The new airline thread

[Guardian]

I know several sub 1500 fighter and test pilots who got hired at American.

[Longhorn15]

I call BS. How many 750 hour mil pilots have been picked up by a major? I bet zero.

You missed the point. The military wants to get rid of the 1500hr rule so that it is easier for civilians to go to the airlines. The 750hr rule isn’t the intended target. The AF longs for the dark years of 2001-2014 where commercial aviation wasn’t attractive. That way they can treat us however they want and more people will stay. Regional FOs making sub-$20k was great for the AF.


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[di1630]

I call BS. How many 750 hour mil pilots have been picked up by a major? I bet zero.

Edit: Yes, the regional's are probably drooling over it but how many military fixed wing guys are seriously considering a regional?

I know some FW guys who decided it was quicker and better long run to go get hours in the regionals for a year to break 1,500 rather than stay AD. Some spent only 6-9 months at the regional and were quickly picked up by a major.


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[SurelySerious]

4 hours ago, di1630 said:

I know some FW guys who decided it was quicker and better long run to go get hours in the regionals for a year to break 1,500 rather than stay AD. Some spent only 6-9 months at the regional and were quickly picked up by a major.


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Shack. In contrast to those who stay AD to try and keep their salary while getting hours; three years later, guys who went regionals are at year two with a major and guys who stayed AD are not at 1,500 still. 

[MooseAg03]

I know several sub 1500 fighter and test pilots who got hired at American.

I’m just wondering how that happens when American’s qualifications require an Unrestricted ATP?

https://aa.pilotcredentials.com/index.php?a=qualifications



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[Guardian]

No idea. Ask them. Those dudes were hired.

[Guardian]

Maybe there was a modifier considered.

[Flaco]

5 hours ago, Guardian said:

Maybe there was a modifier considered.

FAA Definition

 FAA Regulations (14 CFR  1.1) defines flight time as “block time” as follows:  
 (1) Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing; or  

 (2) For a glider without self-launch capability, pilot time that commences when the glider is towed for the purpose of flight and ends when the glider comes to rest after landing.  

ICAO Annex 1 Definition:

Flight time — aeroplanes. The total time from the moment an aeroplane first moves for the purpose of taking off until the moment it finally comes to rest at the end of the flight.

 Note — Flight time as here defined is synonymous with the term “block to block” time or “chock to chock” time in general usage which is measured from the time an aeroplane first moves for the purpose of taking off until it finally stops at the end of the flight. 

 

Apply early, apply often my friends...

[Orbit]

22 hours ago, Flaco said:

Apply early, apply often my friends...

3 years from ADSC?

[nunya]

1 hour ago, Orbit said:

3 years from ADSC?

Sure, just put an honest availability date.  You may waste a few bucks on the app websites but you may get a call sooner than you think.

[FUSEPLUG]

Probably preaching to the choir here, but 2-3 years out is also a good timeframe to start "tightening the belt" on your finances if you're considering separating for the airlines.  Pay off the car loans, eliminate credit card debt, start building up the rainy day cash account....

Everyone talks about how much first year pay sucks, but it doesn't instantly get better when second year pay kicks in.  While YMMV, and having heeded my advice above, it wasn't until about year three at the airline that I could finally start to "loosen the belt."

While I love hearing the stories of folks going to indoc while on terminal leave, it seems to be the exception to the rule.  Plan accordingly.

[Smokin]

I've heard of military guys getting invites 9 months prior to their avail date.  Pair that with 69+ days of terminal and you're potentially getting the interview a year out from your ADSC.  A smart guy starts actively prepping (apps, recs, interview prep) a year from possible interview, so 3 years is a bit ambitious, but not crazy.  Really the only money you waste putting your apps in early is the annual fee for the app websites.  Many interview prep places are one payment for life, so might as well start a while out.

[HuggyU2]

11 hours ago, FUSEPLUG said:

Everyone talks about how much first year pay sucks, but it doesn't instantly get better when second year pay kicks in.  

UAL goes from $91/hour on 1st year, to $140/hr second year.  American isn't much worse.  I'm guessing Delta is as good or better than those numbers.  Not to mention profit sharing.  

How much more than $140/hr does it need to be to "instantly get better when second year pay kicks in" in your world??  Do you fly for Air Kazakhstan?

