This is why we can't have nice things...

Inkoreausa... you've posted about 2 times and they've both been utter jacka$$ rude comments. Congrats for having your airline preferences. Now get out of your mom's basement, go for nice a walk and find a hobby that doesn't include trashing airlines.

 

As ridiculous as this thread has become on many sides, it also makes me wonder why a surprising number of people who claim they don't want to work for UAL hang out in the UAL subforum.

Not a flame, just curious.

 

You are the rude one. Can’t you handle opinions that are different than yours? How is it rude to state the reasons that you would rather work for one airline versus another? You are the rude one. I don’t consider SWA as being as desirable to work for as United, Delta or American.....deal with it.

 

I think SWA is a great place to work and you can definitely make some serious coin. I think the end game for me was the deciding factor. I know you can makes tons of money if you hustle at SWA, but I would rather make the money without the hustle, especially when I get older. Once you are senior in the right seat of a 777 or 787, you can fly 6 legs a month, work 9 days, and make 250K. As a captain you can do the same for 350K. The fact that you eventually have the option to literally work 100 days a year, fly 6 legs a month, and make that kind of money was very attractive to me. If I’m going from New York to LA, I like to go from New York to LA, not New York-Chicago-Omaha-Denver-Phoenix-LA. Some people don’t mind working their arse off to make the coin. Call me lazy, but I prefer the long legs, beautiful layovers, nice meals, and max days off while not compromising the paycheck.

At the end of the day, you can work 12 days a month instead of 9 and make the really big money. That’s what’s great about having options!

 

I just look at new posts, I don’t separate them by subforum.
At the end of the day, I am more concerned with my own happiness than comparing gigs. I just think there is a lot of misinformation on both sides of the coin as far as what the other does. Just like my reality doesn’t involve 5 legs a day to midland, I doubt your reality involves cranky flight attendants and crap paying trips.
In the end, we are all in this together and I think saying that ones gig at X airline is better than at Y airline is stupid. We are all one bankruptcy, furlough, terrorist attack, or activist investor away from giving handies in a truck stop bathroom. Who knows, we all may be asking our brothers and sisters at Allegiant World Airways for a letter in 5 years.

 

Nobody is bashing Southwest… The guys are on here stating basically that they don’t want to Fly nothing but a 737 for their whole career and they want a variety of flying including the quality of life and pay that goes along with International wide body flying....

SWA is a low cost carrier. United is not. Both airlines have their warts, one just has their warts constantly highlighted.
The up and down hustle isn’t for everyone, and going “international” to Mexico City in an RJ ( or wherever you’re “way more international destinations than the legacies” locations were ) is nowehere near the same thing as flying a triple to Rome or Hong Kong.

The two airlines are completely different animals.

 

One poster was bashing SWA, the rest have been honest and informative.
As for the rest of your post, spot on, brother. The two airlines do completely different things. One man’s trash and all that stuff...

 

Ahh, thanks. Guess I never explored that option on APC.

Cheers!

 

For you Hoss, mi casa es su casa.

 

Correct. Some people did bash Southwest and it was unnecessary and wrong.

A fair number of us here at Southwest came from overseas expat gigs. There are former EK, EY, CS 777 captains, FlyDubai 737 captains, BBJ captains, ACJ captains, Global captains, Gulfstream captains all formerly based overseas now flying at Southwest. In fact, that’s exactly why I chuckled when the word “prestige” was used in this thread. Without knowing our background, it’s rather shallow if not arrogant to make a presumption that somehow we don’t know what it’s like to fly into Rome or Hong Kong.

But hey, speaking for myself only... I’ve flown into FCO (and CIA across town) and HKG way more times than any place in Mexico (or Canada for that matter), and “followed the greens” in LHR and SIN way more times than I’ve flown into El Paso or Midland...

My point is, thanks to the Lost Decade, more and more folks in recent years came from more “exotic” jobs than before, so it’s not like we don’t know what we’re talking about, particularly when discussing the “cool” factor of international/long haul flying as well as offering our thoughts on the not-so-cool aspect of it which none of us has offered so far.


Fully agreed. In the end, it boils down to individual preferences... money, lifestyle, equipment, etc. Both offer fantastic and lucrative careers, and for anyone having to decide between the two, it’s a great problem to have.