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NWA or US Airways

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propdog

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
Posts
207
I got interviews with both NWA and US Airways. What do you think is a better deal? To be more specific:

1. Better movement-faster upgrades
2. Better growth
3. International flying
4. Time to hold wide-body FO
5. Pay and QOL
6. Stability---nevermind
7. Commutability from Houston

IMHO, I think NWA has better job security. If you get furloughed, at least there is a flow-down agreement with Compass. Appreciate any insight into both companies.

Also, is it true that the worst major job is better than the best regional job?? I am enjoying good schedules, a good contract and around $70/hr as a captain at a ExpressJet.
 
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US Air? Are you freakin' nuts? Look at what's happening over there... they're on the verge of a metdown!

If you have to choose between the two, go with NWA. They don't have the best record in labor relations, but things are improving, and the future looks bright. I just heard that the DC-9 fleet is staying for the foreseeable future (straight from the program manager) due to lack of a suitable replacement. DC-9 upgrade may soon fall to 5 years because nobody wants it.
 
John Pennekamp said:
If you have to choose between the two, go with NWA. They don't have the best record in labor relations, but things are improving, and the future looks bright. I just heard that the DC-9 fleet is staying for the foreseeable future (straight from the program manager) due to lack of a suitable replacement. DC-9 upgrade may soon fall to 5 years because nobody wants it.
Click to expand...

I heard that US Airways have the oldest pilot group. So shouldn't the upgrade be faster there compared to NWA?
 
propdog said:
I heard that US Airways have the oldest pilot group. So shouldn't the upgrade be faster there compared to NWA?
Click to expand...

That's not the point. As a new hire, you'll be below all of the AWA pilots, all the AAA pilots, all the Mid Atlantic pilots,and all of the returning furloughees. Growth plans aren't that great. They'll be a lot of attrition, but I predict a 10 year upgrade, minimum.
 
...and in mine,no. I had a nice regional job (yes Virginia,there is such a thing) 20 mins from home,nice senority with OK quality of life. Money was so-so,but that's been a constant my entire career since day one,so you learn to adjust. The only thing that really stunk about my regional was the fact that we were a wholly-owned subsidary of USAir . Go figure.Oh,and one other thing,it took me 2 1/2 years at my present employer to get back to the same salary I was making when I left.

Regarding your question NWA vs USAirways, I would choose NWA.They got a great Pacific network and that is where the growth and the money will be in the forseeible future. USair's just got the same routes to Europe that everyone else has,which isn't much to speak of (but don't tell them that;) }. Also hopefully the "merger wounds" at NW have somewhat healed by now,at least a little. Ours are going to be a festering sore for years to come. Given that reason alone,why anyone would even think of hiring on here defies logic,especially if one has a fairly decent flying job and can afford to be a little more selective in where he or she can go,which seems to be your situation. Either way,good luck with your decision!:)

PHXFLYR:cool:
 
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Hi!

NWA has a lot of older guys retiring, until the age 65 puts that on hold for 5 years. NWA's work rules, from what I've read on a number of posters on different message boards, are fantastic.

USAir just ordered a TON of new planes.

cliff
ABQ
 
Hi!

NuGuy:
An AA guy, after reading the details about Duty/Trip rig, 80+hrs 150% pay, etc. said he couldn't believe how much better the NWA work rules were than AA.

Ditto for UAL.

And, if you think NWA and it's workrules suk, why don't I help you get on at USA Jet, which actually has about the best work rules in it's industry (we just got a Duty Rig (4:1) last week)?

U would even have a shot at direct DC-9 FO! The Yr1 pay IS $57.12 (for a 55 hour guarantee).

I'm sure after a couple of months you'ld be begging to go back to NWA.

cliff
ABQ
 
Thanks for all the informative replies. After going through all the facts an rumors, NWA seems to be the better choice for me. Long live crack-pipe!!
 
atpcliff said:
Hi!

NuGuy:
An AA guy, after reading the details about Duty/Trip rig, 80+hrs 150% pay, etc. said he couldn't believe how much better the NWA work rules were than AA.

Ditto for UAL.

And, if you think NWA and it's workrules suk, why don't I help you get on at USA Jet, which actually has about the best work rules in it's industry (we just got a Duty Rig (4:1) last week)?

U would even have a shot at direct DC-9 FO! The Yr1 pay IS $57.12 (for a 55 hour guarantee).

