How does seniority work for the bid system? Is it based on the type or just straight hire date? Because it seems unthinkable that you could be 2 years from mandatory retirement and still only senior to 7 guys.

I'm only senior to seven guys in the left seat of this particular category in this particular base. The category is 7ER, which comprises the 757 and 767. Every category/base/seat has its own seniority list, based strictly on date of hire. Thus, my current category is actually 73N/NYC/A (A=Captain). My new category will be 7ER/NYC/A.

There are guys in the right seat (First Officer) of the 737 who are senior to me. For personal reasons, they have chosen control of schedule over upgrading to Captain. They get their first choice of schedules every month, every holiday off, and the most desirable layovers. To each his own.

Everything in this industry is date of hire and luck of timing. My hire date was 30OCT 2000. There was virtually no hiring for years after 9/11, so although I was accruing longevity for pay purposes, I was not advancing in relative seniority. I was furloughed for 39 months and luckily I still accrued seniority during that time for pay purposes. Thus, when I returned in 2005, I got 5th year pay rates instead of 2nd year rates. It wasn't always that way. The contract that was signed just before I got hired had that new feature. That same contact also had a "No Furlough" clause which proved to be worthless when the company declared force majeure (act of god) after 9/11.

Hiring started back up in 2007 and really picked up from about 2013-2016. We have many guys hired during that period who are flying as Captain now. My first upgrade (and I took the upgrade at the first available opportunity) came in 2013 or 14 (can't remember now...maybe it's in this thread somewhere). I had to wait 10 years longer. Why? Because the only way to move up is when a seat opens up and you have the seniority to hold it. The reason these new guys are moving up so fast is that we have tons of retirements going on. Seats only open up in one of three ways: retirements, death or disability, new aircraft coming to the company (every new plane requires about 6 crews to staff it, more or less).

USAir was, at one point, the harshest example of what a crapshoot an airline career can be. They went so long without hiring that, at one point, I think the most junior guy on the seniority list had about 17 years with the company. Just imagine being there and being the plug (as the bottom guy is called): perpetually on Reserve, never getting holidays off, last choice of vacation weeks, and just generally being the company's b*tch. Oh, and also still being in the right seat after 17 years. At the same watching contemporaries, who took a shot going with the upstart airline called JetBlue, upgrade to Captain after six months (I actually have a friend of was one of these six month upgrades at JetBlue. He was going up for his interview just weeks after 9/11, sure that he had made a huge mistake. Worked out pretty well for him.)

I chose to take the transition from Captain of the 737 to the 7ER category knowing that I will likely be on Reserve for, perhaps, the remainder of my days at Delta. I'm willing to do that. It's the plane I'd like to retire in and when it comes right down to it I really don't care where I fly, and I really don't care about holidays off. I just flew a five day trip (Tuesday through Saturday) over Thanksgiving. Didn't feel like I missed a thing, except perhaps politically contentious discussions while eating some turkey. I just told my passengers that this was "the best Thanksgiving ever."

I just want to say good luck! We’re all counting on you!


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I guess that is relatively later in your career than people your age who came in straight from the military?

I knew a guy who was more or less in that position with USAir. When they merged with America West there was a giant union battle about how to handle the seniority of the merged airline because straight date of hire would basically elevate everyone from USAir over everyone at America West. In fact, I don't think it ever got resolved before they merged again with American and I think they eventually wound up going with some method other than straight date of hire to prioritize the merged pilot list, after more than a decade of fighting over it. My sense is that the America West guys got screwed in the end on the theory that all the USAir guys were about to retire anyhow.

That's true, and also the fact that I didn't start at Delta. I was at ACA/Independence for seven years.

I certainly was late to the game, having had a career as a Systems Engineer/Programmer. I remember interviewing with American Eagle in 1993. After taking the evaluation ride in the simulator and acing their written test, the interviewer told me that I would be getting an offer from them but he cautioned me that I had very little chance of ever flying for a major airline due to my late start. When I ultimately took the job with ACA, I still had that mindset and figured I'd fly at a regional career until I retired. First year, my pay was $16.23/hr, quite a pay cut from the $100k or so I was making. I never looked back. I was enjoying every day and now, as a 767 Captain, my pay rate will be $296/hour...certainly a liveable wage.


Mergers are rarely done strictly by date of hire. When Delta and Northwest merged, there was a lot of work done to achieve an equitable merge of the seniority lists. With both airlines being ALPA carriers, there was a little less gnashing of teeth but you can find lots of pilots who feel they got screwed.

One of the overriding considerations is to consider career expectations. At the time of the Delta/Northwest merger, Delta had a much larger fleet of heavy aircraft and extensive routes to Europe. I won't try to go into any further detail (mainly because I'm not well versed in all the issues), but I ended up senior to some guys who got hired at Northwest before I was hired at Delta. However, those guys now got a seat on an international fleet rather than the old DC-9 they were flying (and would likely end up their career on). They immediately enjoyed a pay raise and rosier career prospects. Compensation and career expectations are really the important thing here, wouldn't you agree?

In the first few years after the merger, we heard grumbling from pilots on both sides both, all of them convinced they had been personally screwed, but that all died out years ago.

Individual autos have various quirks; if you drive two of the same year/make/model, you might notice differences in handling or something.

Would you get enough experience with a specific aircraft to notice quirks (if they even exist from aircraft to aircraft)?

