Best Airline to Work For, for pilots living in YYC?

[canadian_aviator_4]

Hi, I was hoping to get your views on the best place to work for YYC based pilots? This could include commuting to other cities from YYC or working for a YYC based operator.

[Bede]

What are your criteria? Most money? Lifestyle? Career job? Job security?

How much experience do you have?

[NotDirty!]

Delta

[canadian_aviator_4]

What are your criteria? Most money? Lifestyle? Career job? Job security?

How much experience do you have?

Lifestyle, Career Job, and decent money for Canadian Aviation. Obviously you can’t have the best of all, but the best balance of the three? 5000 hr atpl.
Thanks!

[ZBBYLW]

WestJet has their main base in YYC.
AC has a lot of guys living in YYC and many can bid for YYC overnights on the NBs and some WBs can bid for YYC starts.

[Bede]

If airline is your thing, WestJet, hands down. Downside is long upgrade but lifestyle & pay is better than AC. Also, no commuting.

Lynx and Flair will give you a quick upgrade, but...

[co-joe]

If airline is your thing, WestJet, hands down. Downside is long upgrade but lifestyle & pay is better than AC. Also, no commuting.

Lynx and Flair will give you a quick upgrade, but...

but at Flair you'll also get to sleep in your own bed every night, not in a hotel on the road. There I finished your sentence for you.

[Bede]

If airline is your thing, WestJet, hands down. Downside is long upgrade but lifestyle & pay is better than AC. Also, no commuting.

Lynx and Flair will give you a quick upgrade, but...

but at Flair you'll also get to sleep in your own bed every night, not in a hotel on the road. There I finished your sentence for you.

Sleeping in your own bed every night is definitely a big plus, but that thing about being able to make lease payments would scare me.

[NotDirty!]

Depends on your perspective… I enjoy a lot of my layovers! Some I wish were longer, others shorter… but doing nothing but single days would be less interesting, IMHO.

[Tbayer2021]

Depends on your perspective… I enjoy a lot of my layovers! Some I wish were longer, others shorter… but doing nothing but single days would be less interesting, IMHO.

Absolutely! I don't blame them for not being too interested in layovers when one looks at their route network. I certainly loved the Porto, Amsterdam and Dublin layovers I've done this spring.

There are certainly some that prefer being home every night, as even on my fleet some bid long turns and avoid layovers as much as they can. Even the exotic destinations. But those are definitely the minority.

My money is on anyone that brags about the lack of layovers at Flair, is usually doing so because that's the only thing they have. No variety so they have to upsell that aspect.

[Crewbunk]

It would appear, that if one lived in Calgary, your best aim is Westjet. An excellent contract with excellent pay.

The biggest issue appears to be upgrade time. Fair ball. But looking historically over the last years, there are a few causes. One of course, is Covid. Another is Swoop. With expansion halted due to Covid, what upgrades there were appears to have gone to Swoop. (And to a lesser extent, Encore).

I’m curious after Swoop is brought into Westjet operations and with a bump and flush bid, just how long upgrade times become. I wouldn’t be surprised if times are halved. For a major airline, five years to left seat is reasonable.

I think the biggest plus though, is longevity. I still firmly believe after the dust settles, only Westjet, Air Canada (and likely) Transat will remain. If you have a family, mortgage, future plans, etc … I’d go with the sure bet.

No disrespect to Porter or Flair. They appear to be running fine operations and slowly earning their following. But, realistically, the numbers aren’t there. (And I’m not talking 90% load factors at $59 fares).

[rudder]

It would appear, that if one lived in Calgary, your best aim is Westjet. An excellent contract with excellent pay.

The biggest issue appears to be upgrade time. Fair ball. But looking historically over the last years, there are a few causes. One of course, is Covid. Another is Swoop. With expansion halted due to Covid, what upgrades there were appears to have gone to Swoop. (And to a lesser extent, Encore).

I’m curious after Swoop is brought into Westjet operations and with a bump and flush bid, just how long upgrade times become. I wouldn’t be surprised if times are halved. For a major airline, five years to left seat is reasonable.

I think the biggest plus though, is longevity. I still firmly believe after the dust settles, only Westjet, Air Canada (and likely) Transat will remain. If you have a family, mortgage, future plans, etc … I’d go with the sure bet.

No disrespect to Porter or Flair. They appear to be running fine operations and slowly earning their following. But, realistically, the numbers aren’t there. (And I’m not talking 90% load factors at $59 fares).

If you had 30-35 years left in your career, and did not want to continue with the snakes and ladders nature of the business (starting at the bottom every time you change employers), there are realistically only a couple of choices in Canada.

Mergers and consolidation might change that, but you would be placing a bet.

[co-joe]

It would appear, that if one lived in Calgary, your best aim is Westjet. An excellent contract with excellent pay.

The biggest issue appears to be upgrade time. Fair ball. But looking historically over the last years, there are a few causes. One of course, is Covid. Another is Swoop. With expansion halted due to Covid, what upgrades there were appears to have gone to Swoop. (And to a lesser extent, Encore).

I’m curious after Swoop is brought into Westjet operations and with a bump and flush bid, just how long upgrade times become. I wouldn’t be surprised if times are halved. For a major airline, five years to left seat is reasonable.

I think the biggest plus though, is longevity. I still firmly believe after the dust settles, only Westjet, Air Canada (and likely) Transat will remain. If you have a family, mortgage, future plans, etc … I’d go with the sure bet.

No disrespect to Porter or Flair. They appear to be running fine operations and slowly earning their following. But, realistically, the numbers aren’t there. (And I’m not talking 90% load factors at $59 fares).