I'm sure after a couple of months you'ld be begging to go back to NWA.

cliff
ABQ
Click to expand...

Duty rig of 4:1 ??? 4 hours pay for 1 hour duty?
 
Sorry...but what is a duty rig?? 4:1 duty rig---does that mean you get an extra hour of pay for every four hours of work?
 
propdog said:
Sorry...but what is a duty rig?? 4:1 duty rig---does that mean you get an extra hour of pay for every four hours of work?
Click to expand...

Ouch...a sign of the times I guess.

Pre 2001 nearly all carriers had duty rigs, mark a win for mgmt. that the newer guys don't evn know what it is!

4 to 1 (more commonly listed as 1 to 4)refers to how trips are to be scheduled. meaning that for evey 4 hours on duty there had to be at least one hour of flight pay. Most carriers also had minimum day rigs also, meaning that if you were called out for a 1.5 hour flight you got paid for at least 4 hours.

Other rigs involved minimum pay times for 2 3 and 4 day trips etc. ex. 4 day trip must be worth at least 20 hours.

Was designed to stop the problem of scheduling sending guys out on 4 day trips that only paid 12 hours, or the silly a$$ 2 day worth 4 hours.....something that we see way too much of in the industry now. It also curbed the 4 hour "Airport appreciation" sits that we see now.

Basically rigs are a way to make sure the company uses you so you get paid for your time away from home rather than sitting on your butt in a hotel making 1.60 an hour perdiem while watching your kids grow up on youtube!!
 
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Hi!

Did I reverse it? Should I have written 1:4?

We now get 1 hr. of pay credit for every 4 hours on duty.

For example if you have a 16 hour duty day (which happens) and you fly only 2.5 (which happens), your Duty Rig gives you 4.0 hrs of pay credit, so you get 4 hours credit towards your guarantee. U get the higher of your flight hours or duty rig credit hours.

Previously, we had no Duty Rig. We have no Trip Rig.

We do have a 1:4 Rig towards guarantee for "Hot Crew", which is like airport ready reserve, and a 1:4 Rig for required training events (like recurrent). We also get 2 hrs of pay credit for every day of sim training (2 hrs of pay for a day you're in sim, and 2 hrs of pay for a travel day).
Note: We do required training on our days on duty, unlike CAL, where they have to train on their DAYS OFF! I heard they're working on fixing that in their next contract, along with the Vacation debacle.

cliff
ABQ

PS-When I got to Trans States, in 2001, the ALPA rep came in to our new hire class. I asked him about Duty and Trip Rigs at TSA, and he had no idea what I was talking about.
 
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KeroseneSnorter said:
Ouch...a sign of the times I guess.

Pre 2001 nearly all carriers had duty rigs, mark a win for mgmt. that the newer guys don't evn know what it is!

4Basically rigs are a way to make sure the company uses you so you get paid for your time away from home rather than sitting on your butt in a hotel making 1.60 an hour perdiem while watching your kids grow up on youtube!!
Click to expand...

Heyas Kero,

Yup. Some people are content to say "sure, it sucks, but it sucks less than other places"...

Just another sign of how far we've fallen, and the lack of will to do anything about it.

Nu
 
If you go to NWA you have a chance of eventually flying an E175 for Compass. That is still far better than going to USAirways - I would stay far away from USAirways after the East-West feud started. Go to NWA in that case.

Good luck
 
Us Airways, Better Pay, Bigger Better Equipment, Might Be A Good Thing, Nwa Smaller Airline, Less Pay, Old Equipment, But At Least At Both You Get Benifits From Day One, Or The 1st Of The Following Month You Start....
 
call me crazy but if you're young I say go for Us Airways. They have people who have been called off furlough in the last two years holding the left seat of the 190. All the furloughees have been recalled so you won't have anybody coming in on top of you. Recalls have been put in the A330 as well as the 767 so if international widebody fo is your thing then you should be able to hold that very soon. In fact you can hold widebody FO before any of the 1800 west pilots are able to, due to the fence. Then once the fences come down I think you'll see a handful, at most, west pilots bidding out east to hold widebody fo. We do have a few North Carolina/Boston/Florida commuters who will probably be interested someday.

Retirements are huge and all the aircraft that are slated to be retired have already been anounced. How long is NWA going to fly a bunch of tired old DC 9's? I can't imagine the flying public putting up with them more than 3-4 years. NWA is going to have to decide whether to replace the 9's with next gen 737's/A320's or 175's at Compass. My guess would be Compass as it can be operated on the cheap with similar capacity. Not good for a junior NWA pilot.

