A trend of First Officers not wanting to be Captains

I'm a 50 year old Gen X in the sales and marketing side of technology. I've always been a top performer, but have managed to avoid a promotion to management and the 10-20 hours of interoffice politicking that would add to my 50 hours a week of work.

For this, they offer 12% more money. I've taken jobs that pay the most since I started working at 11 years old. Now, at nearly 50 (and hopefully about 5 years from retirement), I am really wrestling with it. They really want me to step up and lead in a more formal sense (I'm not phoning it in, I'm working my tail off and always looking to make things better, coach peers, etc), but I'm still really fighting to figure out what I want to do.

My wife was faced with a similar situation at her office so she retired 2 weeks ago rather than heap on the extra stress.

I dont think GenX is going to do it. I think we're (as a broad statement) cynical enough to do the math and see it really isn't worth it unless your ego or some other internal part of you gets a reward for it, because in most cases, the math just isn't there.
 
airlines should just do the net-jets thing. Make everyone captain ;-)
 
Busflyer said:
Once you move to the left seat you get to fly with your favorite Captain from then on!
Click to expand...

I don’t know man, I’m starting to see how these old capns get so grumpy after flying with green FOs with a blitzkrieg of stupidity…
 
What is weird is when I look at Envoy, I feel like they are trying to keep people as FOs. If I am reading it correctly at 750 hours, they pay the FOs, captain pay.
At min 75 hours / mo, that means in 10 months, the FO is encouraged to sit tight.

So in year 1, you are making ~93k and year 2, ~150k minimum?

envoy1.jpg
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
What is weird is when I look at Envoy, I feel like they are trying to keep people as FOs. If I am reading it correctly at 750 hours, they pay the FOs, captain pay.
At min 75 hours / mo, that means in 10 months, the FO is encouraged to sit tight.

So in year 1, you are making ~93k and year 2, ~150k minimum?

View attachment 119155
Click to expand...

That is to attract senior FOs who will be eligible to upgrade sooner. The pay goes back down if you bypass upgrade.
 
weilke said:
airlines should just do the net-jets thing. Make everyone captain ;-)
Click to expand...
I’m not sure if I’m missing something with your winky thing, but NJ does not make everyone a Capt… at least last I knew.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
What is weird is when I look at Envoy, I feel like they are trying to keep people as FOs. If I am reading it correctly at 750 hours, they pay the FOs, captain pay.
At min 75 hours / mo, that means in 10 months, the FO is encouraged to sit tight.

So in year 1, you are making ~93k and year 2, ~150k minimum?

View attachment 119155
Click to expand...
Why are the voices in my head saying ‘bait and switch’

EDIT: I think the voices are right. See @dmspilot ’s next post #46.
 
Kritchlow said:
I’m not sure if I’m missing something with your winky thing, but NJ does not make everyone a Capt… at least last I knew.
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20 years ago, they had decided that I was a prospective customer for a marquis card. One of the advertising pitches used at the time was that 'your plane is always flown by two captains'. I had a chance to chat with a crew at the airport and asked them and all it meant was that the FOs were fully type rated on whatever hardware they were flying. There was still a captain and a FO but they didn't call it that in front of the customers.
 
NJ copilots wear 3 stripes, had one recently tell me that stands for Coffee Ice Snacks. It’s FlexJet that puts four bars on the copilots shoulders, I mean co-captain.
 
I've been at my airline for just over a year. I'm at 50% in my base and seat. I could upgrade to captain but I have no desire to. They money would be nice, but going back on reserve as a junior narrowbody captain isn't worth it. Next stop for me is the right seat of a 787 once I can hold a line on it, which will be very soon. And by right seat, I mean the bunk watching Netflix and eating snacks for half the flight in preparation for my 24+ hour layover
 
Curious, why is seniority based on position and aircraft type?
Why not something more equitable, such as total hours, or years with the company?

Tim
 
tspear said:
Curious, why is seniority based on position and aircraft type?
Click to expand...
'In one word, Tradition!'

- it has always been done that way
- it's the only way it can be done
- it benefits me, so that is how it should be forever
....
 
tspear said:
Curious, why is seniority based on position and aircraft type?
Why not something more equitable, such as total hours, or years with the company?

