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"The best" fluctuates as contracts change. Also part of what is considered "the best" is where your seniority will be for the duration of your expected career, and in what base/equipment/seat. There is no perfect contract at any airline. A contract governs everything from pay, work rules, profit sharing, sick, vacation, trip construction, medical, insurance, scope, hotels, and just about everything else that can affect your pay/QOL/time off. Regarding seniority, movement is dependent on 2 things: growth and retirements. Only one of those is certain: retirements. Growth can be halted overnight (or be negative if planes are parked overnight if say a 9/11, recession, or fuel price spike happens). Airlines are a for profit company...when planes get parked overnight, pilots are on the street (furloughed). So financial health of a company also matters in that equation, to some degree. Delta has hired around 5k pilots since 2014. A lot of those are younger guys, and you'll never be senior to them if you are getting in now. UA has hired less than that, and AA has hired even less. Also, AA has hired a lot of Envoy flows who waited 15-18 years to flow, and they will age out sooner than many off the street hires. In other words, a lot of their hires have been older than the guys Delta has hired. The result of that is AA has the most retirements over the next 10-15 years, so movement there will be the most rapid. United is close behind them with retirements. Then comes Delta, then the rest (I think FDX, then UPS). SWA/JB/the others all have a lot fewer retirements. This means slower movement...although likely more growth at JB/Spirit/Frontier which kind of makes up for the lack of retirements, assuming the growth isn't interrupted. Also of note, Delta JVs out a lot of their wide body flying, so AA/UA have a lot more own metal wide body flying, thus more widebodies, thus more lucrative WB jobs in both seats, which will affect relative seniority, even on the NB side. A lot of guys will choose WB FO over NB CA. Overall, I'd say Delta's contract is the best, followed by United, then AA. But each has strengths and weaknesses. Delta's profit sharing is insane (16.6% for 2019...extra 2 months of pay). Their sick accrual is also leaps and bounds above everyone else. United has airport reserve (fk that). AA has lots of weak points. But all 3 are in negotiations, and those things are all on the table and could shift. Right now Doug Parker at AA told the pilots they have $150mil to make whatever improvements they want...that's chump change for 15,500 pilots given how far behind their contract is. United has Scott Kirby at the helm hellbent on more/larger RJs. Delta mgmt just filed for mediation, seemingly far apart with DALPA's asks. Right now, the financials of Delta support the most gains (or at least keeping the best contract), followed by UAL, followed by YUGELY debt-ridden AA. Doug says he will pay all that debt down. I'll believe it when I see it...but I doubt he gives AA pilots a contract anywhere near Delta's. But their seniority movement and bases may work better for people who live in say Dallas Charlotte or Miami. All 3 have fairly quick upgrades (albeit in less desirable bases), unheard of seniority movement/hiring/retirements, and are all likely going to trade off who "the best" is over the next 10/20/30 years. None has ever stayed "the best" forever. Southwest and JB have never furloughed, never gone through a bankruptcy, and have always remained profitable, even when the legacies hemorrhaged money, furloughed, went through BK, and all came out of BK with garbage concessionary contracts. The pecking order is this: go to who calls first. If 2 or 3 call, go to whichever one has a domicile you want to live at. If you live in a domicile of another airline you want to work at, keep applying there. Commuting to the airline with the best contract is worse than driving to work under the worst contract. For anyone considering entering the airline industry, or anyone who is in the airline industry and hasn't read it, I urge you to read "Hard Landing." It gives a nice history of the industry, all the players, and how all the airlines came to be. It gives a good history of who the biggest and best airline has been throughout history. In closing, there is a pecking order, but it changes. You won't know where you will end up in that pecking order until you retire. In 20-30 years from now when you retire from the airlines, the landscape will have changed tremendously, as will the pecking order. Best advice: make the best decision for you and your family now, sock money away and live like an FO even when you upgrade, hold on, and enjoy the ride. The only constant in the airlines is change. A lot of the bros getting into the industry in the last 5ish years only know the good times. It will not be good forever. When it isn't good, the pecking order of which airlines are the best tends to change. Delta is printing money right now with unprecedented profitability. But if you got hired there in the early 90s you got furloughed, went through a bankruptcy, lost a pension, took a few pay cuts, and likely never saw the left seat. But if you were hired there 5 years ago, you would be a NB Captain or WB FO today. TL;DR: Best contracts: Delta, United, American Best movement ahead: American, United, Delta Best financial health: Delta, United, American

Many years back (i.e. the good 'ol days) during Friday night fighter pilot bar Olympics, a dude trying to be funny came behind my wife and was inappropriate. Being the confident woman she is, she turned and delivered a nicely executed elbow to the face knocking the dude to the ground and leaving an impressive black eye as a reminder not to mess with her. No attorneys were required.

