AirGuardianC141747

Interesting take on cognitive skills, etc. Try asking that to those have been divorced once, twice or more (now I see your point at thrice) - especially later in their career. I have been fortunate thus far and pray to never know, but having flown with many who have I can understand the desire for the option. No one knows if their career was what they wished it had been until it’s in the rear view mirror. *Pitfalls are well beyond divorce of course, just saying. 60 or 62 more likely sounds the best for myself financially, but for those that reach a point/goal prior to the mandatory age it will be interesting who will actually hang it up. I surmise it will be tough for many to walk away from the figures being pulled down unless the job is absolutely horrible. So far I can’t imagine an easier “job” and many of us have had some truly tenuous jobs/careers.

I see both sides in various ways, but kind of irrelevant at many airlines as it becomes a significant issue every bidding cycle. Just sat 2nd seat in a group of four to Korea three days ago. 19 year Capt giving me a bit of crap for not jumping left seat as usual until I showed him my schedule - I mentioned not to hold back as “if you haven’t noticed you’re flying with the top 2% or better senior FOs today, two of us are on open time.” He did say he could rest easy with the experience base on board and I did respond regarding the abnormal amount of complacency we bring collectively! 🤪 Bottom line: People are figuring out that doing a little pain in the beginning definitely brings its rewards at times just a few years down the road. Our seniority gains aren’t nearly as great as the Majors so ponder that for a moment as hundreds are making the same assumptions and living it. Easier for those not driven solely by the $, but you can easily make it up if you have a seniority based overtime system as needed. United is attempting to ratify better schedules, more pay, etc for new hire Captains to alleviate their conundrum. *Focus: “United Airlines grapples with pilots avoiding the captain's chair” ”At American Airlines (AAL.O), opens new tab, more than 7,000 pilots have chosen not to take a captain's job, according to union-supplied data. Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for American's pilots union, said the number of pilots declining promotions has at least doubled in the past seven years.” **I myself won’t consider left until within the top 10% on my equipment, but who am I kidding top 5% is more a reality so I won’t kick anyone out of their seat - perhaps knock someone out of base momentarily is more like it. Not stealing food from anyone’s kids mouths. What an eccentric profession we chose to live in.

Very good discussions and definitely quite a bit off path from what I expected. Multiple perspectives regarding what we predominantly do in our specific realms in the world of aviation. Here I was thinking, dang - they’re going to have all of the conversations we had on our flight. Flights in my little world range from a minimal six hours to 14 hours plus just the other day which is normal. *Bottom line for myself - I will almost always take the Capt/FO who has been with our outfit the longest as we are not a cookie cutter operation. Sometimes none of the crew have ever seen the destination we are headed for and I will once again fall on my sword to the longevity crowd as it’s worldwide experIence that brings the rain. As you can see it’s situational as most things and the “almost always” I mentioned before is because of the known flyers I have flown who are outliers at best. **I can see the various view points on all the sides when pertaining to those types of standard operations. Good stuff!

Forget the extra two years being shot down. Didn’t anyone see the “25 hour cockpit voice recorder” requirement within the bill statement. No one will ever get close to the current 65 year max. Good luck to ya’ll.

Thanks for the info. Goofing around internationally right now, the country only let me have the first part of the article from the link. Maybe if SWA impacted anything in this region they would have been gracious enough to provide the entire picture. Doh! Appreciate the catchup!

If they’re leaving four airports I wonder which ones?

Danger41 gets a definite like for that comment now that I understand. Yowza…

Well put! At least Japan is still able buy Liquified Natural Gas (LNG)…for now.

All very informative and interesting. So - furloughs, door plugs, wheels, engines, engine cover or something off a SWA 73 recently, further economy issues, Boeing issues and delays of certifying Max 10 and other production, etc. - quite a bit of areas need to get their s**t together. At least Brown will be hiring for those interested and a slight boost for them, but overall just a shift of business within the $ spending world we live. Hopefully things will climb back up for everyone next year s we hopefully get past this 2024 year of many impacts and distractions. Stay safe out there.

Side note: While UPS starts clamoring for bodies to fill said 300 or so - This puts FedEx in a higher pilot overage losing that contract. I will not speculate on here, but for any Purple Pilot with actual information what’s next? Will it be just a prolonged attrition thru retirements or any goodness on upcoming contracts (via Tricolor effort perhaps) to fill this void and bring back higher flying hours. Hopefully the later.

Hopefully Boeing stacks its house of cards quickly during/after these investigations are done so SWA and United (UA decreased hiring/ton of Max 10 orders unfulfilled and substantially less 9s and 8s delivered monthly) Delta slowed up a bit supposedly. Wonder if SWA has a batch of retirements coming while awaiting Max 10 certification…? *SWA being triple in size to UPS (which is hiring something like 300 for their USPS contract and probably some retirements) has perhaps 400 maybe 500 retiring 2024-25 so things could change for the good. **Hopeful for those interested and spitballing of course.

Hopefully they find it “service connected” and you receive what you deserve - well more than 10%. Definitely go and get it checked out several times with different physicians. I have disc trauma like many in my neck due to NVGs back in the day in the AF. During early Army time my lower back got messed up and shattered bone shards between the discs were causing immense pain. Had pain killers and eventually dumbed those down thankfully. I had documentation for the above and plenty more issues. Oddly enough I received ratings for a lot of other stuff and none of the above. Uncover anything you have/all of it!!! VA Director I met working at the Pentagon when I worked in D.C. said: “Throw everything at the VA Dart Board, they determine what sticks.” Unfortunately you must dig into your records and pull anything and everything doing your homework to ensure documentation is entered into the process. Pains me that many aren’t recognized for their ailments. It also pains me that at least half didn’t delve into the process with some effort to include their documentation. Wish the system had a way forward to do it for you - but You must take care of You! Still doesn’t work out for many.