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by HuggyU2

[FLEA]

What does vacation time off look like in the airlines? I realize the money is good but the military actually gives a very generous leave package. Travel is my passion and I'm worried about having the money but not the ability to go anywhere. Yes, I realize airline dudes work less days but my understanding is many days off are "reserve" and they are a bit tied down to go anywhere/plan anything. Am I wrong in that remark? 

[ARAMP1]

2 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:

UAL goes from $91/hour on 1st year, to $140/hr second year.  American isn't much worse.  I'm guessing Delta is as good or better than those numbers.  Not to mention profit sharing.  

How much more than $140/hr does it need to be to "instantly get better when second year pay kicks in" in your world??  Do you fly for Air Kazakhstan?

 

Agreed...  I thought we were going to be eating ramen noodles during year one, but I wasn't making much less than I was as an O-4 on active duty.  We were prepared with cars and other debts paid off and we rented a house and had a little bit of money saved.  But, we still had a zoo membership and a membership to the children's museum, went to concerts, movies, etc so we still lived a fairly normal life.  

My first month of second year pay, I cleared $25K, so it really did instantly get better when second year pay kicked in.  

[Duck]

If maximizing pay at an airline was your primary goal, which airline seems to be the best? (Besides FedEx)


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[gearhog]

1 hour ago, FLEA said:

What does vacation time off look like in the airlines? I realize the money is good but the military actually gives a very generous leave package. Travel is my passion and I'm worried about having the money but not the ability to go anywhere. Yes, I realize airline dudes work less days but my understanding is many days off are "reserve" and they are a bit tied down to go anywhere/plan anything. Am I wrong in that remark? 

If your schedule has 15 days off, those days are yours. Your "reserve" days are considered "days on". For months without vacation, I typically bid to work four 3-day trips per month, Tues thru Thurs. I often work at the ANG in between. On rare occasion, I may feel unfit to fly, so 1 of those trips might get a sick call, and I have a stretch of 9-10 days off to recover.

For vacation, I get 4 weeks per year. During the Sept vacation bid, I try to spread those weeks out across the year. This year I have a week in Feb, a week in Jun, and two weeks in Oct. In Feb, I'm taking my wife to the Caribbean for a few days, and South FL for a few days. We have line bidding so I bid trips that touched either side of my Feb vacation. Those trips are dropped with partial pay. I have just under 3 weeks off for 1 week of vacation. I don't really need that much time off in Feb, so I'll pick up additional flying for extra pay. My week in June will easily be three weeks off should I want, and plan on taking 2 weeks for a west coast vacation with the kids. October is my favorite time of year for working around the home/farm, so I bid the first and fourth weeks of vacation and typically pick up one or two desirable 3-4 day trips somewhere in the roughly 6 weeks off. Last year, I spent 15 days in Oct driving around Europe with the entire family, flying standby there and back.

On Active duty, I always carried over 30 days of leave balance and always felt pressured (admittedly sometimes self-induced) to not take more than a week at a time due to the weight of all my responsibilities/additional duties. The differences between AD and Airlines in the ability to travel and have stress-free time off is nowhere near a reasonable comparison.

 

Edited January 27, 2019 by torqued

[Hacker]

4 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:

How much more than $140/hr does it need to be to "instantly get better when second year pay kicks in" in your world??  Do you fly for Air Kazakhstan?

My experience has mirrored FUSEPLUG's, although my financial hole may have been a little deeper than others since I had an extra year flying at the regionals for $20/hour in conjunction with training pay and first year pay at my career destination.

It has taken a while to replenish the decimated savings account, re-acquire just some of the stocks/investments that were liquidated, and re-establish the retirement account contributions that were halted during that time.

Yes, the 2nd year+ pay is great, but there's a while lot of "double up to catch up" that has to take place which blunts the acute impact of that extra $$ coming in.  I am 2.5 years into my career job (on 3rd year pay) and, no kidding, am pretty much just now getting my pre-USAF-retirement savings and investments sorta back to where they were before the journey to the airlines.

I'm not complaining: I knew what the financial cost was going to be and prepared for it before leaving Big Blue, and the investment has been worth every nickel.  But, the recovery has taken longer than I expected it to, even with a substantial eventual increase in income over USAF O-5 pay.

[Buddy Spike]

1 hour ago, Duck said:

If maximizing pay at an airline was your primary goal, which airline seems to be the best? (Besides FedEx)


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Delta or SWA

[Hacker]

2 hours ago, FLEA said:

my understanding is many days off are "reserve" and they are a bit tied down to go anywhere/plan anything. Am I wrong in that remark? 

