hours (with the exception of the assignment window.. then it’s 14 hours).

Starting here today and being 40+, you cans hold mostly what you want on the CA side after 5-7ish years (this is a changing variable as BA still has hundreds of MAXs to deliver to us).

This is not to kick yall while you’re down, but to show that this is not far out of reach for the demographic you listed. Of course, sacrifices will have to be made in the interim, but you’d come out ahead in the long run.

All that said, I really hoping yall come out ahead. NK is a decent place with awesome people. Hoping it works out for yall

You have been through this once and blessed with Ted at the helm again. Think about what you said. We are about the same age, its now or never brother.

Im at 14 yr guy and yes it was the hardest decision in my career. Love it here at NK, Great coworkers and don't want to leave but as I mention before, been through this once with Ted mirroring his game. I have made peace with everything. The possibilities of concessions , uncertainties, Incompetance management, Alpa leadership and other negative futures outlook, I just dont have it anymore for the upcoming fight. Tired of chasing conracts and everything tied up to ch11 and managments game. Im early 40's so its now or never. I know im going to get some slack from the Nk cheerleaders. Im ready for the new chapter and I hope my situation help those who are on the same boat. I truly wish everyone at NK the best of luck.

Let me assure you that QOL as a lineholder at a Legacy, especially AA, is not as good as one at Spirit. Schedule flexibility is not even close. You have to be super senior and forgo upgrade for years if you want to maintain what you have at Spirit, Lot of misinformation in this thread based off of "one off" experiences that happened for maybe a month here and there due to overstaffing and blank lines. Will not be the norm as the pilot group right sizes.

You’re right a junior line holder can’t dump their entire awarded schedule then turn around and pick up premium. Sucks to suck. Idk how placing yourself on 24/7 premium reserve all month is related to QoL though. TTS has improved greatly. APA needs to continue to improve both TTS and PBS softwares, which in return will improve schedule flexibility.

In this vein, I'll second the notion... for some of us who may have some lingering PTSD from the regionals, etc the QOL at any legacy is generally pretty good, even when junior. May take a while to catch up to single digit in base QOL, but it should get pretty close eventually. Plus money... that buys QOL, either now or later your choice (bid down now for time off, or work hard and FIRE).

At a legacy I think you WILL get your earnings back, sooner than you think and possibly even as an FO. Fairly stark contrast there. Go read the salary survey, obviously there are some outliers there, but still.

QOL depends, probably not going to get anything like senior in-base in your hometown niche domicile. If you're able to move that opens up a wide array of options. Also, not all legacies are created equal in that regard.

I'm not suggesting that anyone senior *should* bail, that's a personal decision and everybody in that boat has enough industry SA to make their own call.

Another consideration. Year 1 legacy giving up 4 or 5 vacations. Year 2 give up 2 or 3. Year three another 2 or 3 ect…. Never making those days off up for a career. Not to mention none of the legacies were able to get to 5 credit per day. It’s substantially less days off till 65. Not my choice just reality.

You may need to read up on the current Legacy contracts........

you could be correct? What’s the credit top out at when the contracts mature? Thought it was 4 and change no? Taking swa out because they still line bid. According to our most recent comparison jb and f9 are the only 2 at 5.

Not incorrect but (as you know) AA guys with 2-ish+ years on are getting 3 day lines then dropping and trip trading on TTS and "rebuilding" their schedules with mostly weekdays worked and mostly weekends off. Indeed this may require a 4-Day from Mon to Thur. 1 and 2 day trips still super senior

Reservists with 2+ years are in top 25% of reserve seniority in most months and basically can get anyday they want off.

Yes, there are 4000 seniority Captains that "forget to bid" or "I don't understand that PBS stuff" and will b1tch and groan the entire trip about how AA sucks

Pilots will be pilots

All while we were very overstaffed over the past few months and the schedule flexibility still doesn't even come close to what they have at Spirit. Not sure what you are arguing here but cool story I guess?

There’s the caveat- early 40’s vs early 50’s. Not saying it’s an easier decision for you at all. You just have more years to make up the difference.