Meme In Command

My goodness, I cannot believe you guys are this bad at reading comprehension.

It was mentioned that WB flying is objectively better on most metrics. SOME, NOT ALL, BUT SOME, people just don't care for it. That's all that was said and you guys got your undaroos in a twist.


I know my baby looks like Steve Buscemi. Nobody is saying he's a pretty baby, but if you're really senior he gives you this cute lil smile every once in a while. Your baby is cute as hell, and you're just mad a handful of bubba's don't think it's cute. You'll live.

blue vortex

Bro, the problem here we have our top posters, saying things like this:

"What the discussion is about here is whether WB anything...is better than same seat senior NB."

The problem with the discussion here is that unless you have seen both sides of the coin (flown both dom and intl) and most have not, you're not really qualified to participate in the discussion. Yet we have numerous posters here that I've never flown widebody AT ALL feeling that they have some "expertise" to add to the discussion when comparing the two. And as others pointed out, we have actually two different flavors of international here, three man and four man. Yes the three man stuff occasionally sucks but the four-man stuff is vastly superior. I've never heard of someone "walking around like a zombie" while being on or after a four-man rotation.

Now, it's fine to express your opinion if you've experienced international flying. And I understand there's the occasional rare bird that truly does not like it. But to have pilots with no expertise at all with international flying (esp 4 man) vehemently voice some sort of opinion is illogical. Another fact of the matter is while have a handful of people down bid over the past 10 years, it has been an extremely small number, and in most cases, it really wasn't about the flying. They needed to be home almost every night to take care of a sick spouse or sibling. There's often more behind the scenes than just the nature of the flying when someone changes seats.

Rinaldi

For some of us it's not a question of liking international. I have flown a lot of international. Including a few 4 pilot trips. I like it. If I had to choose between most narrow body flying or international, I would fly international hands down.

That said I have two comments. First while I like international, I only like the three day trips. I don't care how good the trip is, I don't want to be gone from home more than that. Second, on the ER there is this niche of being senior enough to fly high time turns. I love it. SJU and STT are best.....no customs when you get back. In the summer, I still bid a few international trips, but only if I can get a three day.

notEnuf

40% and above on a NB isn’t bad. I can avoid redeyes, do 3 day trips, get decent layovers, and fly 1-2 legs a day. With the penalty pay they are 17-18 hours just like the WB trips I used to get.

Baradium

Why does it matter so much what other people think? It's like there are widebody pilots who can't stand it if other pilots down bow down to their superior lifestyle and narrowbody pilots who feel they need to justify their choices.

I know two things.

First, widebody FO ends up with a similar seniority to narrowbody captain, so for seniority and movement purposes it's like we have 3 captain seat types and one FO. If you like narrowbody flying it's great for your movement and of you like widebody flying it helps you too that not everyone wants widebody at all costs. It's systemwide that widebody FO isn't really that different from narrowbody captain seniority so it's not like there are a few outliers one way or another. Narrowbody captain bottom seniority vs widebody FO seems to be more a factor of how many relative widebody seats there are in a base compared to narrowbody than anything else.

Second, if you like actually flying and landing an airplane on a regular basis, widebody FO may not be the place for you. I don't recall a widebody pilot ever arguing against that. One put it as widebody FO being great but you have to be comfortable with not being really comfortable with the airplane (since you don't actually do all that many landings)


Some pilots look like they age decades flying widebody and some don't. I feel like anecdotally it's more related to whether they do crew activities or prioritize sleep on layovers but that is completely a personal choice and my sample size of pilots I've even asked about it is way too small.

What it comes down to is a lot of pilots prefer to bid narrowbody over widebody and there are also pilots who are the opposite and will commute to widebody over being narrowbody at home. That's the great thing about this job, you can do what you want.


This argument is like watching my kids argue with each other about whose toy is better. They both are happy with their toy and the only thing that happens if they "win" is that now both of them are going to fight over who gets to play with it. If everyone agreed that widebody was the best thing since Chick-fil-A's Hot Brown (highly recommended if you have a Dwarf House near you) then widebody in both seats would be much much more senior. Likewise, if widebody pilots "realized" they simply suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, narrowbody in both seats would look more like it does at Alaska and Southwest where that is the only option.

Be happy there are pilots, especially those senior to you, who prefer the other lifestyle than the one you do instead of trying to convince them that they should reconsider.

tennisguru

All this talk of 3- vs 4-pilot international and the superiority of 4-pilot. What percentage of each WB fleet is made up of 4-pilot flying? Other than the A350 I’d guess that most WB flying is 3-pilot. Is that correct?

notEnuf

Yup, and I think the 4 pilot on some stuff means Junior gets the crappy rest facility.

Trip7

This is a good point and there is a pretty wide range of outcomes among pilots. I'm guessing it boils down to genetics.

m3113n1a1

Yeah, narrowbody genes are superior to widebody genes. Shots fired.

Schwanker

Little man syndrome?😂