Make sure you check out some of the great earlier threads on this topic too- e.g.: http://forums.flightinfo.com/showthread.php?t=98607
Before I came to NJA, I had blinders on for the majors - now I am glad I ended up here instead. 7 days on too long? Well, yes, but to me it "feels" like a 5-day airline trip. That's because I disagree with the earlier comment that frac work is "harder." Simpler, yes, but I find the airline routine MUCH more monotonous and physically tiring. Two caveats: the closed cockpit door of airliners allows for inflight studying of essential cockpit reading during long pax legs; and NJA seems to love early shows... I do miss the way I could bid for late shows at the airlines, since I am no morning person.
Granted you don't do any stocking/cleaning/bag-schlepping at airlines, but on the other hand, that typically only eats up 10 minutes or so of a frac turn, the turns are usually 90-120 minutes as opposed to 20-60 minutes, you very rarely plane swap throughout the entire tour (the NJA term for a trip) so you are not doing the bag and gate shuffle, you dont have to do the food court or crew room and security shuffle, and even if you need extra time to get the turn done safely, no one ever questions you about it. Besides, half the legs are ferry legs.
And getting 3 or 4 x 21 day vacations a year (not even including sick or paid time offs that result in more 21 day vacs) on top of all the 7 days off etc all the time is something that no airline schedule can ever match.
Money wise, the amount of "soft" money at NJA (eg the 50% match on 401K without any real limit, the 100% coverage of family medical premiums, etc) can add up alot too.
All that said, if one can't consider one's life complete if you don't fly a heavy one day, then no point in regretting that. Also, if one knows that one will be happy at an airline domicile (I can't imagine ever being happy living in an EWR, DTW or MEM but hey, to each their own!), it certainly offers things like short trips or even day trips that make for lots of nights at home if you have a family with kids. But I find for the most part, airline bases suck as places to live, and even if you manage to put down roots, you get the shaft every time some bean-counter decides to shake up the basing. (Of course, I say this on the assumption that everyone at NJA will get 100+ bases to choose from soon.)
Last but not least, airline pilots are probably a bit better placed to benefit from the boom of pilot shortages in the coming years. Still, even this will surely pressure NJA to sweeten compensation during another IBB, since they'll need to recruit from the same pool. Yet the airlines will always be much more vulnerable to future 911 type shocks, operating much closer to the margins, such that they just go nuts with the furloughs as soon as there is any trouble. I know, as an old dawg sim instructor once told me, that you should never invest in "anything with wings," but I'll take NJA relative stability over the crazy accelerator/brake style of the airlines anyday. That has been SWA's secret to staying in the black and becoming an 800# gorilla too- not over-expanding during the booms.
Before I came to NJA, I had blinders on for the majors - now I am glad I ended up here instead. 7 days on too long? Well, yes, but to me it "feels" like a 5-day airline trip. That's because I disagree with the earlier comment that frac work is "harder." Simpler, yes, but I find the airline routine MUCH more monotonous and physically tiring. Two caveats: the closed cockpit door of airliners allows for inflight studying of essential cockpit reading during long pax legs; and NJA seems to love early shows... I do miss the way I could bid for late shows at the airlines, since I am no morning person.
Granted you don't do any stocking/cleaning/bag-schlepping at airlines, but on the other hand, that typically only eats up 10 minutes or so of a frac turn, the turns are usually 90-120 minutes as opposed to 20-60 minutes, you very rarely plane swap throughout the entire tour (the NJA term for a trip) so you are not doing the bag and gate shuffle, you dont have to do the food court or crew room and security shuffle, and even if you need extra time to get the turn done safely, no one ever questions you about it. Besides, half the legs are ferry legs.
And getting 3 or 4 x 21 day vacations a year (not even including sick or paid time offs that result in more 21 day vacs) on top of all the 7 days off etc all the time is something that no airline schedule can ever match.
Money wise, the amount of "soft" money at NJA (eg the 50% match on 401K without any real limit, the 100% coverage of family medical premiums, etc) can add up alot too.
All that said, if one can't consider one's life complete if you don't fly a heavy one day, then no point in regretting that. Also, if one knows that one will be happy at an airline domicile (I can't imagine ever being happy living in an EWR, DTW or MEM but hey, to each their own!), it certainly offers things like short trips or even day trips that make for lots of nights at home if you have a family with kids. But I find for the most part, airline bases suck as places to live, and even if you manage to put down roots, you get the shaft every time some bean-counter decides to shake up the basing. (Of course, I say this on the assumption that everyone at NJA will get 100+ bases to choose from soon.)
Last but not least, airline pilots are probably a bit better placed to benefit from the boom of pilot shortages in the coming years. Still, even this will surely pressure NJA to sweeten compensation during another IBB, since they'll need to recruit from the same pool. Yet the airlines will always be much more vulnerable to future 911 type shocks, operating much closer to the margins, such that they just go nuts with the furloughs as soon as there is any trouble. I know, as an old dawg sim instructor once told me, that you should never invest in "anything with wings," but I'll take NJA relative stability over the crazy accelerator/brake style of the airlines anyday. That has been SWA's secret to staying in the black and becoming an 800# gorilla too- not over-expanding during the booms.
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Crew meals are provided on the road as needed, and they're usually pretty good. Certainly better than food-court dreck, that's for sure -- that's one thing I won't miss at all about the airlines at all.
