Looks like a 40-year-old hired at UAL today would reach about #3200 at retirement... lots of hiring recently. Of course, the number of folks on the list 25 years from now is anyone's guess.

I’m 40. Hired at UAL in Nov 22. I’m ok with top 3200. Yes, I’ve ran the numbers. Not everyone retires at 65 (some earlier), keeps a medical, lives that long etc…I’m guessing around 2500 when I hit 65 if I can hang on that long. I also live in base, got the same wide body metal I was previously flying, life’s good. It’s all relative.

Easy decision. Hope to see you in the friendly skies soon.

I live in a United base and drove to work to fly the 737. I now commute by choice to fly international widebody and absolutely love it. This isn’t a 737 bash as I’ll probably go back to it someday but for me it’s nice to have options and variety in a long career. Do what works best for you but I don’t think commuting is the only consideration in your decision.

Don't know what it looks like as of today, but in the event of a recession, SWA has always had a much better debt load than everyone else. In keeping with my Debby Downer persona... consider the outside chance of getting furloughed and/or stagnating at UAL before you make the jump.

I would get a copy of both contracts and dig deep on the reserve rules. Many believe UAL reserve rules to be less than satisfactory and worst in industry. Make sure you can live with them.

You’d make a long term decision based on a section of the contract that very little of a career is spent dealing with? Of course things could change, but in the current environment one would spend less than a year on reserve unless assigned a WB fleet as a new hire. There are far more important variables in a career decision than what current reserve rules look like.

Does anybody have the total pilots based in DEN for United and the total for SWA? If you live in Denver and never want to commute ever again I am thinking SWA might be the better bet.

SWA has 659 Captains, 615 FO’s. A Nov 2015 hire is currently bidding 17% FO in DEN, and 1059 Captains senior to that FO will retire from WN in the next five years.

Once you’re off probation there’s ways you can stay in Denver forever at UAL regardless of fleet (TK Jobs).