There is a lot of bad blood between AWA/AAA but as a newhire you won't get sh#t from either group, and when it comes down to it I think all the trash talking will be confined to webboards except for the occasional as#. NWA already has established their International route network while Parker has been extremely vocal about wanting to expand into Eastern Europe/Russia/Israel/India/Japan/China with the arrival of the 330's/340's/and 350's. All good things for a newhire, particularly one with aspirations for widebodies.

Us Airways is a gamble but I think if you are a fan of the East Coast it has a lot of potential over the next 5-20 years. We should have a new and improved contract within the next 12 months and the airline has the highest profit margin in the biz. Unfortunately a potential UAL merger could throw everything up in the air but NWA could be facing a merger of thier own. Another worry is the current dismal state of ops at Us Airways. If management can't get a handle on the operation then expansion could suffer.

Tough choice....Good luck
 
I would look at economics...NWA hasn't exactly been stellar but USAirways has been a disaster. Their business model of being Comair on steroids (apologies to any Comair lukers) has demonstrably failed over the past 20 years. History shows once the economy slows US Airways will be losing money bigtime, furloughing, probably downsizing the west operation. Unless you believe Doug Parker has found a magic bullet.
 
I have a feeling we out west are gonna lose a few more 737s next year. Supposedly the leases are stable until 09, but I've heard also that we may lose a few next year, which I tend to believe because the last few years we've lost more of them than they initially told us.

I'm a 737 reserve and I don't fly a whole lot, but when I do I hear nothing but bitching and complaining about the airplane from pax and fas alike. I think we're gonna rot for awhile longer here out west while the easties pull their bs and Doug offers us a whole wopping 148 bucks an hour. We need a refrigerator or we out west are gonna start stinking.

The good news though is that over the years my record of calling things is pretty dismal.
 
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reepicheep said:
I would look at economics...NWA hasn't exactly been stellar but USAirways has been a disaster. Their business model of being Comair on steroids (apologies to any Comair lukers) has demonstrably failed over the past 20 years. History shows once the economy slows US Airways will be losing money bigtime, furloughing, probably downsizing the west operation. Unless you believe Doug Parker has found a magic bullet.
Click to expand...

As a westie, earlier on I poo pooed your scenario. Not anymore, frankly it scares the hell out of me now. You know what they say, there truly is nothing new under the sun.
 
propdog said:
I got interviews with both NWA and US Airways. What do you think is a better deal? To be more specific:

1. Better movement-faster upgrades
2. Better growth
3. International flying
4. Time to hold wide-body FO
5. Pay and QOL
6. Stability---nevermind
7. Commutability from Houston

IMHO, I think NWA has better job security. If you get furloughed, at least there is a flow-down agreement with Compass. Appreciate any insight into both companies.

Also, is it true that the worst major job is better than the best regional job?? I am enjoying good schedules, a good contract and around $70/hr as a captain at a ExpressJet.
Click to expand...


You kidding right???
you have to be nuts to leave your company for Useless Air or Norworst......their names say it all
 
Tooslow said:
Us Airways, Better Pay, Bigger Better Equipment, Might Be A Good Thing, Nwa Smaller Airline, Less Pay, Old Equipment, But At Least At Both You Get Benifits From Day One, Or The 1st Of The Following Month You Start....
Click to expand...


I think that you have these two turned around. NWA slightly better pay in some FO categories, mostly the same pay for similar captain categories. I would say bigger and better equip at NWA (747-400, 747-200, A330, B787).

Not that any of this really matters, and hopefully you get on with the company you want to work for and have a successful career.
 
propdog said:
I got interviews with both NWA and US Airways. What do you think is a better deal? To be more specific:

1. Better movement-faster upgrades
2. Better growth
3. International flying
4. Time to hold wide-body FO
5. Pay and QOL
6. Stability---nevermind
7. Commutability from Houston

IMHO, I think NWA has better job security. If you get furloughed, at least there is a flow-down agreement with Compass. Appreciate any insight into both companies.

Also, is it true that the worst major job is better than the best regional job?? I am enjoying good schedules, a good contract and around $70/hr as a captain at a ExpressJet.
Click to expand...

Have you interviewed or applied at CAL yet?? That would be my carrier of choice if I lived in Houston. New hires can hold IAH right out of training or within a few months. Screw commuting!
 

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