Upgrades

[schnitzel2k3]

I'm quite offended that you are not honoring my regime and its accomplishments

Not only did we save the company money by reducing the money into the pockets to members, we also successfully got the furloughs nothing. No wage subsidy for those suckers because they need to pay their dues while us fat cats worked hard from home at 82 hrs

We also brought in the innovative "Best Fit" agreement and got the company something they have been drooling for - for eons. I begged for it to be called "Best Fit for the Company" but my fellow base chairs thought that was bad optics so alas we settled with just "Best Fit".

At least we screwed the the junior losers with only 75 hrs on reserve. That generation needs to keep paying their dues!!

I think there was a typo when they first wrote this up, and have stuck with it for whatever reason! It should be spelled “Best Fist”!

I am offended with that derogatory term of Best Fit after we slaved away at 82 hrs of widebody pay. You ungrateful fool

You know how hard it is to work from home from your cottage? Ask the YVR Chair.

At least we crammed in a solid pay cut and another division for Cargo.

The membership should ever be so thankful of the solid work of me and the boyz

How I imagine you typing this.

[altiplano]

Hey Mike,

Remember your famous line ‘does it really effect us, we’ll be gone in 2 years’

This pretty much sums up his tenure.

No. That was KV.

Hard to imagine getting worse than him... yet somehow MM topped him.

Ahhh getting the ‘wise guys’ confused.

To be fair, I'm sure MM said it too! Just didn't get publicized the same as KV's remark.

"55 hours won't affect us, we'll just go against the contract and constitution and pay ourselves 82 hours."

"10% off on the 767 won't affect me, I'm a 787 CA."

"Best fit won't affect us, we're fully displaced and too senior to be on reserve anyway."

"777 vacation buybacks don't affect us, we're not furloughed!"

[brandthepilot]

Work to live don't live to work.

At the end of the day the work life balance is the one thing that will most affect your personal well being and so it is almost always better to be senior on a junior position than junior on a senior one.

Finally the most unhappy pilots I know were the ones whose sense of self worth was tied to what seat they sat in.

This is my current dilemma as well. Do I continue to hold my position at my current employer and not see the left seat for maybe 10 years (current upgrade forecast at my company) or do I try the AC new hire grind....

[sportingrifle]

AC is, and always has been, a bit of a long game. I expect (with near certainty) that the 4 year flat pay will disappear next year, along with a number of other distortions in our pay matrix.

Currently, when compared to WJ, (and this is an apples to oranges comparison that relies on a lot of assumptions), for the first 7 years a WJ pilot earns more than an AC pilot. It takes till year 11 for an AC pilot to exceed the cumulative wages and benefits of the WJ pilot. After that, being at AC is like winning the lottery compared to WJ. So if you are in your late 40’s , financially AC may not be the most lucrative. If you are under 30 it is a no brainer. I was 34 when I joined AC, all due because I wore glasses and back then you needed 20/30 un-corrected vision. But the flying I did for 15 years before AC gave me an incredible skillset and memories that I will fondly reflect on in the care home.

But life is more than about money. And I have noticed that the pilots chasing tin seem to be the most unhappy. If you are a true professional with a passion, the worst airline job still puts you in the top 25% of income earners with a view out the window and a lifestyle that is the envy of many. Sometimes the best job is the first one you are offered. And the grass is often greenest where it is watered. YMMV.

[EPR]

AC is, and always has been, a bit of a long game. I expect (with near certainty) that the 4 year flat pay will disappear next year, along with a number of other distortions in our pay matrix.

Currently, when compared to WJ, (and this is an apples to oranges comparison that relies on a lot of assumptions), for the first 7 years a WJ pilot earns more than an AC pilot. It takes till year 11 for an AC pilot to exceed the cumulative wages and benefits of the WJ pilot. After that, being at AC is like winning the lottery compared to WJ. So if you are in your late 40’s , financially AC may not be the most lucrative. If you are under 30 it is a no brainer. I was 34 when I joined AC, all due because I wore glasses and back then you needed 20/30 un-corrected vision. But the flying I did for 15 years before AC gave me an incredible skillset and memories that I will fondly reflect on in the care home.

But life is more than about money. And I have noticed that the pilots chasing tin seem to be the most unhappy. If you are a true professional with a passion, the worst airline job still puts you in the top 25% of income earners with a view out the window and a lifestyle that is the envy of many. Sometimes the best job is the first one you are offered. And the grass is often greenest where it is watered. YMMV.

100% agree!

[newlygrounded]

Brian…in addition to “can you hold it,” and “do you want to,” add “am I up for it.” If you are relatively new to the company and have never sat in the left seat of a transport category airplane, you need to be willing to work really hard. Probably harder than anything else you have done in aviation. Just before Covid, the narrow body upgrade failure rate was north of 50%. A huge part of this was the shallow backgrounds of the junior pilots bidding it. Don’t bid it until you are ready to.

What's the consequence of an upgrade failure?

[Jimmy_Hoffa]

Returned to previous position and given a time out from bidding Capt again for a while. Do that a couple times and it’s FO for life.