Jeeze, what else did he do that was inappropriate other than cumming behind your wife?

Yes. There’s no rank in the debrief. There’s no rank in the bar.

I realize this question may be highly subjective based on a lot of factors, but is there a pecking order amongst the majors?

Ended up going on the deployment. Got back and min ran anything office related. Flew as much as I could to make up the hours I missed out on and now I am retired. Missing out on 6 months of IP time certainly has hurt my chances at flying for a major however I have a pretty good job lined up. Check of the month club is a good thing!

Agree on the availability date. A bro of mine was getting out, I told him not to dick around with it; he did. Delta called and said "congrats your indoc date is XXX day." "yeah, I was hoping to change that to after YYY day." "If you want to work at Delta, we'll see you on XXX. Goodbye". He flies for AA now.

Yeah buddy. Scratching tick marks on the wall until then myself. Congratulations on getting to AD retirement!

What would you say the ratio of “good dude” erroneously railroaded because of vindictive women vs. the amount of women who’ve had to remain silent because of fear of reprisal, humiliation, etc.? Sit in any virtually any leadership position in the military, and it should be painfully obvious that one of these situations (while trending in the right direction at a very good speed) happens much more than the other. I ran a CDI where I ended up clearing a SMSgt of some bogus charges. In my brief from the IG as I was starting the investigation there was a clear bias against the dude. Everyone had already convicted him, so there’s one situation you can mark in your “guilty until proven innocent” column. It’s up to us to do the right thing. I won’t lie, I was convinced of his guilt as well. I talked to about a million people during the investigation, relied on the facts, and it was clear this guy was innocent. It wasn’t a woman trying to convince everyone of his guilt either, it was a jealous “good dude” trying to railroad the other guy... In my current role, DO in 2 different squadrons now, I’ve also seen 5 different instances where some “good dude” was being a total douchbag. Not making a judgment call on this situation because I don’t have all the facts. That being said, it’s a heck of a lot easier to believe some “good dude” coming from the old school behaved inappropriately towards a woman... Who on here can’t point to things they’ve heard said when some “good dude” thought no one was listening except other dirtbags...? Maybe I’ve just had the misfortune of working with more than my fair share of “good dudes” that still think that type of behavior is okay... YMMV. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

This thread took a violent left turn somewhere. The world some of you fucking live in....jesus. You act like there are hordes of women running about trying to entrap you in salacious situations just to ruin your careers. There are three sides to every story. Some of you dudes love to listen to just one.

If my son had been accused then found guilty by a military investigation of grinding against another mans wife.....I mean, do I really have to tell you what I would do to my son for that? Yes, sometimes women lie. Sometimes CDIs go sideways. But it isn’t a stretch to believe that a man, while drinking, touched this woman sexually in an unwanted manner. A better question is: what would you do if this were your wife? “C’mon honey, he’s a good dude.” Let me know how that goes.

Depends how good of a deal the approach is to.

