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The last airline Alaska bought ended up with them paying $2.6 billion for what amounted to a few California gates after they closed Virgins' JFK base and sold the entire fleet, so I'm sure spending $1.9 billion for another airline with a not-Seattle base and a bunch of A321's won't have any problems.
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Dec 4, 2023 00:55
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azflyboy posted:The last airline Alaska bought ended up with them paying $2.6 billion for what amounted to a few California gates after they closed Virgins' JFK base and sold the entire fleet, so I'm sure spending $1.9 billion for another airline with a not-Seattle base and a bunch of A321's won't have any problems. They’re probably already playing American and Delta off each other to sell them at a loss.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:08
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They are eventually going to whittle the brand and carrier down so much that they will quietly eliminate it. Alaska only bought Virgin to remove competition and this is probably a similar move.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:15
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Two Kings posted:They are eventually going to whittle the brand and carrier down so much that they will quietly eliminate it. Alaska bought Virgin because they were terrified JetBlue was going to do so, which is part of why they massively overpaid. After the fact, Alaska tried to justify the merger as "We're gonna be a national airline!" before closing JFK, and then "We're gonna take over California!" before basically giving up and making everyone go to Seattle, so the track record isn't great. Since Hawaiian isn't in great financial shape and Alaska says the deal is profitable in two years, there's likely quite a few "here's how much we jack up fares" emails at both carriers that the DOJ is going to have a lot of fun with.
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Dec 4, 2023 01:55
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I’m just jazzed my online nonrev benefits might get better
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Dec 4, 2023 02:30
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Eh, right now the talk is to keep Hawaiian and Alaska operations separate. Most of the pilots I've spoken to at Hawaiian are excited, which is admittedly just anecdotal and based on a single day's interactions. We're still slotted to receive the 787s and more A330 Freighters for the Amazon contract. No information has come through about changing or cancelling these orders. Today was my most entertaining Pacific crossing to date. Gossip on 123.45 was awesome lol e: I want Delta to butt in and get into a slap fight with Alaska over Hawaiian.
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Dec 4, 2023 02:35
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cigaw posted:Eh, right now the talk is to keep Hawaiian and Alaska operations separate. Most of the pilots I've spoken to at Hawaiian are excited, which is admittedly just anecdotal and based on a single day's interactions. I've wondered why more airlines haven't done this. IAG has done it with their airlines and it might be an easy out for an airline who suffers a PR nightmare to snag business anyway because John Q. Public doesn't know the difference. "United had a system meltdown this week? Hell, you should go fly Continental!"
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Dec 4, 2023 02:42
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The AS reactions range from enthusiasm to pity from the former VX people
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Dec 4, 2023 02:43
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US major Airline pilot contracts generally don’t allow you to keep separate pilot lists and contracts. How is Alaska going to own Hawaiian but pay those pilot’s less than their own? No way Alaska scope agreement lets them get away with that. It’s a B scale. Alaska Alpa is going to force a seniority list merger or at least go to court over it.
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Dec 4, 2023 03:05
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Two Kings posted:US major Airline pilot contracts generally don’t allow you to keep separate pilot lists and contracts. AAG likely wants to keep Hawaiian and Alaska as separate airlines under the same holding company, which is how they've operated Horizon and Alaska for the last few decades. Whether the Alaska contract allows that, I don't know, but it's successfully allowed AAG to do some really creative accounting by shifting money between Alaska and Horizon to juice quarterly numbers when required.
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Dec 4, 2023 03:50
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Both are ALPA carriers and have Merging clauses in their respective PWA. A joint working agreement and eventual seniority list merge will have to be worked out, but Hawaiian internal comms are stating that livery and branding are to remain separate. I don't know how they'll structure this merger. From what I can tell, it'll all fall under the Alaska Holdings parent company, so they could very well keep Alaska, Horizon and Hawaiian as separate entities. If a new, common, PWA gets negotiated between Alaska and Hawaiian I certainly hope they keep Alaska's Snap Up compensation clause. It'll be a solid pay raise for Hawaiian pilots, especially on the narrow body side.