Tim
Click to expand...
Seniority is based on time with the company…that’s why many pilots wait to upgrade. Why be the most junior captain when you can go from senior copilot to mid-seniority captain?
 
tspear said:
Curious, why is seniority based on position and aircraft type?
Why not something more equitable, such as total hours, or years with the company?

Tim
Click to expand...

It's not based on position and aircraft type. It is solely based on years with the company.
 
RussR said:
It's not based on position and aircraft type. It is solely based on years with the company.
Click to expand...
If only based on years with company, how does going from FO to Captain affect the seniority position?

Tim
 
tspear said:
If only based on years with company, how does going from FO to Captain affect the seniority position?

Tim
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say there are 1000 pilots in a company, and my seniority number is 500. I could bid captain and get it, but I’d probably be the lowest-seniority captain and I’ll be on reserve. If I stay as a copilot, I’m probably the highest seniority copilot, so I can pick the best trip schedule.

if I wait until my seniority number is 250, I can upgrade to captain and get a decent schedule.
 
tspear said:
If only based on years with company, how does going from FO to Captain affect the seniority position?

Tim
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It doesn't affect your seniority in the company, but if you are a senior FO and go to Captain, you will be further down the list as a Capt than as an FO, of course. But you likely won't be at the bottom of the Capt seniority list either, because you had a good enough seniority number to be a senior FO.

It's really pretty simple. Everybody hired before you is senior to you. Everybody hired after you is junior. Whether you're a Capt or FO, and whatever airframe you're on, it holds true.

There are many cases of a senior FO upgrading to Captain and therefore bumping an existing Capt (who was hired after they were) back to FO.

Note I am not an airline pilot, but have many friends who are.
 
For better and for worse, seniority is the best way. It's not perfect, but no system would be.
 
Groundpounder said:
For better and for worse, seniority is the best way. It's not perfect, but no system would be.
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In what way is it the best? The best at screwing others because those before you screwed you?

Tim
 
tspear said:
In what way is it the best? The best at screwing others because those before you screwed you?

Tim
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Like @Groundpounder , I suspect you have an axe to grind here, but I'll play along one more time.

If not seniority, how would you do it? You have a thousand employees who all do the exact same job, where they are successful if the airplane arrives safely where it's supposed to go. How would you determine who gets upgraded to Capt? How would you determine who gets first bid on routes, or bases, or to switch airframes? On-time performance? Number of delays? Amount of fuel saved? Hours flown each year? Passenger reviews? Grade their simulator flying? Give them all a written test each year?

All of these, and any other possibility, has it's problems. What's your solution?
 
RussR said:
How would you determine who gets first bid on routes, or bases, or to switch airframes? On-time performance? Number of delays? Amount of fuel saved? Hours flown each year? Passenger reviews? Grade their simulator flying? Give them all a written test each year?
Click to expand...

You forgot who married the CEO's extra plus sized daughter goes to the front of the line...
 
tspear said:
In what way is it the best? The best at screwing others because those before you screwed you?

Tim
Click to expand...
How does a seniority based system screw anyone? The person who has been there 5 years gets to pick his schedule ahead of the person who has been there 3 years.

Captains as a group are going to have much more seniority than FOs so if you are a senior FO and like your schedules you might want to stay in that seat. If you upgrade to Capt. your seniority relative to everyone else that you are now competing with for schedules is going to be much lower. If you don like that then don’t upgrade. Seems very fair to me.

Airline seniority is not based on time in seat but time with the company.
 
The airlines will never be merit-based. It's a job whose very nature is for people to be carbon-copies of each other, as has been highlighted already.

When asking about solutions, one has to go to the genesis of the bottleneck: Lateral income non-portability. Always has been an Achilles heel of the occupation. National Seniority Lists have long been mused as one way to tackle that, but there's zero traction for one ultimately.

What I would like to see, is the democratizing of the WO/FFD/"group I" aircraft lift. BL, "downline" jobs need to be made more palatable/incentivized as destination jobs. Do that, and I think much of this friction and ring-chasing neurosis becomes self-limited. You wouldn't even have to touch the "MLM downline" scheme of present status quo. That'd be a good compromise.

The other solutions are straight down-ballot ageist in nature, and though I personally support them, I also understand why the old and middle aged are antagonized by them. We can't all be friends in life, not in a rent-seeking world anyways.
 
Equal pay for equal work.

