Need advice from the "experts"
 

My husband has been offered a job at
L- CAL....We are trying to be realistic as we try to make this life decision. He is a 12 year captain for a regional, lives in base and has a great schedule. His ultimate goal would be to be based in LA...or at least on the west coast. From all you experts does he have a shot in hell of having that happen in 2-3 years? As I read all your posts I don't understand a lot of what everyone is talking about but it appears that the CAL side is short FO's and after the integration the recalls will be used to fill any deficiencies...My greatest fear as "the wife" is that he will be furloughed. What are your opinions about being a new hire before integration. Is it really a great time to be hired or would he be taking a chance at how integration shakes out and could they decide at that point maybe they have too many pilots? (That might be a stupid question.) I am sure most Legacy pilots would think it is dumb for a regional pilot to even question taking this job but the whole "quality of life issue" VS. more money etc... is a big deal.

If he can handle commuting to Reserve in Newark for a few years, I think getting to the west coast will be possible. San Fran was a very junior airbus base years ago. Once the seniority list is ironed out, things will be more clear.

Not sure which regional he is at...but it's gonna be a pay cut for the first year. Not as severe as it would have been two months ago, but still a cut. Maybe break even on year two. I doubt his regional job is putting close to 16% away into his retirement.

How old is he? If he is under 45, I'd rather do the next 20 years at United than else where.

Sounds like Regional Stockholm Syndrome. Go to L-CAL.

There is never a perfect time to get hired, but this is as good as any. Retirements clicking, FAR 117 and contract requirements are driving the need for more bodies. Go for it, look at Comair and Pinnacle. There is no job security at the regionals, even Skywest (assuming). Although it looks good now.

To even consider staying after being offered the position is difficult to comprehend after watching what just happened to two very large regionals. Was he in a pool at CAL? I would RUN to united.

.....Do it.

It's funny, you guys act like United has not furloughed anyone in the last decade... or twice furloughed.

Agreed. i bet he can get to West coast somewhere in a year, two max.

With the sheer number off mandatory retirements they have coming up I would take the job at CAL and run. The QOL will take a big hit for the first year or two, but the money will get back to where it is now within 2 years, and QOL will come back.

worst day at a legacy is better than best day at a lift vendor..... if both are furloughing... and one has been around since the 1930s.... :eek:

Take the Job. Timing is everything. It is always better to start at a legacy airline at the start of their hiring push versus being at the back of line. It could be the difference between having a long uninterrupted career or twice furlough. Been here 24 years, the last 18 as a captain. I still have friends at my old commuter airline who never pulled the trigger. Best of luck to you both.

Yeaaah. I'm sure lots of Pan Am guys used that logic too.

There are probably many good reasons to jump from a regional to UAL but that's not one of them. Just sayin'

There were many pilots whom retired from Pan AM after 30 plus year careers...I say again timing is everything.
I could remember back to United darkest days when every other word about us was liquidation. ATSB loan denial, SARS, $130 dollar oil etc, and we are still here. I must say that after all of the above, the one thing that has me more concern is the way Jeffrie is running this place, but like every other CEO whom has come through this place, he is a short timer who will leave with his pockets full. There is a reason why United is refer to as cash cow.

He should take the job. Get a seniority number while he can. If he's young enough, he's going to have a great career. Furloughs happen, but UAL/CAL has between 300-700 retirements per year for the next 20 years.

That's a lot of pilots that have to be hired.

Getting to LAX or SFO in 2 years is going happen. When UAL was growing, new hires were going to LAX and SFO. As a matter of fact, the bottom 2 pilots on the list are in LAX and SFO.

.............

Compare the longevity of any given regional to that of United...

In addition this isn't the late 80s... United is the largest of three mega carriers... I doubt it is going away... but anything is possible... compare that with being at a outsourcer/vender/lift provider regional... and getting on during the front of the wave....


follow?

This.

At its core, every regional "airline" is little more than a crew staffing agency. The place to be is on the front side of the hiring wave.

I appreciate all the advice...but you all know how difficult it is to go from relatively senior...to at the bottom of the list. It will be many years I bet before this job becomes as good as it sounds. I still can't believe this industry and that you can have 15 plus years experience and yet you start at the bottom every time you make a move to a different company. Everyone who has no experience with this industry is shocked to hear that!! I know my husband has paid his dues a hundred times over and now he has to do it all over again.

I am a twice furloughed United pilot that is now working for CAL. It took me 9 months to get based in LA after starting on the bottom. SFO will most likely open in the next bid and my guess is it will be junior as it was at United. If your husband wants to go to a major he needs to get his seniority number ASAP. United is losing a pilot every 18 hours so even with United furloughed coming back there will be movement. If it turns out he doesn't like it here, he will get a 737 type rating just for going thru the training.

