UALfoLIFE

Southwest and JetBlue is more likely than UAL imo.

flightmedic01

I was in “Charm School” in September and the first thing Oscar said when he walked in the room: “We’re not merging/buying JetBlue!!” So that’s a definite maybe! 🤣🤣

Flyby1206

That’s good. This past spring our COO sent a company wide email to address the United merger rumors. Definitely made me sleep easy after that. 😅

Learjet driver

If there was the slightest bit of truth to a UAL JB merger we wouldn’t be hiring 1200 pilots in 2020 or taking delivery of 64 airplanes in the next year alone. We would be parking our oldest A320’s getting “sized” for the merger. We would not be buying every used A319/A320 on the market that we can get our hands on. We sure as heck wouldn’t have announced a firm order for 50 A321 XLR’s if we were set to merge with someone.

To the OP, don’t hesitate to jump ship. I fly with mostly brand new pilots on the A320 that tell me everyday how fast they are moving up. There have been a ton of bids lately where new hires are holding the 777 and 787 while still in indoc training. Narrow body Capt will be getting closer to the 2 year point if you upgrade at the first opportunity. Good time to get hires at UAL. Welcome aboard!

JimLaheyTPS

Would you mind supplying just some basics to how your dynamic staying at Jetblue gives you higher career expectations than starting at United?

Just curious if it stems from longevity? Have you been at Jetblue for 7-10 years or so? It looks like your junior captain on the bus is Jan 14 hire and our most junior captains are supposedly Fall of 2015, maybe soon to be early 2016. Your top Captain rate at year 12 is around our year 4 captain pay. Then comes the widebody captain pay. So it cant be earnings expectations are higher. Maybe it’s your percentage in seat is higher than what you’d think it would be at United?

LUVPLANES

Someone with the audacity to come here and talk SENSE.

jamesholzhauer

First, our junior 190 CA is a July 2017 hire and our junior awarded airbus captain is a Nov 2016 hire (training in October next year). Our most junior already trained 190 CA is a April 2017 hire. After all the conversions throughout next year, the last guy hired in 2015 would have 44 people beneath him in the left seat of the bus. The first guy hired in 2015 would have 85 people junior to him in the left seat of the bus.

And you can’t just look at pay rates. And when you do you gotta figure that a guy on say 5th year CA pay here would top out at JB 5 years before topping out at UAL, and that whole time be 5 years behind in longevity on the pay scales (which is cumulative).

Furthermore, the net present value of cumulative earnings lost between now and when I’d catch up to where I am now, assumed by me at 5 years to NB CA, plus you gotta figure the delta from now and where I’d be 5 years from now at jetblue in that time as well, and the compounding interest on the invested portion of that, plus the 401k hit I’d have, is more of what you need to take into consideration. We are 15% going to 16% in a year for our 401k. With compounding interest, the value of my 401k would never catch up. It’s a little more than just looking at when one would go from one income level to when they’d catch back up to that same income level.

For my assumptions in my spreadsheet I used 3 year WB FO, 5 year NB CA, 15 year WB CA, and an increase in rates where JB lagged legacies perpetually. I also assumed no widebodies for JB, ever. In other words, my assumptions for making the switch were mostly optimistic/best case for going to a legacy and pessimistic/worst case staying at JB (well not necessarily worst case…I didn’t take into account stagnation/shrinkage/furlough…just stopping our growth at what we have firm orders for, and that’s for my whole career, not just the 5 years for which we have firm orders).

Here’s the other part that isn’t accounted for in my spreadsheet but further points towards staying. JB has firm orders for 150 airplanes with plans to park 60 of them (the 190s, which there is some debate about whether or not they’ll get parked), for a net gain of 90 airplanes from today, with 50 more options on 220s that will likely become firm orders in the next year or two. They are also shopping used A321s due to the NEO delays, so there is that (not counting on them, but if they come great, more jobs). I also think that as soon as there is a little bit of data on our LR flying to prove TATL can work, WBs will be ordered to better utilize the limited slots we will have on high value routes. So while I didn’t account for them in my calculations, I think we end up with more planes than we currently have firm orders for during my career here, some of which imo will be WBs.