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Dec 4, 2023 03:58
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Big difference between separating 737s from Q400s and E175s and keeping Alaska pilots from flying A321 NEOs or 330s and 787s. But we will see what financial and legal voodoo Alaska can do with the acquisition. This still needs to pass DOJ scrutiny. I expect Alaska will have to cut ties with American. JetBlues trial over its Spirit merger will be a good bellweather if this is actually going to happen or not.
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Dec 4, 2023 04:00
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cigaw posted:Both are ALPA carriers and have Merging clauses in their respective PWA. A joint working agreement and eventual seniority list merge will have to be worked out, but Hawaiian internal comms are stating that livery and branding are to remain separate. Horizon technically had its' own branding and livery until a few years ago, so taking the same "legally separate, but not really" approach with Hawaiian seems like the "best case" for AAG, in which case Hawaiian will end up with a "president" who is basically just a figurehead responsible for doing whatever the AAG board decides. Keeping the companies separate also makes it way easier for AAG to do creative accounting, since they'll simply set up a completely opaque system whereby Alaska, Hawaiian, and Horizon all bill each other for things like ramp space, GSE use, gate agents, etc..., which lets them move large amounts of money around in order to either make one carrier look more or less profitable, or avoid triggering a bonus payout to employees. Two Kings posted:
That may not be a too big an ask. Alaska sold the American deal as "Look at all the places you can go from Seattle on American!", but American has basically given up on Seattle, so I'd assume the American codeshare is way less valuable than being able to raise Hawaii fares and get a stranglehold on inter-island flying. azflyboy fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 04:13
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azflyboy posted:raise Hawaii fares and get a stranglehold on inter-island flying. Southwest is gonna fight that tooth and nail. SWA sees Hawaii flying as the next empire to conquer and you might see real price war shenanigans start if the two companies merge.
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Dec 4, 2023 04:33
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Alaska tried a price war with Southwest after buying Virgin (Alaska wanted to take over California), and it didn't go well for Team Eskimo.
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Dec 4, 2023 05:35
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With cost of living increases and inflation, would the cost to get a PPL be significantly higher now? I live near a small airport with a flight school. I would love to get my PPL, budgeting ~10k for it but I have no idea if that is a reasonable amount of money to expect anymore.
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Dec 4, 2023 17:46
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Kwolok posted:With cost of living increases and inflation, would the cost to get a PPL be significantly higher now? I live near a small airport with a flight school. I would love to get my PPL, budgeting ~10k for it but I have no idea if that is a reasonable amount of money to expect anymore. Really depends on what they charge buddy. You'll need a minimum of 30 hours dual and 10 solo. More likely to take between 50-80 hours. Talk to the school, rates differ between schools and planes available. e. To add, a local flight school to me wants $134 an hour wet for a 152 and $75 an hour for instruction. Ground school there is $600. If you get to the solo stage budget $1100 for a quality ANR headset. Maksimus54 fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Dec 4, 2023 |
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Dec 4, 2023 17:57
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Kwolok posted:With cost of living increases and inflation, would the cost to get a PPL be significantly higher now? I live near a small airport with a flight school. I would love to get my PPL, budgeting ~10k for it but I have no idea if that is a reasonable amount of money to expect anymore. I finished my PPL in September. I rent from a club that charges $70/hr dry, so call it ~$110 with fuel. My instructor was $65/hr, he's charging $70/hr for new students. I took a total of 65hrs including the Checkride. Here's a breakdown of my costs: 65hrs@$110/hr: $7,150 rental 52 hrs@$65/hr: $3,380 instructor $1,100 Checkride fee $550 used ANR headset $250 online ground school $150 written test fee $100 medical $350 ADS-B receiver ~$300 pilot supplies You'll likely also want an iPad and foreflight subscription, and renters insurance. Total for subscription and foreflight is ~$500/yr for me, with $10,000 hull coverage and $1M liability. I also pay a $100 annual club membership fee. Total: ~$13,500 plus annual costs. Your rental costs are likely to be higher per hour than mine (typically ~$140/hr in southern California) but you can reduce the total hours needed a lot by flying several times a week. I took 2 years to get mine and had to repeat instruction I had forgotten, which gets time consuming and expensive.
