GVFlyer
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2002
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firstthird said:"It's ironic that the guys who couldn't get on with the majors and went to Southwest are now in the best shape."
posted by GV
What say we rephrase that, maybe to something like
"It's ironic that the guys who couldn't get on with the majors and went corporate are now in the second best shape."
Why do you assume corporate Gulfstream G550 captains are in second best shape? A senior Southwest captain only makes about $178K a year and has no A plan or B plan. In addition to not having a defined benefit pension plan he doesn't have stock options, a before tax executive savings plan, a discounted stock purchase plan or a bonus program which in my case is at least 10%.
If you get the right corporate job, you will make as much as a senior legacy airline captain used to make, fly better equipment to more interesting places and have a better quality of life.
And why do you assume that pilots in my squadron that went corporate were unable to go to an airline. Everyone that applied to the airlines was hired somewhere. In my case, I could start in a civilian Gulftsream job at six figures and I just couldn't see suffering the economic opportunity loss of spending six or seven years at an airline to get to what I could start at in a Gulfstream. I also have an issue with unions.
firstthird said:My point being that not everyone who went to SWA in the mid 90's was there because "they couldn't get on with a major." In fact, SWA has had the 1000 turbine PIC min for a long time, meaning that many people hired by the majors in the mid-90's didn't even meet the mins for SWA.
The hiring requirements at my unit at Andrews AFB included 2500 hours of multi-engine jet time.
firstthird said:Also, many of the guys I know that went to SWA in the late 90's had their choice of airlines. Also, many of the guys that went to the various other majors had their choice. It came down to each person's priorities. Now me, I've only ever had one airline interview or job offer and consider myself fortunate.
In my outfit, for the guys that wanted to go to the airlines, the preferred carriers were Delta, American, Northwest and United. The general consensus was that the pilots at Southwest worked too hard for too little pay. As I suggested in my previous post, we did have two guys go to Southwest who did not get call-backs from the majors.
firstthird said:Another quibble, SWA has been a major for a long time too. The new terminology seems to be legacy (hub and spoke) and LCC, although no one was talking about 'legacies' in the mid-90's so we can let it slide.
Thanks... I understand that the current definition for a major is an airline doing a $ billion or more in annual revenues and Southwest certainly qualifies under that standard, but as you suggested no one was using the current terminologies in the 90's.
GV
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