Hugo Stiglitz

Cool, maybe we can veer this thread into owning the libs again… I don’t see anything new about popular support for a foreign leader fighting an adversary. I bet the 1940 Grammys would’ve had Churchill up on sat video. You know, if they had satellites. And video. And the Grammys… I submit to you that this is a continuation of a long trend in warfare. Top of my head, the Soviet-Afghan War, Vietnam, Korea, Spanish Civil War, I’m sure I’m missing some. Oh here we go: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proxy_wars

Wish I could get my wife to say this…

Depending on which side of the Bay you’re on, getting in/out of OAK is a heck of a lot easier drive than crossing any of the bridges (I drive from Sac). It’s not a massive difference on Waze, but it is when you find yourself doing it multiple times monthly, and traffic variability is much lower at OAK. Also on the last day of your trip you generally won’t get flow delays flying into OAK, whereas they’re pretty common at SFO. Not that the SFO drive is BAD…plenty of people do it. Just relatively speaking if you have both CJOs and haven’t otherwise found a tiebreaker then it’s something to consider. Oh, and all the above is predicated on not actually having to stop or stay at a hotel (no nice areas or hotels near OAK). Good luck with both!

Open source suggests that the strike was however successful in taking out MG Simonov, their Chief of EW, and who—based on the fact that he couldn’t prevent collection assets from locating and passing along the coordinates for himself and the Chief of the General Staff to Kyiv—was not doing a particularly stellar job.

Pros/cons to everything. I’ll say it depends more on personal preference but isn’t universally bad. Personally I’ve never had a bad experience with passengers, and the interactions keep things less mundane. People watching can be fun, especially the Friday night flights to Vegas and Monday morning flights out of there. Cheesy too, but I actually appreciate when kids do things like wave from the terminal or want to check out the cockpit…reminds me of how I decided I wanted to fly in the first place. Only thing that undoubtedly sucks is having to pay attention to when the seatbelt sign is on or off and (at least in the Guppy) how the weather is in the back…

Question for the Airbus drivers: if these guys were in an A330 instead of a 777 would this have been another AF447, or was there there some kind of update after that crash to make competing commands more obvious?

A classmate of mine is on the SWA hiring team. Lots of things SWA can be doing better, but hiring criteria has generally been on point. Haven’t flown with a douche during my (almost) 5 years here. The hiring guys attribute that to 2 main factors: an overarching philosophy of “who would you want to fly a four day trip with?” and ultimate pilot control of who gets hired in the form of a decision board of chief pilots and line pilot inputs. Anyways, according to my buddy the number of qualified applicants dropped over 20% between hiring windows earlier this year. The team had to adjust their philosophy to “who COULD you fly a four day trip with?” Also the extra time it takes to hold a decision board means even more candidates are bailing after getting their on-the-spot CJOs from OALs. Add to that the perpetual uphill battle of only offering unsexy flying in an unsexy airplane and suffice to say my buddy’s extremely pessimistic about the candidate pool by the end of the year. Side note: for any of you non-douches reading, do I have a job opportunity for you!

That’s an interesting historical background I’d never heard about, thanks for sharing. I’ve had many a discussion with great FCCs scratching our heads about why they were ineligible for things like AMs/AAMs. It’s a double whammy because by missing out they’re leaving major promotion points on the table in a perpetually undermanned career field. Also the reason the FCC was on stage is because the AC made it a point during his speech to bring him up there to highlight his contribution. In fact he said if he had a game ball he’d give it to the FCC. IMHO it was a genius way to make the whole chain of decision makers look inept, which I think was probably at least 50% of his intent.

Fighter track washout, then over to the Moose. The rest of this is second-hand, but from sources I trust. Anyone with direct knowledge feel free to correct: - Had unsubstantiated sexual assault claim in AMC - Came up with the female callsign at DLF that got the Sq/OG/Wg CCs fired - Got hired in the PA ANG but had it retracted same day for getting into an argument with one of the pilots - Another buddy’s unit interviewed him but passed because of excessive douchiness - AAL new hire - Deceased (posted bail then offed himself)

Anybody feel like discussing how this whole thing could’ve been avoided if only Putin had considered our Western perspective and not just thought with his Eastern one? Maybe there are some tweets on the subject? It’s perfectly fine to acknowledge there are 2+ perspectives in every conflict. To whatever degree one might understand the other, the fact remains that whoever decides to take up arms is more at fault for upsetting peace and stability. If I’m reading some of these opinions correctly, they’re saying that just because Russia is wrong to have invaded Ukraine that doesn’t relieve the West of culpability. That must be true since here we are, but the problem with the next step of identifying what we could’ve/should’ve done differently is it forces us to prove a negative. It is not a fact that not expanding NATO/disbanding NATO/losing the Cold War/not entering WW2/etc. would have resulted in a more peaceful world today, especially if the person responding to these moves may or may have not been a rational actor. It may be that Russia was going to retake Eastern Europe no matter what and under whatever pretext was most convenient. We’ll never know, and just because Putin’s said something on the topic carries little water given his loose relationship with the truth. So while I encourage introspection to identify specific steps we could’ve taken to help avoid catastrophe, unwinding 30 years of the new world order and all the national interests that we have made concrete gains on is a bridge too far for me.