I really haven't noticed individual airplane quirks since I started flying the large jets. When I flew the small turboprops, there was the occasional "bad apple" in the fleet...planes that seemed to be hard to trim for flight. It's been at least 20 years since I've had that feeling about a particular plane.



And now, for some completely irrelevant info...

Last night I was on the island of Grenada. My first time there...beautiful island. Tonight I'm in another place I've never stayed overnight: Oklahoma City. Tomorrow night I'm in San Jose for a 23 hour layover. Time for some poker at Bay 101.

Oh, and I was recently awarded a transition to Captain on the 767-ER (which also includes the 757 fleet). When I started this thread back in 2009, I was a First Officer on this fleet. Now I'll end my career in the left seat. This pleases me.

Congrats!

This pleases me too Woxof! It's been fantastic following this thread for a few years, the ups and downs recovery etc. Best thing on the Internet!

Happy holidays!

Congrats on the upgrade! Upgrade times at my airline are ~18 months (insane) but after six months in the right seat, I'm in no rush.

I had no idea bay 101 was so close to the airport. I have a San Jose overnight coming up so I know where I'll be spending my time!

Congratulations on the transition. This has been a hugely interesting thread for me, thank you for taking the time to keep it up for so long and letting us share in your experiences.

Yup, it relocated about a year ago. Just down the street from M8trix. If you're staying at an airport motel, you can probably walk there in short order.

Mind if I ask how long the whole process took?
From classes, pilot training, certificates and all.
Then how long you actually stayed as a first officer before making captain?
I hear the pay jump from first officer to captain is what’s really worth in the end. And staying there till retirement obviously

The whole process? From zero time to where I am now? Well, I took my first flying lesson in February of 1977, two months after graduating from college. Then yada, yada, yada, I'm heading to training as a captain of the Boeing 767.

41 years? Jesus!

I think your surprise is a consequence of the vagueness of your use of "the process." He didn't say it took him 41 years to make captain.

I might have missed the gist of the question being asked. My first upgrade to Captain was in 1997, after three and a half years at Atlantic Coast Airlines. I upgraded to Captain of the J32, then the J41 and finally the CRJ (Canadair Regional Jet). At Delta, I've been captain on the MD-88, B-737 and, in a few months, the B-767.

So what you’re saying is, you have to be trained to become captain for different aircraft?

Yes, that is true. The first time you go from first officer to captain, they call it upgrade training. When you go to a different aircraft, they call it transition training. But that's just semantics; the training program doesn't change for upgrade or transition.

We also train first officers to the same standards as captains and a first officer gets a type rating for the aircraft, which appears on their FAA pilot certificate. It used to be that the type rating was only given to captains, except on trans oceanic aircraft fleets where there are times during a flight when the captain is on rest and two first officers are in the cockpit and therefore they needed to be type rated on the aircraft. At some point, the company just decided to type rate every pilot in training.

So, my pilot certificate already has the 757/767 type rating on it. But because I've been away from that fleet for over a year, I'll have to go through the full course again, as if I had never flown that type.

The training program has a four week footprint and should be pretty easy considering I have about seven years of experience on the 757/767.

Slight change of subject...

Many people outside of aviation seem to think that the "co-pilot" is essentially a beginner, an apprentice of sorts. But the first officer is trained to the same standards and may actually have more total experience than the captain he's flying with. Hoot Gibson, a NASA shuttle pilot who commanded several missions, signed on with Southwest Airlines after leaving NASA. Imagine having a pilot with all that experience flying as your first officer.

The guy I'm with on my current trip just joined the company six months ago and he's still on probation, so I actually have to submit a "report card" after our trip. Last night, when making my initial PA to the passengers before departure, I mentioned this fact to them and added "Before joining us, he has spent the last several years flying the Vice President of the United States around." I figured that's something they could tell their friends and family.

Yikes! So being a first officer for some many years and making <40K year is a total pain in ass and what most will say not worth it, because >100K is only for captains

I don't know how you came to this conclusion or where you got those numbers. A first year FO on my plane makes about $92k a year. A ten year FO makes about $195k.

Just going by what some videos on YouTube, how difficult it is to make $ starting off as a first officer for many years. Some claim as low as 37K a year working for smaller airlines

Check out this website for airline pay rates from several years ago. Not sure why the rates haven’t been updated, but I notice that it shows at least one regional airline (Republic) with a top FO pay rate of $37/hr. Most pilots are going to get paid for approximately 1,000 in a year, so perhaps that’s where the $37k number you mention came from.

I’m not sure what those pay rates are today, but I suspect that they’ve improved.

Is it like casino jobs tho, where the top pay jobs are not gonna get in without much time in with airlines?
Almost like dealers, a fresh out of school table games dealer is not really gonna get that top $$ gig even if he’s better than a veteran who’s been dealing for 15 years. Just the nature of the beast

Yes, the first year guy doesn’t get paid what a 12 year veteran gets. The real pay bump comes with the upgrade to Captain, and the time required to upgrade can vary significantly. As I’ve mentioned before, USAir had FOs with 20+ years at the airline because they went so long without hiring. But for guys who got in on the ground floor with JetBlue or Virgin America, upgrades came in less than a year.

We have about 800 retirements a year for the next couple of years, so time to upgrade will be much shorter for new guys than it was for me. There is no set timeline.