jetBlue benefits ?

[Truckdriver]

Ok, I have lots of questions and I hope some of you JBLU people out there have time to help me out on a few of them. Here we go.

What kind of health and dental benefits options are pilots at JBLU offered, and what is the cost per month for a family of 5? Also, do the benefits start from day 1? Are the premiums for the group auto and home insurance reasonable? It also looks like the company pays for LTD insurance which is awesome. Who manages the 401K plan and are the fund choices any good? What kind of stock options and how many options do you receive when you are hired. Do pilots get to participate in the PTO plan and if so how much PTO do you receive? How much sick time do you start with and acrue per month? I assume there is no type of commuter policy, but I did hear that JBLU does not overbook any of their flights so that should make it a little easier to commute to work if you use JBLU. If anyone has time to answer a few of these questions I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[Blue Dude]

Health and dental varies according to your choices. The family plan covers 3 or more members of your family no matter how many, and you can probably figure on about $200/mo for coverage. Benefits start on the 1st of the month following your date of hire.

Group auto and home? What's that?

Paid LTD is nice but it only covers you for 2 years. Not very LT.

T. Rowe Price and the selections are decent.

6000 stock options, and I don't think they're ISO's anymore because of the new accounting rules. They are probably NQO's.

PTO accrues at 9 hr/mo for the first few years. Sick time is considered PTO, as is vacation. It all comes from the same pot.

There is a commuter policy, and if you miss your trip under the policy, plan to get paid out of your PTO bank. Sure there's no overbooking, but we have some the highest load factors in the business. If you commute on line, the jumpseat will be very familiar to you.


Best of luck!

 

[Truckdriver]

Group auto and home? What's that?

The web-site says that group auto and home insurance is available. I have never heard of a company offering those so I thought I would ask. It probably isn't really great if you don't know about the specifics. Thanks for all the info on the other stuff. On the PTO, sick, and vacation issue, if vacation time comes out of that bank, do you bid for specific dates of vacation based on seniority? If you had like 200 hours in there, could you take a couple months off or is there a max amount of vacation time you can use per year? I would also assume that the bank starts out at 0 hours.

 

[Truckdriver]

There is a commuter policy, and if you miss your trip under the policy, plan to get paid out of your PTO bank. Sure there's no overbooking, but we have some the highest load factors in the business. If you commute on line, the jumpseat will be very familiar to you.

I would prefer not to commute, but I doubt I could afford to live within driving distance of any of the JBLU hubs. Spending 250K on house wouldn't get me in a neighborhood where I would be comfortable leaving my wife and kids while I'm gone. I just can't seem to find any options close to hubs that I could afford the first couple of years. Is there any talk of opeing more hubs in the future?

 

[GuppyPuppy]

I would prefer not to commute, but I doubt I could afford to live within driving distance of any of the JBLU hubs. Spending 250K on house wouldn't get me in a neighborhood where I would be comfortable leaving my wife and kids while I'm gone. I just can't seem to find any options close to hubs that I could afford the first couple of years. Is there any talk of opeing more hubs in the future?

I'd check out southern NH. With JB getting a total of 11 gates in BOS I'd be willing to bet that BOS will be the next domicile. JB already does more flying out of BOS than LGB, which is a domicile.

I don't believe that NH has a state income tax. Property tax anywhere in New England is expensive. Until JB opens up BOS as a domicile, you can commute on the E190 from BOS to JFK...or BOS to FLL.

Good luck with your decision. If you decide to commute out of a Blue City, talk to some JB commuters who already live there who can tell you about the loads. BUF-JFK has a bunch (I think 70) of flight attendants. BTV-JFK has about 21 pilots and 8 flight attendants.

Cheers!

GP

 

[Truckdriver]

How long would it take to get to LGB? I'm from the left side of the country and would like to get to LGB someday. I know it isn't a big domicile, but how may pilots total are in LGB?

 

[jetblue320]

Lgb

How long would it take to get to LGB? I'm from the left side of the country and would like to get to LGB someday. I know it isn't a big domicile, but how may pilots total are in LGB?

I just looked at the February FO bid awards for LGB and there is 72 pilots (FO's) on the roster. I was shocked myself because the last time I gave it a thought I was under the impression we only has 50 or so crews (100 pilots) there.....
The senior FO was sen.#129 and the bottom was #1151. I think we have 1300 pilots total at JB so that means that the junior LGB FO is pretty junior. About the bottom 15-18 of the FO's were on reserve lines. Although it is possible, albeit remote, I have heard of new hires getting assigned LGB right out of ground school. I do know that it is a pretty senior Captain base and most of the upgrades (if not all) end up in JFK on reserve for quite a while (maybe years) until they have an opening in the left seat which allows them to hold LGB as Captain. The situation at the FLL base is very similar in all respects except it has a few more crews. The FLL FO count for Feb. is 94 with the bottom 20 on reserve. FLL FO's range from #90 to #1206 in seniority.

Good luck and I hope this helped.

C yaaaa