Seniority, seniority, seniority!

Go, go, go!

A good friend of mine went to work for one of the "better" regionals back in the early 90's. He became fairly senior, got his pick of trips on the CRJ700. In the last few years he worked in the training department and was home every night. He even blew off a JetBlue offer in their 1st year of operation. He worked for Comair.

Coto,

Where were you based when you first started at CAL and what are you flying? I am encouraged to hear you are already in LA after only 9 months!!! It would be a no-brainer for him if he knew that would happen. Are you on reserve or how long were you on reserve when you started?

I started in January of last year and my class was all 737's in EWR and IAH. I went to IAH. In the August bid I was awarded LAX. I was in LA in November and held a line that month. In December and January I was back on reserve, but could have had a line in December if I bid better. I have a line for February and hopefully will going forward but you never know. Next month I have 14 days off with layovers in Cancun, Hilo, Honolulu, Costa Rica as well as a few less desirable locations. I spent over a dozen years at regionals and enjoyed it, but if his goal is eventually to go to a major he has to do it now to get his place in line. Send me a PM if he wants to talk.

Was your husband a previous United hire that was in a hiring pool or was he some sort of special interest hire off the streets?

You sound like a fairly smart person, so I'm sure you didn't marry an idiot. Welcome to L-CAL!

Strange...my wife is fairly smart and she married an idiot??

Being based ANYWHERE is a start. Get your foot in the door and then work on the changes. Major airline jobs are one of the hardest to get, so don't let the opportunity pass your husband by..............he will regret it forever as he sees his fellow pilots and friends take jobs with them. Furloughs are part of the process (four for me), but we all get through them................and he may be hitting this hiring boom at the best time and therefore never have to worry about one. Best of luck to you and your husband.

There are 10,000 applicants desperate to hear from UAL that they simply got an interview, much less a job offer. Why did your husband apply and interview? It isn't an easy process. A lot of paperwork and prep. He was obviously pretty serious about it. Based on this alone it sounds like he wants to do it but is concerned about the short-term pain, which there will be for a couple of years.

But in the long term he is in quite a unique position. Neither CAL nor UAL has hired in many years. The airlines are in the endgame of 30 years of consolidation. The age 65 stall has ended. Most of the UAL returning furloughs have likely already been accounted for (650 of 1497 are already here and many of the 847 remaining many may not return). Both companies just emerged healthier from severe post 9/11 economic times.

IOW, your husband would be the first thousands who are going to hired in the next 5 to 15 years. He will be pushed rapidly up the seniority list by what will essentially be a torrent of hiring behind him. It might be said such a confluence of events has never occurred in this industry, and he will be on the front end, the ground floor. This will happen all the while the majors pit the regionals one against the other with ever declining pay and quality of life and increasing uncertainty.

OR, if UAL continues to be run like it is being run now, it'll be bankrupt in 10 years and go the way of Pan Am and other industry dinosaurs.

Seems like a great opportunity for any pilot! I think if he didn't take it, he'll be kicking himself in the butt for the rest of his life. I hope you are a supportive spouse and afford him this chance that others would give their eye teeth for.
(I'm a female, have been a wife, and am involved in aviation. As crazy and unstable as this industry is, you have to be supportive and remember if he's happy---you'll be happy. You DON'T want to be the one to talk him out of it since his current career is in your comfort zone. If you don't afford him this golden opportunity and his comfy regional gig implodes he will never forgive you and that won't be a good thing for your marriage).

Best of luck either way!

Pilots wife,

When opportunity knocks the first thing you do is open the door and let it in. Change is always scary and there is never a risk free option in this or any other business. All we can do is take the current constants and base our decisions on them. What we do know at moment is we appear to be on the verge of hiring explosion. If you are on the leading edge of that explosion you will be up and out of the mud of juniority in record time. If you wait to see if things are going to get better you may well be relegated to regional life from now on. Risk vs reward.

Let me just quickly share my situation with you. I was hired towards the back side of the UAL mid 90's hiring boom in 1997. I was on reserve for about 8 months. Within 3 years I was a top end line holder on the 737 in Denver. I then took a bid and was holding a line on the 777 in SFO with just over three years seniority. 9-11 happened and I coasted for about a year before going into a cycle of vicious seniority swings. I went from being a 777 FO to being back on reserve as a 737 FO, back to the 777 only to be chucked down to the 320 as an FO back to the 777 as an FO then to the captains seat on the 320 then back to the FO position on the 756 where I currently sit on reserve.

Guys and gals who were hired just one and a half years prior to me are holding captain seats or wide body FO seats. Guys hired a year after me are furloughed.

The point of all this is you always want to be on the leading edge of a hiring wave. The middle or the back side is where you are apt to find severe career turbulence, if there is another melt down. I'd say you guys have a golden leading edge opportunity here, what you do with it is up to you.