I can speak to the hiring projections. Previously they said 1,500 new hires but didn’t have any month by month breakdowns (beyond Feb) of how many butts in seats they intended to fill. Today the director of crew planning sent out the hiring numbers for the rest of the year: 1,372 total, broken down by month. Not sure that’s a reduction per se or or probably just a more fine-tuned projection than the 1,500 wag. That said, training instructors are definitely the long pole in the tent. Unlike other airlines our line pilots don’t run sims, and without a flow from the training center to the right seat the only people they can find to be instructors are pretty much retirees or maybe those who can’t hold a medical. Undoubtedly some of the seats that could be going to new FOs are instead being occupied by new hire instructors to meet the training volume demand. WRT to general cynicism, can’t speak for BADFNZ, but can confirm folks are pretty burned out. The root cause is the company used the pandemic to add cities but was already short staffed due to (overly) generous early retirement and sabbatical programs, so the added flights came by reducing frequency between other city pairs. As soon as that happened all elasticity pretty much disappeared so minor Mx/Wx events turned into major meltdowns. Line pilots basically all became online reserves and JAs skyrocketed so there was basically no point bidding a schedule you were not going to end up flying. Add to all that the company’s transparent ploy to pressure Congress for additional CARES Act dollars by issuing warn letters to 1,221 of our junior pilots, and they darn near took a torch to the one tangible draw for pilots to come to SWA (the culture! we’ve never furloughed!)…lots of unhappy campers. Putting rose-colored glasses back on, based on the recent ALPA video coming from AA it’s clear the schedule shenanigans were being felt elsewhere, and in our case the added return of our guys from extended leave plus new hires and a new CEO cautiously bodes well for returning to almost-normal. My Feb schedule hasn’t been jacked with FWIW!

For your first question, depends how much you value Tricare. But let’s say you retire at 42, you’ll have 23 years til mandatory airline retirement. So you gain $50k x 23 years = $1.15M. What you give up by spending 8 years on AD is the 8 years at the end of your airline career (before mandatory retirement). So those are 8 years you could’ve been a senior captain. $350k annually is a very low bar to clear for those types, so you lose out on $350k x 8 years = $2.8M (minimum). That’s why conventional wisdom is conventional. ARC gives a happy medium of still having Tricare and getting some type of retirement while starting on the seniority list ASAP. I personally don’t know anyone who’s even remotely regretted leaving AD, even guys who start at regionals. Even during bitter contract negotiations when everyone’s mad at the company and the company is playing games, nobody would trade that for SAPR training and non-vol PCS/TDYs. The post-9/11 furloughees might have a different perspective, but can’t predict that kind of thing. Gotta take the plunge in life sometimes!

SWA

You’re not wrong, and of course the other piece of that is the airline policy. My memories are vague on this, but I think either my application or interview invite had some requirement that read along the lines of “military must be fully retired/separated or on terminal leave prior to the class date.” Then at the interview I remember signing something and later was asked to verbally attest to that. So, I have no recommendation about what to do, just a data point to consider how you’d respond.

Probably depends what you mean about movement…if it’s relative seniority in seat then HOU isn’t terrible for a SWA FO. It’s currently #7/10 (virtually a tie for #8) in order of most to least senior FO bases. While I’m no Nostradamus, I’d guess you could be off of reserve by your 8th month and enjoy a pretty decent QOL as soon as you’re onto hard lines based on the ability to move trips around and also pickup since you’d live in base. However if upgrade is what you mean by movement then Southwest is about as bad as it gets. The junior HOU CA is a May ‘14 hire and while I’d love to say all the projected hiring will bring those numbers down, I’m a pessimist at heart!

Ugh, so true. On the bright side, no more CRO reports? Including the worthless CRO OPR they made me do when my boss retired plus this new SCOD, that’ll put me at 6 OPRs during my first 4 years as a Guard DSG. Comes out to a new OPR for every 26 days of actual duty. “Physically present! Proved existence at regular intervals--enhanced recollection for 40+ unit mbrs” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

FWIW I’ve averaged about 5% seniority climb annually during my first 4 years here, which included probably 1% in 2021 and much higher in 2017. Back then I think we hired around 900 and they’re saying 1000-1200 for ‘22. There will be some temporary turbulence surrounding displacement/extended leave returns these next 4 months, but I think the hire date of the junior PHX plug is less important than the fact he’s only 5% up the seniority list. Holding within a year is reasonable, and I had classmates holding around half a year in ‘17. To answer your question the bases from most to least senior currently are ATL > DAL > PHX > DEN > MCO > LAS > BWI > HOU > MDW > OAK > LAX

Current junior SWA guy is 95% system seniority (Nov ‘18 hire).

