PilotBases

Sure, all of them have some W pattern trips especially in the case where there is no crew base (BOS, LAX 330 flying) etc. But the quote was clearly implying all WBs at Delta have 4 legs days, and they don’t. DL has more WBs than AA when you factor in 763 (which does plenty of Intl from JFK) so there’s more WB seats to go around. I don’t know granular details of why stuff is the way it is, but newhires are flying all WB fleets, and they aren’t all doing 4 leg days. I think one class last year had 20+ people get assigned A330.

CRJJ

Once those 787s get delivered in the future, should CLT/DFW become as “junior-ish” as MIA for example?. I’m talking about time to hold 777/787.

biigD

Oh I understand, I was trying to figure out why so many of your narrowbody pilots avoid the flying. If you have a substantial percentage of trips that have you out longer than just an out, overnight, and back (which is almost entirely what we do at AA), that might explain it. Especially as someone living in base, I can see not wanting to be out that long if you're too junior to avoid those kinds of trips.

FangsF15

That's not it. We have very, very little bid packet trips in the 1 and 2-day length (there are always a few "broken" trips which popup as 1 or 2-days though). Our new contract does increase the required bid-packet number of 1 and 2 day trips after this summer's rush, but that's never been in the cards before to be a consideration.

Honestly, it's been a bit of an enigma, as the NB trip quality has declined precipitously since 2019. One would think the WB life would be a refuge... But as discussed earlier, much of it can be attributed to post-covid seat locks preventing a large number of pilots being eligible to bid until now. There was also a long-ish period post-covid where Delta WB's were not pure-international like they had always been, and I suspect many didn't want to make the jump until that settled back out, which it now (pretty much) has. Though, even pre-Covid, when our NY 767-400 started doing some regular 2-day uncommutable domestic transcons, that caused many FO's to bail out, saying "I didn't come to this category to fly a bunch of domestic!", which drove that single category much more junior than it had historically been.

I only say all that to say Delta's 'junior'/New hire WB slots will likely prove to be an aberration, not the norm. But who knows, we live in crazy times.

Swakid8

Airport reserve on the WB doesn’t happen at United…. The problem with the WB at United is Global reserve work rules (ability for the company to roll your days off). Airport stand-by is the issue on basic reserve on the NB here at United.

biigD

Ah - interesting. Appreciate the explanation. Our NB flying has suffered too, so I'm always curious to understand why people bid the way they do.

Extenda

I’m a junior 75/76 captain at delta. It only pays a tad more than the 737/320 but the 767s are technically widebody and do a lot of Europe especially out of NYC.

Our true equivalent WB towards you guys is the 767-400, 330 and 350. A few years ago a trickling of 767-400 went to new hires, then out of nowhere about a year ago a few 350s out of DTW went to new hires, and then just recently the 330 out of NYC had a bunch of new hires (one class had I think 20). 767-400 keeps going consistently to new hires.

as to why seniorish narrowbody guys aren’t hopping over I think it’s a combination of things.

1. Delta pilots generally hate New York.
2. commuting to sit reserve in New York is probably awful.
3. a ton of guys are seat locked from all the Covid bidding anomalies.
4. people are probably getting comfortable in the post Covid world and want to see how the next few bids shake out.
5. guys are just making too much money as senior NB FOs taking advantage of the perpetual staffing crisis and it would probably be a pay cut.

But these are just my assumptions. WB flying is equivalently gucci at Delta as I’m sure it is at AA and our reserve rules are pretty good.

FangsF15

I would agree with all of this.

ImSoSuss

So then it has more to do with Delta's horrible base locations and the WB distribution in those then the QOL of actually flying WBs? I mean, American also has a lot of WBs in New York but we have no issues filling those slots.

Upntheair27

Just curious how your wb fo friends are making anything close a nb ca? The pay is 50 bucks an hour difference and if you bid reserve you're only earning 73/76 hrs guarantee. Are they working on all their days off? Not calling BS just wondering how it's feasible since I'm thinking of making the WB jump. Cheers.