Grumpyaviator

You’re making a great impression.

PotatoChip

Forgive me, but I don’t get it. The OP started a brand new thread about upgrade times when there is a large thread just four below this one. Further, as we all know (I thought) estimating upgrade times for a decade away is near impossible. All I have done is give information that was disseminated by Southwest employees directly. If doing any of this makes me a jerk, apologies are made. Forgive me to whoever I could’ve possibly offended by being direct and honest.

Peacock

You should have stopped there

sailingfun

500 pilots would give you enough block hours to fund about 90 Hawaii flights a day. SWA has big plans there!

Squallrider

I think they have planes for California in general. 500 pilots a side makes 250 or so working at any given time. 8 pilots per plane makes 30 odd planes in rotation flying between lax and Hawaii (a few spares and inter island flying) and any other destinations, I believe Mexico and Central America will see new destinations. I don’t think 500 is a crazy number but I doubt it’ll be less than 300

Mr chub

Upgrades are currently at 10 years. That has been the steady time frame for the last 2.5 years. New hires I fly with today are thinking it could be less than 10 years if we continue our hiring trend, however I would plan on 10 years to be on the safe side.

sMFer

Are you here at SWA? We don't have spares sitting around, we won't be flying to LAX from Hawaii and the next big plan will most likely be terminal 0 being built in LA for South America.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

Proximity

This is a pretty sad thread. Lots of minformation from people that don't work here. The OP can't scroll down a few lines and find a long thread where this was already discussed? Who cares about upgrade anyways? I don't need my ego stroked. I'm a "mid-level" FO now (according to SWAPA) and with NEC, stock purchase, and PS I'll probably do $200k total this year. Probably going to block less then 550 for the year. Just turned a week of vacation into a month off, plus also have xmas and new years off. A senior FO with the same yearly TFP as me would be nearer to $300k. The pay delta between senior FO pay and junior CA pay is smaller then you might think due to seniority having a large effect on being able to increase your TFP.

Pilots asking about upgrade time at a destination airline don't get it. It's about total earnings, QQL, stability, and growth. SWA does well in all of these areas. Other airlines do well also. Choosing one airline over another means making tradeoffs. Assuming you have multiple offers, a pilot should consider the above factors and not worry about upgrade.

Smooth at FL450

This.


Chasing a quick upgrade is short-sighted unless you're close to retirement age. Too many variables can change that forecast, both good and bad. One way to look at SWA's long upgrade times of late is this: odds are it will get better before it gets worse. I'm a mid-2016 hire and my money is on a 7-8 year upgrade for myself. (i live near a Jr base so commuting isn't a concern).


Side note: 3rd year FO here, block time in 365 is 680 but trending down as i work smarter, not harder, and I only need profit sharing to come in at 6% to get any cash back. This means I'll reach my $55k 415c limits having only been on 3rd year pay for half of the year. Not too shabby...

RJSAviator76

That's all great and all, but you are fundamentally failing in your analysis in entirety as far as APC is concerned.

This is the APC Hierarchy of Needs:

1) Highest PUBLISHED HOURLY rate. This is the fundamental basis for any APC weenie measuring contest.

2) The shortest path to upgrade. The juniormost upgrade the better. If you can upgrade at 99.5% on your master seniority list, that's pure APC gold. It's the total time to 4th stripe that's paramount and the shortest timeframe always wins.

3) In order to reflect APC values the best, Southwest upgrades must be calculated as follows:
- you must use 50% on the master seniority list as your junior upgrade spot starting point.
- you must use 0% growth rate; advanced users may use other matrices such as ASM's to calculate growth rates. Using actual and/or projected hiring numbers to derive the pilot seniority list growth projection is highly frowned upon and not in line with the APC values.
- only Age 65 attrition is allowed to be considered.

4) APC Hierarchy of Needs always looks back in time to derive the APC-acceptable answer. For example, it is the gospel truth on APC that a newhire FO won't see ATL for 10 years. Conversely, no FO will upgrade in less than 15 years unless something drastic happens. Anything short of those values represents a miracle.

I am missing a few, and for that I apologize. I do hope that this provides a good starting point.

Hope this helps...