Not an expert on AA pay scales and work rules, but I have a strong suspicion that NB FO vs SWA FO is probably similar enough in compensation. Not real sure how QOL compares but probably also averages out. I can say SWA has 16 days off guaranteed which I think(?) is more than other majors, and it has an extremely flexible schedule. I haven’t missed a Christmas/birthday/anniversary in my first 4 years. The AA seniority progression is light years ahead of SWA though. SWA upgrade is probably no sooner than 8 years, whereas I think AA is probably at least half that. So as soon as you jump to that new pay scale you’re going to rapidly outpace SWA in salary. You could try to be Nostradamus and gauge job security based on financial strength/unsecured debt at each company, but maybe the pandemic shows that in a pinch lots of other forces like government intervention, strategic shedding of assets, etc. can stave off disaster.

Some really good posts recently and a huge reason I’ve enjoyed following this thread since I was applying 5 years ago. Now that I’ve picked my poison I enjoy learning the details of life at the other carriers. One of the frequent things I heard in my Guard unit was how SWA flew regional schedules in the Guppy, i.e. 6 legs per day with min overnights in between. There have been some occasions I’ve done 5 legs (never seen 6), but just as many I’ve done 1. My logbook says I average 2-3 legs per day. Talking to guys from the other majors I’ve concluded that it’s really not any different than NB domestic elsewhere. Everyone’s got unique work rules, some better, some worse, but it really just averages out to be about the same (including earning potential). The bigger knock on SWA is obviously the lack of opportunity to mix it up, see different destinations while making more efficient pay in WBs, etc. SWA flying’s been the easiest thing in the world but still interesting enough to keep me entertained…but will I still feel that way in 20 years? Doesn’t matter, I’m stuck anyways! So really the question is do you prefer to drive to work for your career or commute to be able to keep the door open for what could be more fulfilling opportunities down the line? It’s a good dilemma to have.

Secondhand information to offer, so assign whatever value to that as you may. Saw text screenshots sent to our pilots from 2 center controllers, one JAX and one HOU, and both said Jax is perpetually undermanned. Weather forced traffic into an area where 6 sectors were being covered by 6 controllers. Couldn’t route around other side of weather due to airspace in use by the military. TMU attempted to slow roll traffic but not enough. All 6 controllers worked past their mandated in-the-seat time without breaks and eventually timed out, hence the ground stops. Again, no direct knowledge, just regurgitating.

Correct on most counts. The union obviously would lose big if SWA can make a case that this was a job action, and ironically they’re not being helped by the outside voices who want it to be true. But they pulled analytics and objectively there have not been any more sick calls than usual, and also we’ve had more off-duty pilots volunteering to pickup than usual…unless the union’s blatantly lying (which would be dumb because the company has the same data). The union has had a suit against SWA for the past few months regarding status quo violations while in negotiations (SWA has unilaterally implemented all kinds of policies), so the vaccine mandate got tacked onto the suit as an additional violation. Haven’t heard anything remotely close to putting a figure on how much of the pilot group is fully vaxxed from the company or union, so I’ll leave that untouched.

Fact. Our union pulled the data and showed this weekend we’ve just had an average number of sick/fatigue calls and higher than average volunteer pilots picking up trips. The root cause is boring: they stretched the network too thin before staffing was back to appropriate levels, so there’s no slack to absorb any disruptions at all, which is a compounding problem in a point-to-point network. SWAPA’s been warning about it for months, and sure enough this is the 2nd or 3rd time it’s happened this year. The fact it happened a week after the vaccine mandate is coincidental, but it’s been fascinating and somewhat horrifying watching how rapidly misinformation is created and then propagated as fact. Is this how doctors have felt this whole time??

Following up, company e-mail from Southwest yesterday said next window is October 1-10 for anyone who might be interested.

I’m not 100% on their process, but to answer your question they’ll likely do a new window for the post-Dec classes. That won’t change anything on Pilot Credentials, but you’d have to do a new app on ICIMS or whatever that Southwest Careers page is called. I think it saves your previous app, so shouldn’t have to start from scratch at least. From what I can tell, whenever they open a window they’re targeting specific availability dates based on the classes they already have planned. As they expand classes or don’t offer enough CJOs or have people decline CJOs they might dip back into that pool of applicants to do another round of interviews, but when they announce more classes for later in the year there’ll be a new window since the previous one might have excluded people whose availability was a little later. FWIW when I got hired in 2017 there was just one big window and classes every month. The company says that’s their plan for 2022…I sure hope so.