Ask yourself if you would still come to United if MCO737 didn’t exist.

 

Let's keep this thread about the OP, versus starting another political fight. Fear monger with your old gang, JB, somewhere else.

 

My 2¢ (while we are still minting pennies)- at 32 & unattached I’d make the move. To paraphrase the old investment axiom, “Time [at your retirement airline] is more important than timing”. The last decade (COVID aside) has conditioned many of us to think boom times are the norm. (They aren’t.) Economic uncertainty is usually dangling out there, & signing on to the bottom of a seniority list is usually scary. Luckily your life circumstances seem to provide you decent flexibility in a worst case scenario.

 

I think we just found pipeman.

 

If the reason you are staying at B6 is truly in the hope that B6 will be bought out, you are STILL rolling the dice. Ask the VX guys at AS - those ones still there. You never know what the SLI is going to look like, or what the retirement situation will be at the combined carrier.

United still hasn't hit peak retirement and that covers a multitude of issues, but - yeah - no question it's starting over on probation pay.

 

-You will never fly widebodies or long international at JB.
-JB is one economic sneeze away from going TU.
-There are still a bunch of retirements coming up at UAL.
-United is "too big to fail".
-There is nothing like bidding and thinking "Where do I want to spend Christmas this year? London? Paris? Y'know, let's go somewhere warm. How about Sydney?"



Let's say you take the April class, get furloughed in December, get a job at Home Depot and aren't called back for 5 years. You'll still be 37 years old with a senority number at a major airline.


I was a CFI until I was 35, got on with a regional (history lesson: look up "Pay for Training") and got hired at my major at 40. Furloughed a month later and called back at 45. Many of my FOG generation would kill to have this decision, and there's no question what the decision would be.

 

This!!

But, iahflyer said with good reason that MCO will never be a widebody base. However, it strongly appears that we will be moving over to Terminal C next year (and JB is leaving. Source was a plannng doc posted by the MCO airport authority showing terminal C airline revenue streams next year - JB was zeroed out and UAL was in its place.). Maybe the move will never happen. But if it does, the pieces will be in place for UAL to fly significantly more widebodies into MCO and all that might entail (my understanding is we currently only have one WB capable gate in MCO). We already have a big maintenance base in MCO, so expanding flying should be easy with more capable gates. I'm saying there's a chance, maybe one in a million (ok, better than that but you get the joke).

Perfectly understandable to stay where you are. But, if you do you will always wonder what might have been. If you are okay with possibly moving to a UAL hub or commuting, plus being exposed for a few years to possible stagnation and/or furlough - I say make the leap.

 

I vote to make the jump. Look out 10 years, is there any reason to think JB will more likely be around than UAL, in any form? No.

It's a bit of a process, to go from hiring, to furlogh. Its like turning that aircraft carrier. I do agree, the economy can throw curve balls.

If needed you can always go to the Far East to put that Airbus experince to work, as a bonus, a wife is added. I think it could be a bonus.

 

Not really important but that document was incorrect and B6 is not leaving C terminal.

 

You’re 32 now - when you’re 55 in 23 years it’s most likely going to be single pilot, or they’ll open up the sky’s and Aeromexico will be flying domestic flights because they can’t pay pilots 2
million $ a year. I wouldn’t enter this profession or suggest it to someone about to graduate high-school.