A lot of people think of JetBlue as a small/niche northeast startup airline. It was at one time. It’s still not nearly as large as the US3, certainly when you factor in the regional networks, but it’s also not a small startup anymore. By the end of 2024/2025, the seniority list should exceed 6,000. By 2030…who knows, but probably a decent amount higher than that. If just that firm order growth (and nothing more) comes to fruition, my seniority curve and overall SL percentage far exceeds what it would be if I started at 12,500 or whatever you guys are at now, even with the eye watering retirements. There is something to be said for the amount of B/E/S options and thus more relative seniority options, but over the next 3 decades, I doubt JB just remains idle with only 5 crew bases and 2 fleets. If we were a stagnant 3,000 pilot group airline, it would be different. But we aren’t. If our financials weren’t healthy and didn’t support long term measured growth, I’d probably bail for the retirement wave.

The last bit I’ll add is that you are using 2019 rates for comparison. I’m not playing the short game with this career (which penalizes movement between companies with seniority/longevity resets). I’m playing the long game. Over a 30+ year career, using one year’s rates, airline size, etc., isn’t exactly the best for predicting future performance. 10/20/30 years from now, I just don’t think the status quo of where airlines fit in a ranked order spectrum of pay/QOL will remain a constant. It’s very cyclical. Who knows, maybe JB will get better in the rankings, maybe not. Hard to predict, but it’s hard to chase today’s best knowing that it hasn’t always been and won’t always be the best. Our last contract was voted on by a 3,000 strong pilot group, with no prior CBA and with no real protections. Importantly, we had no scope, or any other important protections for our jobs. People wanted scope locked in, and just a CBA in general because they were tired of unilateral changes made by the company with no real protections. In other words, people settled for less just to lock in a CBA and scope. Next time we are in negotiations, we will be probably 5,000 strong and will have the protections of an existing CBA. And if dragged out, even larger. Of our 3,000ish pilots, over 700 showed up on a freezing day at the picket (which was scheduled after schedules had already come out, so people couldn’t bid it off). The attendance, by many measures, was way more successful than ALPA imagined. Point is, I don’t think this pilot group will roll over again as we become larger. It was already a somewhat unified and strong showing, and I think it will be even stronger for CBA 2.0. We will just be starting our LON ops during next negotiations, and we will demand to be paid on par with our peers. Our top rate in 2021 is $274.85. Not great, but not that far behind given where we started and how far we’ve come.

And how many airlines exist today that haven’t had any M&A or bankruptcies? 0 besides JB. We haven’t yet, but past statistics say we will experience a merger or BK at some point. Any M&A or BK will likely blow up my NPV analysis/comparison and all bets are off. But the same is true if jumping to any other airline. Over a 30+ year career, that's the luck/timing piece we can't control, so I can't exactly account for it in a 2019 spreadsheet. I’ll let you know at 65 how accurate my prediction was.

Boeing Aviator

Actually yes. Our entire CAL MEC knew about the UAL merger as it was being negotiated the week prior to being made public after both airline Board Of Directors approved the merger.

Boeing Aviator

My two cents.

If your under 40 you have an expectation of retiring as a UAL widebody CA. Not one JetBlue pilot has that expectation today. All I can tell you is the UAL MEC - MEC Merger Committee will fight to the end to protect all United pilots career expectations. Anything is possible, but I wouldn’t worry. Anyway whatever happens is out of your control. I think your much better off on the United side.

As a point of reference let’s look at the 1986 merger of Republic Airlines with Northwest Orient. NWO was a global airline and Republic was around Jetblue’s size and primarily operated DC-9’s with a few dozen B727’s and a handful of 757’s.

I’m sure someone will correct me if I recall this incorrectly. I believe the arbitration award was DOH with a 20 year fence around all NWO pre merger aircraft. For all new aircraft acquired post merger there was a ratio that favored pre merger NWO pilots.

Flyby1206

Did any New York Air pilots expect to retire as CAL WB CAs? Did any Pan Am WB CAs expect to watch their pensions crumble and airline go out of business, multiple times?

Point being, chasing a seniority dream doesn't always work out. We'll see in 30yrs who made the right choice. This whole thing is a crap shoot and everyone is entitled to pursuing their own path of happiness.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...d_acquisitions