Yes, you're wrong.

Off days are off days. Reserve days are work days.  Never the two shall mix without you intentionally deciding to do so, although some airlines have a (not) wonderful thing called "junior manning" in which you can be involuntarily assigned to work.

It differs from airline to airline, but they will all have a minimum number of days off per month regardless of what kind of schedule you are able to bid.

The suck is the highest at the regionals: the airline I was at had a minimum of 11 days off per month by contract, but I ended up bidding schedules that gave me closer to 14 or 15 days off per month.  At my current airline, I beat the contractually guaranteed min days off by one or so on average, which again is by choice based on the lines I like to bid and what my seniority can hold.  More senior pilots can beat that substantially while getting paid about the same number of credit hours.

You can obviously choose to fly on your scheduled days off to make extra coin, but just realize that it isn't like the military where you're "owned" by the man 24/7 and can just be randomly made to work on days you were previously told you'd have off.

[Duck]

Delta or SWA

Southwest? That’s interesting. Even with the extended upgrades to left seat?


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[Hacker]

2 hours ago, Duck said:

If maximizing pay at an airline was your primary goal, which airline seems to be the best? (Besides FedEx)

FWIW, FedEx has limitations on how much open time you can pick up every month that, by my understanding, other airlines do not have.

[Buddy Spike]

28 minutes ago, Duck said:

Southwest? That’s interesting. Even with the extended upgrades to left seat?


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It's all in the work rules.  

[Guardian]

Delta or SWA

By no means do I know anything about this. I am just surprised to hear SWA. I hear they work you to death for your coin. I realize that wasn’t the question posed. I just can’t imagine doing a 4 hop for SWA compared to a one or two hop for DAL which makes the same amount of money being the better route to make more money. Sounds like you would have to kill yourself to make a lot of money. If the question were:

Which airline allows you to maximize your pay and work the least? What would your answer be?

[so.it.goes]

Since Hacker brought up the Regionals, I'll add some more (current) information, since I think the incredibly recent turn of the Regional industry (read, last two years) is going to be the nail in the coffin for the Guard/Reserve side of the house.

 

I'm a Guard baby (Captain) and quickly got sick of only being able to snag 150-300 hours of flying time a year, due to the increased AD-Lite mentality of the Guard and all the extra admin duties and responsibilities that get thrown on you. I snagged a job at a Regional (that takes me an hour-and-fifteen-minutes to get to the employee parking lot) just after they more than doubled pay from what Hacker was talking about. Since that time two years ago, two-to-four other Regionals have jumped their pay WAY up... Endeavor is currently leading the way with $50/hr first year FO, $60/hr second year FO, and $93/hr third year CA pay. 

 

In 2018 I deployed for a couple/few months, took a two month AGR gig, and flew the line at the Regional as an FO... I live in my Guard city, take a short drive to the airline, and between the two gigs I made $100,000 and blocked ~700 hours... Let me reiterate, I'm an FO at a REGIONAL.

 

They're FORCE upgrading people here at like 18 months (due to the shortages), so by the time I upgrade to the higher money in a couple months, I'll already be able to hold a line in domicile, due to all the guys junior to me already being forced to the left seat. I was doing the math with the CA I'm flying with on this trip yesterday, and (assuming I do the minimum AFTP/RUTA count for 2019 and maybe another month's worth of Orders at some point, and then upgrade around April) I'll probably make close to $120,000. This guy's a LCA who drops trips every month and he makes $120K. Add the minimum amount of Guard work and you're pushing $150,000... at a REGIONAL.

 

Just wanted to throw that out there, because I keep trying to tell my leadership that THIS may be an even greater threat to our ranks than the imminent mainline hiring... I know we're losing senior IP/EP types, but what's going to happen when that trend continues, and then the young guys are bouncing AS WELL? No longer is it a huge pay-cut for the younger Lt's/Captains to hit the Regionals for the block hours. It's a pay bump (not to mention a GUARANTEED paycheck vs. Guard bumming), and it's infinitely easier to build those hours as well. I'm doing 85 block this month, and 90 next month. I was the high-time pilot in the Squadron at one point this year with 75 hours... in three months. 

 

Big AF, the Guard, and the Reserve have no idea... 

Edited January 27, 2019 by so.it.goes