re: So I just met Nick Fairley

Yeah I am ATL based. You can be here, Detroit, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York (all 3 airports), Cincinnati (probably close that soon) or Salt Lake City.

ATL is the biggest base. For logistics reasons you only find certain planes in certain bases but they'll mostly fly throughout the system, wherever marketing/network says go. You only fly one type because the differences in systems and procedures warrant that, except on the 757/767 we fly both because the cockpits are mostly identical. But you'll fly any of the planes your trained on, if you have 170 MD-88s/90s then they're all identical and you do an out and back on one and then swap to another, etc.

We run a seniority system, first guy hired is #1 and on down the list to #12,400+. #1 gets first choice on plane and base and Captain or FO/Copilot position, and then in the individual "category" say Airbus A320 FO ATL, you bid your trips, days off, vacation, overtime, double time, etc. Pay is on years of service, tops out at 12 years, but we negotiate contracts and usually each year there is a raise. Domestic is 4 and 3 day trips, some 2 and 1 day, a few 5. International is mostly 6 (4 flights over 6 days), a few 3, a bunch of 9-12 on the 747.

As to learning to fly, I did it in a Cessna 172 at a local airport. Instructed students at Auburn in 172s. Did some flying in the Auburn corporate planes (back then King Airs) to do recruiting especially after the IB. Back then we would either pick up the recruits (not allowed now I don't think) or take coaches around. Or the basketball team which back then required 3-4 planes. They moved to Citation jets years ago, N10AU I think is one of them. You'd check on with a controller and say your call sign and other pilots would say War Eagle. One time the controller and MOB was emphatic that we needed to tell the coaches about a recruit in town, that was funny. When recruiting you'd get some where and see other planes that said UF or UT etc on their call sign, I wonder if we were after the same guy.

We do a lot of Auburn charters here. They used the 747 I know in 2010 for the NCG. They use 757s and 767s for the football team. The pilot that flew them to the NCG last year was actually an Alabama football player years ago. My Auburn buddy did a baseball charter out of ARK (XNA) to MGM in the middle of the night on a 717.