But then once you get there you can start whining about how stagnant and senior those bases are and how EWR and SFO have it so good!

 

SMH.

filler

 

I don’t mind the venting but I will say which seats are yours? Definitely not the vacant seats jr pilots are holding. I too commuted while jr pilots held IAH. It sucked but I never said hey that’s my seat....why? Because if it was mine then I would have been in it.

Try a base trade. Otherwise all those jr guys are going to make your QOL better for the rest of your career.

 

It’s one thing to knowingly take a 2yr seat lock into the 777 and know what you’re getting. It’s another to be forced into a 756 which will keep you on the coasts for 2yrs. So yes, I can understand those frustrated watching people junior scoop up their home town in a vacancy. For once AA beats us at something, seat lock rules for new hires.

 

And DL keeps you in a seat for a year regardless w/ no upward or downward options from what I understand and selects via SSN process. Our younger pilots usually get the fewest options and the geriatric crowd gets their choice of what’s available. Seems reasonable. I did the 2yr lock myself and then switched. Honestly it wasn’t that bad (though not all unicorns/rainbows) and I don’t think it’s unreasonable.

*Some* sort of seat lock has to exist unless you want all of your profit sharing diverted down the training drain hole. Currently a newhire here could go from 737 to 756 to 777 in successive vacancies if they wanted. That’s pretty incredible.

The company’s gotta fill seats and has to decide where pilots go when they come in the door. One solution could be to incentivize the 756 fleet w/ better pay but someone’s always going to get the short end of the stick. My 2year newhire 756 seatlock took me to some awesome places and had me flying w/ some phenomenal crews. If that’s the price to pay to work here than it suits me fine. Just one guy’s opinion.

 

I guess you could always have declined the job offer, problem solved.

 

Again, another example of why the seat lock rules for the whole pilot group should not apply and should be modified for new hires. Something like sit your ass down and no equipment changes (only base) while you’re on probation seems more reasonable.

Shack. You sir nailed it.

 

Rv

It sucks.

I would rather have an option that you carry your seat lock forward once a career so a new hire could bid off the 756 to lower band to be based at home but then would take an equipment lock of 2 years plus the balance of your initial lock....say you bid down after 6 months on property then your new lock would be 3.5 years. However we are suppose to have a sizable bid next month (December not the November one) and if that is true I would imagine you will be happy then......also consider bidding up to the 777 and hope to go 92 days past the effective date and then use 8-F-9 to bump to the desired equipment and base....

My point is there are ways to break the lock.

Good luck

 

I’m sorry you (not you personally) got hired at United and into the 757/767 right out of the gate. I’m sure it’s a huge step back from what you were doing. You should probably quit, who in the world should spend two years on reserve after new hire? What a f’ing travesty.

That coast to coast commute I did as a new hire with a smile on my face must’ve been a way worse deal than I realized.

 

It beats flying out of OAIX for 6-12 months.