@Lifer Advice on... -Would should I start the process to get medically approved to separate? -Any other Limfacs that I’m missing? I imagine this is the most appropriate and generic place for advice on the matter: being medically prepared for separation. This is not specifically about a Medical Separation/Retirement via Medical Evaluation Board (MEB)/Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES) although many lines cross all the way through to the VA. These are just the cliff note items I would've started thinking about sooner rather than later in hindsight loosely in this order also. 1) (Realistically) figure out your end game for your known medical situation/record. Do you have a 9-5 lined up and don't care? Do you want to go Guard/Reserve/other branch? Do you want to attempt a medical separation/retirement? Are you going to need an FAA medical post separation/retirement? With your end game in mind... 2) Go to records and get a PRINTED copy IMMEDIATELY (yes records are electronic now but ask to have them printed). Once in hand READ every page back and front. The goal here is to get to know your record and know what AF Medicine has thought of you throughout your career. You want to have more than a general "who, what, when, where and why" of your history in black and white without a doctor filtering it. But what are you looking for... 3) Research (depending on your end game). But the overarching research topic pertains to Veteran Service Officer/Offices (VSOs). They are not all created equal and some have better track records with the VA than others but researching them can help no matter your end game. If you don't have the time to sift through thousands of sheets of your medical record a VSO will aide in that but I understood them to do this so they could make a subsequent claim to the VA. Regardless they know what they're looking for regarding follow on VA claims. 3)a. Do you have a 9-5 lined up and don't care? I recommend caring. Even if private healthcare is basically in hand knowing your military record thoroughly now can pay dividends if things that happened while in service get more severe and you want to take it to the VA. Keep in touch with a VSO should the need arise to file your claim. 3)b. Do you want to go Guard/Reserve/other branch? The biggest issue with this option in today's deploy or get out climate is meeting deployability standards which feeds into Retention Standards. The Medical Standards Directory (MSD) gives the cliff notes on retainability and waiverablity for the different classes of military physicals. Also 48-123 (or at least it was) was a good starting point regarding AF medical standards. DoD instructions related to medical standards will also factor into this. 3)c. Do you want to attempt a medical separation/retirement? For this the deploy or get out climate could work in your favor. If you do not meet deployability standards you theoretically do not meet Retention Standards and should be entered into the MEB/IDES per the black and white of the 48-123. The Medical Standards Directory (MSD) is a great resource along with 36-3212 and 32-2110. Various DoD instructions govern this also readily available on the google. Oh and probably the biggest help for this is pebforums.com. There are literally decades of data related to MEBs on there along with very experienced moderators who can help in a professional capacity with representation. 3)d. Are you going to need an FAA medical post separation/retirement? All i know via the interwebs was some dudes had their FAA medicals pulled for Military Medical issues that they did not disclose on initial applications. I don't know the specifics as to how the FAA got wind of the issues but I think there was a thread on BO at one time with more specifics. All this to say for dudes needing an FAA medical post service accomplishing item 2 will get you in know on your medical history written by medical professionals. Also when I applied, the FAA wanted additional data on my condition and I was able to pull lab results over my years of service that resulted in the FAA granting me my medical. I've since renewed it without issue. 4) Cross-Check. Apply your research regarding your situation to you record in hand. Is there anything in your record that would prevent you from achieving your end game or perhaps make your case/VA claim? Tab it out, know where it is, know what it says, know who said it and at what time etc. This leads to the next item... 5) Applicability/Waiverability. It's more research as to how to make your case for your end game. Regardless whether you need a waiver or want something to be applicable what you're researching here is PRECEDENT. For those wanting to continue serving the Air Force Waiver Guide is a treasure trove of information of condition waived/metrics/tolerances etc. I do not know if the FAA has a published repository of granted waivers for conditions. The VA website has a rather robust database of claims/appeals/outcomes etc. Proving your case with the VA with the published data and a solid VSO is very possible granted your history backs up your claim within reason. 6) Fight's on. Regardless of what you want out of your current and/former medical situations go after it. Much of MEB/IDES/VA fights are more a matter of legality rather than medical "expertise." Meaning the systems are a CYA for the DoD. The onus is on you the member to make your case rather than the entity correct their finding. A private lawyer is highly recommended based on my experiences. With regards to attaining an AF waiver to continue with the ANG/AFR I've heard having the right flight doc align with you opinion COULD get you in the door and the subsequent waiver...but this is all hearsay. I have not met anyone yet that was "broken" from big blue and gained by the ANG/AFR, although on BO it is much easier for rated in this regard. 7) I HIGHLY recommend the last item you do right before dropping off you CaC is pick up yet ANOTHER PRINTED copy of your medical record. The items above could be years in the making with subsequent entries from the last printed copy. Make sure to get your request in with Records so they have ample time to print it before your final out. If you attempt to acquire your printed medical record through the VA post separation it can take 6-9 months before you receive that copy. 7)a. Ditto for Dental. They'll say your xray is your history. That's fine and dandy but I had them PRINT a copy of my entire dental record. It's not official as the original in your folder is kept and retired but the copy gives you something in hand to take to you next provider. ***BREAK for Dependents BREAK*** 1) Same as item 7 above. Get your spouses and kids records request for a PRINTED copy for pick up as close to your final out as possible. Of course records will say "oh just have their new doctor request it from us." Yeah...fool me once jokes on you, fool me twice...we know how that goes. Fun fact: you cannot request your spouses record they need to go in person to fill out the form. You as the sponsor can request records for your dependents under 18 i believe. Also if you have children you're probably already tracking that the Immunization record could be the most important document in your young off springs life. I requested multiple copies directly from Immunizations in addition to what was in the entire printed record. 2) Double down with Dental if were fortunate enough to have a dependent be seen on base. ---END--- Healthcare and the subsequent medical fallout from my service has been my biggest worry not only for my personal health but for my families mental, emotional, and financial health also. I hope this sheds some light on what you have to look forward to. Just remember you're not alone, there's someone out there who has gone through it before. Shaka brah.

The academics are not that hard, but do require effort. I've seen engineers not do great because they over-think the shit out of things; of course I've seen many do great. Most people usually blow off steam Fri night through Sun afternoon, then do some studying for a few hours on Sun. Or maybe millennials these days just show up on Mon morning asking to be spoon fed everything because there was no time to study on Sunday since skinny jean shopping took longer than expected.

Allow myself to quote myself

So I just got notified that my orders just changed from Randolph to Laughlin AFB. Same RNLT date.