The FO doesn’t sign for the jet; in no world should an FO make as much or more money than the lowest paid CA. Employers agreeing to that stupidity is their problem.
 
TCABM said:
Equal pay for equal work.

The FO doesn’t sign for the jet; in no world should an FO make as much or more money than the lowest paid CA. Employers agreeing to that stupidity is their problem.
Click to expand...
Unless they flat out need bodies. If they can't find the bodies, those seats will remain unfilled. It's pretty directly related to the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in Matthew 20. Sometimes you gotta pay people to get a job finished and it's not evil of the master to pay them enough to make them come.
 
RussR said:
It's not based on position and aircraft type. It is solely based on years with the company.
Click to expand...
Sort of. It’s really based on years on th pilot seniority list. We have had folks from other positions in the company that joined the pilot list, and they start at the bottom.
 
tspear said:
If only based on years with company, how does going from FO to Captain affect the seniority position?

Tim
Click to expand...
All pilots are on the same seniority list. You bid what you can hold, or don’t bid to become more senior in your base or seat.
 
TCABM said:
Equal pay for equal work.

The FO doesn’t sign for the jet; in no world should an FO make as much or more money than the lowest paid CA. Employers agreeing to that stupidity is their problem.
Click to expand...
You know, in years past I got raked over the coals here for saying the Captain “signs for the jet”.
Thank you for saying that.
 
tspear said:
If only based on years with company, how does going from FO to Captain affect the seniority position?
Click to expand...
For bidding your monthly schedules, training schedules, picking up trips, and yearly vacation you are only bidding against the other pilots in your equipment-base-seat status.
 
@Groundpounder @RussR

I have no axe to grind. I do like a good debate, hence why I semi-trolled my question. The very nature of a seniority system discriminates for those who come behind. Hence those who have suffered through it, have an incentive to keep it. It in many ways is a self perpetuating cycle. THERE IS NOTHING ILLEGAL ABOUT IT! You can debate the moral/social aspects, but moral/social issues likely have negligible value in the debate between the unions and the company.

The vast majority of systems to allocate schedules very likely will have some discriminating factor. The goal of the company is to pick one which minimizes costs and maximizes revenue. The goal of the union/employees is to pick one which maximizes the rewards to the union/employees with a focus more on those who are current members than future members (natural enough since future members are not present).

In terms of a system, to solve the problem of fewer captains will likely require a completely new approach to many aspects of the negotiation. e.g. Make salary based on position flown, allowing qualified pilots to more easily switch between seats (so in the month you have a vacation planned or some big event you might select FO, other months you might bid for captain positions to make more money), make standby time paid at some level, have a home base and get paid for commute away from the home base.... You can then determine if you want to use a lottery system, random assignments, or the existing seniority (I would stick with seniority) to do the final assignments. The goal of the paid standby time, and commute time is to force companies to plan better; and pay a cost for not planning well. The reality is airlines can plan extremely well when managing pricing, and seem to do a good job also with equipment. However, based on the press, and I do NOT know any better, it seems like the airlines have generally done a **** poor job of planning on the staffing side.

@Larry in TN
Sucha simple concise answer. Thanks.

Tim
 
So, I am just a lowly 230ish hr captain of my C172, so I gotta ask, can someone explain the 9%, 59% first chair 2nd chair kind of stuff?
 
MIFlyer said:
I'm a 50 year old Gen X in the sales and marketing side of technology. I've always been a top performer, but have managed to avoid a promotion to management and the 10-20 hours of interoffice politicking that would add to my 50 hours a week of work.

For this, they offer 12% more money. I've taken jobs that pay the most since I started working at 11 years old. Now, at nearly 50 (and hopefully about 5 years from retirement), I am really wrestling with it. They really want me to step up and lead in a more formal sense (I'm not phoning it in, I'm working my tail off and always looking to make things better, coach peers, etc), but I'm still really fighting to figure out what I want to do.

My wife was faced with a similar situation at her office so she retired 2 weeks ago rather than heap on the extra stress.

I dont think GenX is going to do it. I think we're (as a broad statement) cynical enough to do the math and see it really isn't worth it unless your ego or some other internal part of you gets a reward for it, because in most cases, the math just isn't there.
Click to expand...

R/D here, and same approach.

