Chewie135

I consider myself very fortune, yet I am on the horns of a dilemma.
AirTran on 18 Sep or jetBlue (E-190) on 13 Sep.
I am trying to make the right decision for short-term and term.
I have the raw numbers, but looking for anything that may help me make the decision.

727C47

AIRTRAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! rt seat 717/737 (airliner), or E-190 (rj). Capt. quicker at the Tran, I have 3 friends there who love it. God bless,enjoy !

bluechunks

I don't know much about AirTran, but here's the good and bad about JetBlue:

The bad:

Consider this: if you are senority #1700 at JetBlue, it will be decades before you can hold Captain on the 320 so take a good, hard, look at the JetBlue 190 pay rates and then look at Airtran's 717/737 rate. And also consider that about the time you should be able to hold Captain on the 190, the freeze/fence will expire for 320 F/O's and many of them will move to the left seat on the 190 ahead of you.

Here's the math: JetBlue has ~100 A320's and ~15 190's today, so if we can grow to 400 aircraft in the next several years with 200 of each type, that means every future 320 Captain is already on the propery and senior to you and with minimal expected retirements in the next several years.

Also take a good look at Airtran's 10.5% b-fund and JetBlue's 3% 401K match and where that will leave you at retirement..



The good:

Setting pay and benefits aside, JetBlue is a fun place to work and if you live in JFK or BOS a career on the 190 could be attractive.

FlyByNight

Hey guys, I have friends at both and to be honest I'd seriously consider AirTran. They've already gone through the growing pains (good and bad) Jetblue is now seeing. Too much uncertainty with JetBlue right now. AirTran is a much better bet. Only way to know is to look back after your retirement party (hopefully) and evaluate then.

Either way lots of guys would love to be in your position, consider yourself blessed.

mccube5

I hope i can only be so fortunate as to find myself in this kind of predicament 10 years from now. Personally, i'd take the job at Blue, but that would come down to NY vs. ATL. Everyone always talks about the culture at blue being a fun place to work. My experience flying on Airtran i would be surprised if it isnt the same way there. What is the cluture like at Airtran. Mgmt. relations, pilot group etc.??

flytank

Scoop on AirTran:
1. Last upgrade class on B737 went down to a date of hire of April/2004. Most upgrades will occur on the 737 for the next several months
2. Currently in the middle of negotiations for a new pilot contract. Possibly opening new domiciles in the "very near future".
3. Recently posted a record breaking quarterly profit of over 32 million dollars.
4. ALL B737's including options have been ordered with deliveries every 3 to 4 weeks to continue all the way to 2010. (There is talk about more a/c to be ordered after this order)
5. Upgrades quickly picking up, see item 1 above with upgrade times of 2.5 yrs right into the 737.
6. Company is incredibly stable with excellent financial performance.
7. Approx 70% of pilots commute.
8. It is a lot of fun !!! We know that AirTran has emerged like the phoneix into an extremely strong major airline. We feel like a family in which we all know the fragile status of this industry and work very hard every day to keep it where it is today.
9. We have both, a 401K program AND a retirement fund (B-Fund).

Hope this helps!!!

About JetBlue, I can't comment other than what I read on the news, already selling a/c and deferring deliveries, etc. Again, I don't believe everything I read on the news, but JB certainly has a lot of work cut out for them to come back from the red. I wish them the best of luck.

MikeB525

I've heard people say that one of JetBlue's problems is that they have been trying to grow thier fleet too quickly, unsure as to whether they'll actually be able to fill those airplanes. It seems AirTran has something like 100 airframes on order (not a small number), so aren't they doing the same?

And once those planes are delivered, I'm guessing you'll see people sitting in the right seat alot longer. Though it seems AirTran is not a bad place to be an FO.

flytank

AirTran placed an order for 100 737's back in summer 2004. Of those, 32 are already on the property with one arriving every month on average. If you listen to AirTran's last webcast when they announced their record profit you'll see that AirTran's growth is very systematically planned and well controlled. Joe Leonard has mentioned that he will keep the airline's expansion at roughly 20 to 25 % every year.

The 737 has a long standing excellent performance record as well as the 717, this of course places excellent control of the maintenance cost. Our load factor in most of our routes is excellent, including the ones we have just started. Our debt is only about 640 million dollars, compared to JB's well over 2.2 billion!!! And both companies have just about the same amount of cash in the bank!!! AirTran basically leases most of our facilities for training, offices, logistics which in turn keeps our cost low. JB actually continues to increase their overhead by building a training center in MCO and if I read correctly they are also going to build a hotel there for their crews in training!!! I also believe that they are spending over 80 million dollars on their terminal in JFK.

JB's new a/c the ERJ 190 is plagged by glitches and mx issues (one of my neighbors works there flying the left seat on the 320 and tells me about this) which come from flying a new design a/c. This has added to JB's amazing increase in maintenance costs.

All in all, I believe that senior management here at AirTran is well aware of the industry status and are making all the right decisions. With all due respect to my fellow professional pilots working at JB the more I read about the financial aspects currently at JB and how much money the are spending compared to their assets and debt, the more I hope that their management changes their views about their expansion and lean it down a bit.

Regards, flytank.

Chewie135

Thank you everyone for your inputs. Just as I was hoping, the fine folks that contribute to this forum have given me more information so as I can make a good decision.
Thank you!

bluechunks

If you have 10 years to go, you have the ability to aim higher than JetBlue or Airtran.