ERJ be tight. Probably squeezed it right out of him like Taco Bell. 🤪

Doubtful if any mail for anyone was on board, but the passengers on a United 777 who left Frankfurt for San Francisco yesterday had to turn around for an interesting issue over the North Atlantic. United Airlines flight diverted after toilet overflows into cabin…

Definitely the same as us, unless it’s OE of course and I lose opportunities as it should be priority wise. Currency gets tight though when you keep getting paired up with the OE couples… back to back to back… Staying senior FO brings some very nice trip pairings, but the senior OE Capts can hold these as well, hence the high amount of First Officer Attendant duties. Unless the aircraft requires an autoland I enjoy being up front and it’s easy for the most part as many newer folks just don’t want to fly for some reason or another. It’s been a few years since I have ever used seniority to my advantage for good reason. Most of our Capts are great, but when I have heard bad rumors of an upcoming flight with one I will push to the third seat or fourth to verify. Being senior to more than half of our Capts has benefits and brings questions, but after seeing my schedule, other benefits, etc. they get it.

At our outfit it reads more like this: A High Minimums Captain has less than 100 hours PIC in aircraft type. The 100 hours PIC is not Company specific, but the 100 hours in type cannot include OE/ILC time. PIC time personally logged under 61.51 as a type-rated FO acting as PIC on augmented segments shall not be credited toward this 100 hour requirement. (Only because us FOs are type rated as Capts) We also sign in when Boss is sleeping - to get into more trouble/emphasize Capt isn’t sole owner of responsibility. I always knew this, but it does help to put more reality to those who are lackadaisical up front… You can also reduce the 100hr requirement for every landing by one hour not to exceed 50. A few weather related approach requirements such as adding 100ft to the MDA or DA to include 1/2 mile vis (2400ft). That’s why I when I fly with a high mins Capt they are doing every takeoff and landing… *It helps us not to pair a newbie or those on “watch” with high mins Capts which makes sense as first timers having had no PIC time at all…

Divert - First request Philly, then Pitts, but eventually ended up in Baltimore supposedly. Voice change hence aircraft control and radio swap over perhaps. Tower seemed on it.

Oh man, was on a Delta 76 Delta One ride JFK-HNL beginning of the month going to pickup a jet and they mentioned WiFi was inop. Had in-flight entertainment so I didn’t care sleeping half the time, but people were steaming. Recalling plastic horseshoe headsets with projector screens blurred with cigarette smoke (not your choice of two or three movies shown) keeps me from complaining. Always can be worse.

Totally agree! ORD is my base only for the variety of flying outbound rarely to return and that’s it. Fortunately it’s 10 min to the Doubletree Misery (Good Hotel but inferior to our OCONUS digs), our own dedicated heavy ramps N/S, direct drop to your 3 flights of stairs plus one workout and secure your own aircraft. Departing for the Pacific, Asia, Europe, Australia always makes me smile putting these run down cities behind the tail. *The outlier areas are awesome I agree. Miss my former driveable HSV base. It was such a hassle free area - Make traffic call, Click the lights, call Memphis and depart or land and close it up if the tower went home. Good times.

Sounds familiar, be like JFK is what you’re saying. I’ll take the monotone, self- critiquing, slower ORD, unless it's the JFK “follow the 76 Widget in front of you - your number 29” conga line that’s easy enough. Sad we can’t be like Korea. “Eksit KiRo foRRow da gureenz…” slight language barrier here and there, but so much simpler…

O’Hare is painful at times. Especially when you’re at SE Cargo and you find out you need to get your bird to the NE Cargo ramp to load before departure. Somebody messed up and we paid the over an hour taxi movement fee. Still better than Shanghai, especially when the home teams are up and running as you always take a back seat.

Agree wholeheartedly. Remember when our own system was only a 100 above that as the commercial requirement and we all ran around on those puddle jumpers. I think even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had more hours as well and flew in his own uniform.

Down to my last pair of issued tan flight boots/bricks and based on the weight no wonder they were free. Lucky to have received so much overage before you had to buy them yourselves. Still use a decades old LBE from early army training when plinking targets on my neighbors farm. Current tac belt is nice, but the LBE just works when strolling around extra pellets. Very few items I still use like the waffle shirt after retirement as the rest was unleashed to a local Army/Navy store or dumpster many years ago. *Not a scarf or were they called neckerchief to be seen.😜

As long as those smaller birds don’t fly to Hawaii. Good thing they can’t make the JFK to HNL. So much better on a 76 Delta One.

Dang, just got booted from the employee parking due to SWA making BNA a base vs satellite or whatever location. Guess I deserve it overall as I never ask my company to book with SWA… If there were more comfortable seating, service classes and big pond crossings it would be a consideration as well as being partnering with outfits that capitalize on comfortable travel and other accoutrements. Honestly I blame BNA for once again poor financial/capacity planning. Went from $25 per month to $75, then $120 and $150 for 2025. It adds some parking tactics and seems it will work out not paying for several months in which I don’t fly out, but it was convenient.