A slightly better contract with mediocre pay that hasn't been signed yet, more like. If you had achieved 100k for year 1 FOs, I'd agree with you 100%, but I still don't see WestJet as a career destination. More like a stepping stone to Air Canada. Make sure to grease the bearings on the front door, it's going to be revolving at high RPM for a while...

[maverick12]

It would appear, that if one lived in Calgary, your best aim is Westjet. An excellent contract with excellent pay.

The biggest issue appears to be upgrade time. Fair ball. But looking historically over the last years, there are a few causes. One of course, is Covid. Another is Swoop. With expansion halted due to Covid, what upgrades there were appears to have gone to Swoop. (And to a lesser extent, Encore).

I’m curious after Swoop is brought into Westjet operations and with a bump and flush bid, just how long upgrade times become. I wouldn’t be surprised if times are halved. For a major airline, five years to left seat is reasonable.

I think the biggest plus though, is longevity. I still firmly believe after the dust settles, only Westjet, Air Canada (and likely) Transat will remain. If you have a family, mortgage, future plans, etc … I’d go with the sure bet.

No disrespect to Porter or Flair. They appear to be running fine operations and slowly earning their following. But, realistically, the numbers aren’t there. (And I’m not talking 90% load factors at $59 fares).

A slightly better contract with mediocre pay that hasn't been signed yet, more like. If you had achieved 100k for year 1 FOs, I'd agree with you 100%, but I still don't see WestJet as a career destination. More like a stepping stone to Air Canada. Make sure to grease the bearings on the front door, it's going to be revolving at high RPM for a while...

Lol big mouth on a dude working at an airline that can’t pay their leases on time. Keep painting your planes Type IV, maybe save some money on deicing that way.

[co-joe]

Wow a new joke about the colour of our aeroplanes...oh no it isn't.

[Hysteria]

WestJet has their main base in YYC.
AC has a lot of guys living in YYC and many can bid for YYC overnights on the NBs and some WBs can bid for YYC starts.

1) so big red has WB guys who are based in yyz or yvr that can bid YYC starts, and often? I suppose this would apply to FOs that have been with the company for 5 to 10 years, no? If all of your starts are at YYC, does AC just deadhead you the night/day before?

2)
How many years to bid FO 787 at Wj? 15?

[Red_Comet]

Out of curiosity, how long does it take to bid FO on a 737 at WJ from the Q?

[BTD]

Oh boy.

[JBI]

What are your criteria? Most money? Lifestyle? Career job? Job security?

How much experience do you have?

Lifestyle, Career Job, and decent money for Canadian Aviation. Obviously you can’t have the best of all, but the best balance of the three? 5000 hr atpl.
Thanks!

Based on your criteria, I would think that WestJet is your best airline option for YYC depending on how you define lifestyle.

The positives for WJ:
-currently highest pay for first year FOs (fully expect AC to beat this during their negotiations)
-Once you get to 3rd year FO pay, the $113 per credit hour is significantly higher than other FO rates.
-good mix of one day and multiday pairings which, eventually, you can bid for (we have some pilots who almost only do single day pairings)
-arguably the best flight/travel benefits of a Canadian airline (though Air Canada obviously has significantly more international destinations)
-socialized bidding means that once you get off of reserve, you can end up with a pretty decent schedule (the "get off reserve" is the wild card right now)
-When you do upgrade, you move to you years of service step rate. For example, if it takes you 8 years to upgrade to Captain, when you do upgrade, you go to the 8th year Captain pay rate, not the 1st year Captain pay rate.
-It's aviation in Canada so nothing is a sure bet, but if Onex has continued to own the airline through COVID and now back to recovery, I do expect the future of the company to be relatively secure. While I truly hope Flair and Lynx succeed, I'd have some concerns about the long term viability of at least one of them.


Negatives:
-right now new hires are required to go on reserve. The bottom 10% get reserve all the time, but if you are in the bottom 20% of a position in a base, you may be eligible for full reserve. The 18 days a month is higher than when you have a biddable schedule where it's max 16 days. How long that will take depends on how many new hires there are. At the current time, partially due to the fact that no hiring took place from March 2020-Jul 2022, the 20% line is a 2018 hire. However, the 10% line is a 2022 hire and with a few more new hire classes, the 10% line will be a 2023 hire. So while my opinion is that the time on reserve will be drastically reduced from what it is now, it's tough to know exactly how long that will take.
-The upgrade time at WJ is and will be much longer than at Flair or Lynx. Right now the most junior YYC 737 Captain award is a 2012 hire. The most junior YYZ Captain is a 2014 hire. While I do expect these upgrade times to be reduced by a few years with the integration of Swoop and subsequent rebid, there's no argument that you'd upgrade quicker at Flair/Lynx.


A couple more thoughts/clarifications:
-Most junior 787 on the recent bid is a 2014 hire (again, with the Swoop integration I expect that to decrease somewhat significantly)
-Current Flow times from Encore to WJ are approximately 6 years. It's a little hard to predict what will happen with Encore flow in the future. It should be noted that flow from Encore no longer includes a reserved seniority number.
-While I do expect some WJ FOs to continue heading to AC, I expect the rate to drop pretty significantly after CA2. After even just a year or two of seniority at WestJet, the current pay/lifestyle plus commuting to YYZ/YUL for the first few years will be a deterrent to many to go to AC.


All these points are not to discourage someone from going to Flair/Lynx. There is A LOT to like about getting in early at a growing airline, which both Flair and Lynx are. They both have benefits and you will upgrade much sooner (and get higher Captain's pay).

[yowflyer23]

What about YYC based 737 at Canadian North?