Exactly. ............

Pilots Wife,

I'm with the group that say you guys should take the offer. There are no guarantees out there for certain, and someone already mentioned Comair.

Ask yourselves if you stay where you're at where you'll be in 15 years if everything goes well at your current airline. Now, ask yourselves the same question with regard to where you think you'll be in 15 years if he takes the United offer.

Again, no one can guarantee what will happen with the airline, the economy, etc. But being on the front of the wave of hiring should provide a significant advantage to taking the legacy option. Timing is everything.

Take care,
Lee

Take the job and don't look back. Your husband has a good, solid job today but trust me when I say that he wants to move on with his career. If he didn't, he would't have jumped through the hoops to get the ucal position.

He'll be at the bottom of the list at ual, which means he have nowhere to look but forward. He can look forward to better pay, better retirement, flying different airplanes(320,737,757,767,777,747,787,350), better layovers, eventual upgrades.

What does he have to look forward to at a regional? Nothing. From where he's perched it can only get worse.

Furlough? Always possible. Given the amount of pilots retiring at all airlines, even if smisek screws it up he can probably land a job at delta, American, swa, etc.

Congratulate him on getting hired and move forward.

LNL,

I am letting my husband make this decision...it is not mine to make. I will support whatever he chooses. I am just trying to get information that might make his decision easier. He was "hired" by United in 2008 for one minute...literally. Thank God he never had the opportunity to take the job at that time or he would have been furloughed the past 4+ years. He was contacted by them out of the blue 2 weeks ago. So to the guy who said why did he apply (APC225)...well he did back in 2007 or 08. But he hasn't been sitting around for the past 4 years waiting for them to call....so the fact they did was kind of a shock...and hence the confusion in making this decision. It is very helpful to hear stories from all of you of how you got to where you are now. He does not hate the company he works for like a lot of regional pilots do but he is sick of people saying oh this is a "small airplane" and thinking that their lives are at risk because they are flying on a regional and of course it is every pilots dream to fly a "BIG JUMBO JET"!!!

This might come across as harsh, but if he doesn't take the job, he gets what he deserves in this career. A regional isn't a destination or stand alone company... it's just a vendor dependent on whatever major(s) it attaches itself to by underbidding the other regionals. It's an ever downward cycle and when the majors don't need you, they'll throw you away and you'll be out on the street... ask the former Independence Air pilots. Seniority is nice and I'm sure your life right now is "comfortable" but that comfort isn't nearly as secure as you think... ask the former Comair pilots. I've never heard of a regional pilot who believed they made the right move by staying at a regional unless they were very old or had no other options.

Life at a major will be tough at first... if you've got kids (expensive) and you don't work (significantly reduced income) it'll be tough at first. There's no guarantee against furlough at UAL, though at this point in the cycle I find it highly unlikely. Notice how many have said stay at the regional? The reality is you have no choice.

And look, even you took the job at L-CAL:D

Tpw,

Your husband would be absolutely crazy, in my opinion, not to take this opportunity that is being given to him. The "regionals" have peaked out at what they once were, as 50-seat jets are being replaced by fewer 70-ish seat jets. Mainline carrier scope clauses going forward are going to dictate a draw down of some of the regional flying.

As everyone here as stated, this is the beginning of the hiring wave and he needs to jump in now...not wait. Yes, once seniority list integration occurs, hiring will come to a halt for a period of time until the final UAL furloughees decide what they wish to do. As such, your husband will sit near the bottom of the list for a period of time before movement starts up again. Many of us experienced that same situation.

When I had the opportunity to come to L-CAL, I took it. I was in the top 10% in seniority of my previous carrier, a regional. I had the schedules I wanted, could avoid the places I hated, and was making decent money for my situation. In the end, though, a regional is not where I wanted to be for my career. I had to take a more than 50% pay cut to come to L-CAL. Yes, the first year was difficult, but it has been worth it and will only get better.

While you are there to support him and will respect his decision, I would also say this is a decision that you two need to make together as a family. Even ALPA has "family awareness" events for a reason: we are not in this alone and are not the only ones affected by the job. I'd strongly encourage him to read these responses and listen to the advice of others to take the job.

I also agree that getting based on the west coast is very likely within two years. It will end up being more junior than EWR if you ask me.

SFO has historically been one of the most Jr bases in the UAL system. There is good flying out of SFO on some fleets HOWEVER the cost of living in the bay makes it a tough place to live. LAX also tends to be fairly Jr. but not as Jr. as SFO.

As a pilot that lives out West and hopeful to get on with United at some time, this is great news! It just shocks me how Senior anything West goes for Delta and American but NOT for United apparently. Please keep the trend up for the hopeful pilots waiting in line!