Being an FO is a choice

lol. This is literally 99% accurate now!

Hmm. I disagree with some here. I have always offered to pay for a couple of reasons.
1. Have you ever tried to split a bill with the FA's? It's just easier to pay the bill than the 30 min it takes to argue and divvy up the bill.
2. It's not about paying for someone who cannot pay the bill, the exception is the half wingers, but more as a gesture to take care of our own. Meaning, I'm clear saying this at the time, the deal for me paying is, when you upgrade, you have to take care of your own crew in the future. The better we work and stick together, the better off we are as a whole.

And I’m not sure anyone was saying they don’t or won’t pay the bill given the opportunity. Especially not the posted you quoted.

Any rumors circulating about when is the next vacancy bid???

Being a SENIOR FO is a choice, once you get to the point your seniority can hold captain.

As a regional guy I will normally buy a round of drinks, sometimes dinner. Of course we only have two FAs and we always end up at the same hotel. But as other said a lot of it depends on the crew. I’m not going to even go to dinner with someone I can barely tolerate the van ride with, and there are quite a few of those.

Woa. Check your privilege there, buddy. Lots of junior fos can hold captain.

Ha, my point was just>>

Unfilled CA = CA is a choice = FO is a choice.

But it was just a joke anyway

Sorry, didn’t see the sarcasm. But my point was once you get to the point you can hold a captain seat then it’s your choice to stay FO, but not everyone is there. And if you’re not, then being an FO isn’t a choice, isn’t just seniority.

No privilege here.

Wasn’t too long ago it took years to have seniority to hold the lowliest, suckiest captain seat at a lot of places. There are plenty of guys who spent years at Airways and ABX, to name just a few, unable to upgrade. Definitely wasn’t by choice.

Don’t worry, once you’re here longer than two minutes, you’ll get the joke.

Hell at one time Island Air in Hawaii was a 6+ year to DHC-6 Captain. Enjoy the good times while they last.

A lot of guys just flushed over a decade of of seniority and 4 weeks of vacation to get out of the regional C scale. But these guys don't exist because if you want a half-winger pin with a little "15" on top you have to make it yourself.

when the Y2Captains start complaining about being on reserve, getting crappy trips, never getting vacations, days off, trip trades, etc.etc. just remember they asked for it..

that’s true for all junior CA. It just happens to be Y2 now. It was Y10 at one point but the experience (crappy trips etc.) was the same…

Was being a junior captain really that bad with pre-bankruptcy work rules?

We’re entering an era where very few of us can claim to be doing a job we didn’t willingly volunteer for.

If you are assign 777 or 787 in class when can you bid out of it as a new hire if you don’t want it?

Two years.

2 years “down” to another FO seat.
When qualified if it’s to upgrade to 320/737 (off probation and hours)

Correct. Bunkies can immediately uograde to narrow body captain, but if you want to be a narrow body FO you've got to put in the time and learn your way around the system for a couple of years. We don't want new guys in those FO spots.

Do bunkie hours count toward the 500?

Yup. But they’d be hard to come by on reserve, particularly in today’s environment. You probably wouldn’t find anyone just skimming off probation that also had enough hours.

Unless you can hold NB CA first…

No idea what you’re saying here. Did you mean WB FO you’ve got to put your time in? Bunkies can upgrade immediately?!:confused: Are you applying previous airline experience to UA? Sounds like it. I too experienced another airline (hence my screen name) where the IROs/bunkies were senior and were paid more. Not the case here at UA! New hires that choose the WB will be bunkies for over a decade or until they upgrade. No thanks.:cool:

Fa•ce•tious (fuh•SEE•shus) (adj.)

He is merely pointing out the absurdity that a new hire selecting the 777 can potentially upgrade to 737 CA BEFORE they could legally bid 737 FO.

Very true. Strange world.

Almost half the seniority list retires in a decade

What’s DOH for the most junior wide body capt in SFO?

DOH is an inaccurate measurement, because a single data point varies so much by individual based on hiring cycles. For example, jr WB CA today is around 5500. At current forecast, that will take me about 13-14 years to get to. Some will get there much faster. I think the current 5500 seniority pilot has been on property a lot longer than that. So depending on hire date, it will take each pilot different lengths of employment to get to the same seniority percentage.

You can check your own seniority progression forecast to see how long it will take you to get to that point. Of course there’s no guarantee the jr WB CA will still be at 5500 by the time you get there.

Also keep in mind that that 5500 seniority WB captain is actually around 4800 due to the retirements we had between July of last year and today. His (and yes-it is a he) seniority will be updated again in July when we do our annual seniority list update and thus the most junior WB captain will not be in the 5000 range but rather in the high 4000 range. Make sense?

Good point. I kind of hate the once yearly seniority recalculation program. I’m sure it works better for what they need, but it makes seniority analyses increasingly inaccurate the later it gets in the (seniority calendar) year.

I also wish the company would post a DOH seniority list, at least for the post-merger hires. I understand that it’s a big secret so the L-XYZ pilots don’t resent the L-ABC pilots……but at some point it’s relevant information to the rest of us.

That information (board date) is available in CCS, just not in a list.

Which tab in CCS? I thought I had checked out every tab on CCS but I have never come across DOH before.

It's in shares. Just put in any JA-(any employee number), and it will show the board date.

Ahh, copy.

No. I’ve heard this rational before. It’s all relative. So Jr WB Capt drops 1k. So do we all. What’s the difference?
Are you saying in July they’ll remove those that took early retirement? They didn’t remove them last year.

They’ll remove them when they aren’t sending them a check every month, I believe.
Your point still stands about all things being relative, however. It’s not like those guys being removed from the list is going to create any new vacancies.

I think the difference is if you’re expecting to make WB CA when you hit 5500, that number isn’t fully accurate, since it last updated around 6 months ago. Also, considering early out pilots, the disparity between his company seniority & his bidding seniority may be much higher than it will be when you reach that same number. (I.e., his 5500 represents 4800 bidding seniority, but your eventual 5500 may actually represent 5300 bidding seniority, etc.)

Since seniority projections display in a month to month format- not annually- if you want to make an “apples to apples” forecast of when you’ll be at the same seniority point as today’s 5500 pilot, it would be more be more accurate to look at when you’ll hit 4800, rather than 5500.

(To be clear, I’m using the numbers presented in the post referenced- I haven’t run the numbers on 5500’s seniority.)

This never works anyway because it assumes a static fleet and staffing levels.