"My Perspective" (to quote a good buddy)
I haven't waded in in a while but I'll post some thoughts on the job:
Right now this is not a good place to be. When I was hired it was not a good place to be. In between it was a great place to be. Why? Pay. Pay drives the mood of this place. Pay, like everything else, changes by the year. New hire pay sucks now, FO pay sucks now, Captain pay is average now. It'll go up again, but it may be a while. If I were in the pool right now I'd take the job if nothing else better were available. But personally I would leave if SWA offered me a job. FedEx and UPS would be a coin toss and I'll tell you why: I came to Alaska knowing that they at the time had the second lowest pay in the majors. I came here as my second choice behind SWA, and barely ahead of FedEx/UPS. That choice was based on one criteria alone: Job security. These airlines have a history of doing well and SWA is the king in that dept. Alaska, although historically trails far behind SWA, does much better than most other airlines.
The big thing that has changed recently is the attitude of the company. Pay aside, know one knows the game plan of mngmt and why it seems they are trying to run this ship aground with all the outsourcing, pay reductions, etc. The mood at this airline has gone downhill dramatically. Besides pay and stability SWA has a big edge in employee morale right now and that would drive my decision, and is a big reason why I am considering leaving four years of senority. Will I do it? First, it has to be an option. I'm not going to make any rash decisions. Alaska is going through some hard times right now, but there are a lot of advantages over even SWA. For example, in my opinion, being able to fly in Alaska is the most fun flying there is in an airliner. Also, where else can you work for a major as a line holder where the majority of the lines in a particular base are turns and you're home literally every night. We still get crew meals (not great but edible). Our layovers are 90% high vacation spots. In my opinion we have the best pilot bases in the industry. These are all pretty subjective opinions but they're food for thought. Speaking of pay, we got hit darn hard, But aside from SWA, compared to the rest of the industry, we do OK. But d@mn that hurt!
With regards to scope (or lack thereof) I'd like to have it, and I think we need it, but I'm not necessarily scared of it. I think if the airgroup wanted to give our 737's to Horizon they could have done that already. I'm not saying I don't want scope because I do, really bad, but I don't think our job will completely disappear without it.
We still have a very well funded A plan. It cost a lot to keep it, and whether it will be there when we retire is a flaming discussion, but the point is we still have it, it's healthy, and new hires get it also. It takes a lot of well managed 401K to outperform a well managed A plan.
When I was hired in 2001, the first jumpseat I rode on for training I introduced myself to the FO I was going to shadow and the 1st words out of his mouth were "what the he!! are you doing here?" Within a year later we had a 23% pay raise, this FO upgraded, and next time I saw him he couldn't stop talking about how much he loved the place.
I guess what I'm saying is give it time and hopefully things will heal here. If you have nothing lined up with SWA, Fedex, or UPS, then I wouldn't give up the Alaska thing. The pay will go up, it just might take a couple of years. But one thing I caution, don't expect to come here and be a captain in 3 years. It won't happen, even with the retirements. Right now we have 1500 pilots. Before the pay cut you needed to be about 900ish to upgrade. With the paycut I expect that to drop to about 800. We retire about average 55 a year for the next several years (63, 75, 53, 46, 51, 54, 49, 48, 50, 56). At that rate with no growth you're looking at 14 years to upgrade. Hopefully that is worst case because I expect there will be growth. But in 4 years here I have moved up about 100 numbers.
