Attrition significantly increasing
01-06-2025 | 11:33 PM
#62
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Joined: Dec 2022
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I'm not knocking the legacies, but a lot of what you describe primarily applies to the multi-day trips at NK.
Doing mostly day turns you won't deal with nearly as many headaches. It's pretty much show up, fly two legs and walk back to the car after setting the parking brake. Most of the time I don't even see the FAs working in the back.
Occasionaly I may time out and get stuck, but honestly that is mabye once a year for me.
Overall I am much more healthy being home most nights: eating real food at home, working out in my local gym, going for a run on the beach, sleeping in my own bed, etc...
I am no stranger to the 4 day trip life, and I don't miss the hotels and garbage airport food. It's just not for me and I get sick more often living that kind of lifestyle.
WB flying did interest me at some point, but knowing what that kind of flying does to the body I think I would pass if it were an option.
It doesn't look cool and sexy on IG, but non-redeye NB out and backs are about the healthiest kind of flying one can do. However if all one cares about is running up the W2 every year, then the legacies are the way to go. No question about it.
Obviously if NK ceases to exist then none of this matters.
EDIT: Please don't rebut this with the outlier 27.5 year CA who lives in base at xzy legacy and who just started doing day turns toward the end of his/her career. I realize this is possible but I am discussing the kind of flying that one can reasonably do for the bulk of their career in a tax friendly red state.
Doing mostly day turns you won't deal with nearly as many headaches. It's pretty much show up, fly two legs and walk back to the car after setting the parking brake. Most of the time I don't even see the FAs working in the back.
Occasionaly I may time out and get stuck, but honestly that is mabye once a year for me.
Overall I am much more healthy being home most nights: eating real food at home, working out in my local gym, going for a run on the beach, sleeping in my own bed, etc...
I am no stranger to the 4 day trip life, and I don't miss the hotels and garbage airport food. It's just not for me and I get sick more often living that kind of lifestyle.
WB flying did interest me at some point, but knowing what that kind of flying does to the body I think I would pass if it were an option.
It doesn't look cool and sexy on IG, but non-redeye NB out and backs are about the healthiest kind of flying one can do. However if all one cares about is running up the W2 every year, then the legacies are the way to go. No question about it.
Obviously if NK ceases to exist then none of this matters.
EDIT: Please don't rebut this with the outlier 27.5 year CA who lives in base at xzy legacy and who just started doing day turns toward the end of his/her career. I realize this is possible but I am discussing the kind of flying that one can reasonably do for the bulk of their career in a tax friendly red state.
01-06-2025 | 11:42 PM
#63
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Joined: Dec 2022
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And legacy flying seniority growth is different. With multiple payscales for multiple aircraft fleets and NBs at the bottom of those payscales the advancement is pretty quick with those retirements. And especially quick in the NB fleets.
Even if the losses are from WB CAs they ripple down quickly into the NB ranks. Where NK was retiring 25-50 people a year from a pilot group of 3000 United is retiring 600-700 a year from 16,000, but almost all of that 700 a year ripples down into the NB CADRE which is maybe 7000 - 8000 pilots, only a little more than twice the NB pilots NK had before the current unpleasantness.
Not even counting growth, the effective NB seniority to CA at UA increases vastly quicker than at NK and so does NB seniority at CA, since you continue to lose CAs to fill WB retirement vacancies.
It's a whole different ball game in seniority progression in the NB. So maybe you are too old to ever get to WB CA, you can still get to NB CA a lot faster and gain seniority as a NB CA faster. Pretty much the same for the other big three legacies. Not to mention that a number of people senior to you will find their niche at WB FO, where they will stay until they retire or are senior enough to make WB CA, and never compete for NB CA at all.
It's really a sort of fascinating queuing theory example.
Even if the losses are from WB CAs they ripple down quickly into the NB ranks. Where NK was retiring 25-50 people a year from a pilot group of 3000 United is retiring 600-700 a year from 16,000, but almost all of that 700 a year ripples down into the NB CADRE which is maybe 7000 - 8000 pilots, only a little more than twice the NB pilots NK had before the current unpleasantness.
Not even counting growth, the effective NB seniority to CA at UA increases vastly quicker than at NK and so does NB seniority at CA, since you continue to lose CAs to fill WB retirement vacancies.
It's a whole different ball game in seniority progression in the NB. So maybe you are too old to ever get to WB CA, you can still get to NB CA a lot faster and gain seniority as a NB CA faster. Pretty much the same for the other big three legacies. Not to mention that a number of people senior to you will find their niche at WB FO, where they will stay until they retire or are senior enough to make WB CA, and never compete for NB CA at all.
It's really a sort of fascinating queuing theory example.
01-07-2025 | 02:41 AM
#64
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Joined: Nov 2015
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No one is debating any of this. What if you are already close to the top of NK? Anyone in the right seat at NK should absolutely leave if they ever want to be a CA. If you’re already a CA AND senior totally different ballgame. That senility is never returning once you start over unless you are very young. There are very few senior CA at NK that are also very young. Many middle aged and not old but a long way from very young.
01-07-2025 | 03:51 AM
#65
Thread Starter
On Reserve
Joined: Apr 2024
Posts: 71
Likes: 0
All the ALPA unions jointly requested there carriers to prioritize spirit pilots with CJOs for earlier class dates.
The biggest pilot union in the world appears to be a tooth less tiger on this
01-07-2025 | 05:02 AM
#66
That/It/Thang
Joined: Aug 2020
Posts: 3,500
Likes: 362
If a NK pilot is leaving for UAL or DAL, their class date being 2 or 4 months earlier isn’t going to help furloughs at NK. It’s still total head count. If a NK pilot is furloughed and then a lot of pilots leave for UAL and DAL, the company will recall pilots. If they don’t, they never needed them, regardless if those pilots had earlier class dates or not. It’s head count. Pilots will leave and NK will have to see if it’s enough to fly their planes, if not, they recall
But youre out of line to tell ALPA National they need to ask a F9 ALPA pilot to go to the bottom of the UAL class assignments, to allow a NK ALPA to go ahead of them. Seniority is everything. A soon to be furloughed pilot asking for this is ironic at best.
01-07-2025 | 05:14 AM
#67
New Hire
Joined: Jan 2025
Posts: 5
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you should instead ask ALPA to Look why National Airlines ( non Union carrier but growing last year) they hire South americans and European with no Green Card or citizenship. They base them in their homes ( pay them the ticket to and from Home), pay them in their offshore accounts and they even fly U.S. domestic legs ... They recently got some 747s and will get 777s... to me National should be Hering U.S. pilots, period. The only non U.S. gus who are not busting work and immigration rules are the E3S there.
01-07-2025 | 06:18 AM
#68
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Joined: Nov 2015
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FYI but a lot of us at NK got class dates long before others from different airlines hired 4-5 months before us
01-07-2025 | 06:44 AM
#69
Prime Minister/Moderator
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 45,120
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From: Engines Turn or People Swim
Besides, doing so would be to the detriment of some *other* ALPA regional/LCC pilots who either have been waiting for flow, or have a CJO. They have to tread lightly on this sort of thing.
If I was a 10-year regional CA swimming in a legacy pool I wouldn't be too happy if ALPA arranged to insert a guy in front of me in line who had left my regional after 18 months to roll the dice on ULCC. Class dates have very real seniority consequences... for life.
01-07-2025 | 09:21 AM
#70
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Joined: Feb 2015
Posts: 285
Likes: 20
Your expectations blow my mind!!!
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