A lot of these discussions ignore the reality for airline pilots - a LOT have side gigs. Assuming you've kept your cost of living low, you save some capital, dial back a bit at such a job and maintain a stable income and benefits and suddenly you have the time to pull together something else. I know a few people who fly the 190 for JetBlue who are very senior for their seats but have side hustles that provide considerable income and the other benefits associated with 1099 and business income.

Firefighters have always done this, and we as a society are starting to see this with remote workers, myself included. Why is this a surprise?
 
4RNB said:
So, I am just a lowly 230ish hr captain of my C172, so I gotta ask, can someone explain the 9%, 59% first chair 2nd chair kind of stuff?
Click to expand...
When you are bidding for work schedules, vacation, whatever, you are bidding against others that are in the same seat/base/aircraft as you. As a Captain you are bidding against pilots who are going to be more senior than FOs are so if you want to maximize what your seniority can do for you it’s better to be in the right seat where the more junior people are.

I sit about 30% down the Captain list on the 767 but if I were still an FO I’d be in the top 1%. Seniority systems are not unfair, it’s just about choices. Do you want to upgrade and make more money or stay more senior in the seat and have better schedules?
 
RussR said:
There are many cases of a senior FO upgrading to Captain and therefore bumping an existing Capt (who was hired after they were) back to FO.

Note I am not an airline pilot, but have many friends who are.
Click to expand...
The craziest one I heard was a friend who upgraded aircraft, for 6 months, due to someone going off line. So they did 6 weeks training, flew the new airplane for 6 months (ot less) then 6 weeks of retraining back to the other jet.
 
RussR said:
It doesn't affect your seniority in the company, but if you are a senior FO and go to Captain, you will be further down the list as a Capt than as an FO, of course. But you likely won't be at the bottom of the Capt seniority list either, because you had a good enough seniority number to be a senior FO.

It's really pretty simple. Everybody hired before you is senior to you. Everybody hired after you is junior. Whether you're a Capt or FO, and whatever airframe you're on, it holds true.

There are many cases of a senior FO upgrading to Captain and therefore bumping an existing Capt (who was hired after they were) back to FO.

Note I am not an airline pilot, but have many friends who are.
Click to expand...
No… I know of NO airline that a captain can be bumped to FO because a senior FO bumps him.
There has to be a Capt opening before someone can bid that position.

Your first statement is also incorrect. You remain in the exact same spot on the list. It’s ONE list. Your relative bidding changes, as you are now bidding based, vacay, etc against other captains.
 
Pinecone said:
The craziest one I heard was a friend who upgraded aircraft, for 6 months, due to someone going off line. So they did 6 weeks training, flew the new airplane for 6 months (ot less) then 6 weeks of retraining back to the other jet.
Click to expand...
Possible, but unusual. Often times there are locks to prevent this.
 
tspear said:
@Groundpounder @RussR

I have no axe to grind. I do like a good debate, hence why I semi-trolled my question. The very nature of a seniority system discriminates for those who come behind. Hence those who have suffered through it, have an incentive to keep it. It in many ways is a self perpetuating cycle. THERE IS NOTHING ILLEGAL ABOUT IT! You can debate the moral/social aspects, but moral/social issues likely have negligible value in the debate between the unions and the company.

The vast majority of systems to allocate schedules very likely will have some discriminating factor. The goal of the company is to pick one which minimizes costs and maximizes revenue. The goal of the union/employees is to pick one which maximizes the rewards to the union/employees with a focus more on those who are current members than future members (natural enough since future members are not present).

In terms of a system, to solve the problem of fewer captains will likely require a completely new approach to many aspects of the negotiation. e.g. Make salary based on position flown, allowing qualified pilots to more easily switch between seats (so in the month you have a vacation planned or some big event you might select FO, other months you might bid for captain positions to make more money), make standby time paid at some level, have a home base and get paid for commute away from the home base.... You can then determine if you want to use a lottery system, random assignments, or the existing seniority (I would stick with seniority) to do the final assignments. The goal of the paid standby time, and commute time is to force companies to plan better; and pay a cost for not planning well. The reality is airlines can plan extremely well when managing pricing, and seem to do a good job also with equipment. However, based on the press, and I do NOT know any better, it seems like the airlines have generally done a **** poor job of planning on the staffing side.

@Larry in TN
Sucha simple concise answer. Thanks.

Tim
Click to expand...

It's already hard enough to figure out staffing and schedules, what you are proposing would make it ten times more difficult.
 
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