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Dec 4, 2023 21:21
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Walrusmaster posted:I finished my PPL in September. I rent from a club that charges $70/hr dry, so call it ~$110 with fuel. My instructor was $65/hr, he's charging $70/hr for new students. I took a total of 65hrs including the Checkride. Here's a breakdown of my costs: Awesome thank you so much. Yeah I live in San Diego and I'm used to paying an extra San Diego tax on everything. Are there any hidden fees or bullshit charges schools or instructors tend to try and sneak in I need to look out for?
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Dec 4, 2023 23:00
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Be wary of any place that wants a bunch of money up front. It's not unheard of (not sure about your area specifically) for flight schools to do "block rates", where you put down something like $1000 at a time in exchange for a lower hourly rate, but if there's places wanting $5-10k up front, or promising a "fixed cost" for the entire PPL, they're probably up to something. The other thing to be aware of is that the Jeppesen private pilot textbook is a huge rip off. All they're doing is repackaging a couple of FAA publications (the airplane flying handbook and pilot's handbook of aeronautical knowledge) that are free online with shiny pictures and some questions at the end, and then charging $90 for it. If you haven't already, it's probably worth making sure you can pass the relevant medical exam for what you're wanting to do before you throw a lot of money at it, since FAA medical standards are incredibly obtuse, and there's a quite a few seemingly innocuous questions ("Have you talked to a therapist?") that can make your life absolute hell depending on how they're answered.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:58
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azflyboy posted:Be wary of any place that wants a bunch of money up front. These are all really good points. Block rates are pretty common in socal. Make sure you get along with your instructor, that your schedule matches well with theirs, and that their teaching style works with your learning style. It can be helpful (if you have the time and money) to try out a few instructors first before selecting one. At a minimum, interview them/ask them about their rates, schedules, recent pass rate, typical number of hours their students take to solo/cross-country/Checkride (with the understanding that everyone is different and learns at a different pace, so don't hold them to a specific number). Not meshing well with an instructor will cost you time, money, and commitment. It's also helpful to do your night flying in winter since you don't have to stay up so late before it gets dark. Since you're in San Diego be aware that the marine layer will probably cause scheduling issues from time to time. I did the ground school online and took my written before starting flight instruction, which I feel saved me some time since I was familiar with concepts before trying them in the plane. Walrusmaster fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Dec 5, 2023 |
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Dec 5, 2023 00:29
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Quote =/= edit 
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Dec 5, 2023 00:32
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azflyboy posted:The other thing to be aware of is that the Jeppesen private pilot textbook is a huge rip off. All they're doing is repackaging a couple of FAA publications (the airplane flying handbook and pilot's handbook of aeronautical knowledge) that are free online with shiny pictures and some questions at the end, and then charging $90 for it. The Jeppesen Private Pilot Syllabus is a different book though. Having a syllabus, any syllabus, is cool and good and you should probably think twice about any flight school that does not follow one. And the pay and print versions of Airplane Flying Handbook and Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge are worth paying for over the free ones (eventually, if you end up using them a lot).
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Dec 5, 2023 00:35
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Walrusmaster posted:These are all really good points. Block rates are pretty common in socal. Where would you recommend taking the online courses?
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Dec 5, 2023 00:45
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Kwolok posted:Where would you recommend taking the online courses? I used Sporty's: https://www.sportys.com/learn-to-fly-course-private-pilot-test-prep-online-app-and-tv.html Other people have recommended King Schools: https://kingschools.com/private-pilot-certificate There's some other ones as well, but I don't have any experience with them. Salami Surgeon posted:The Jeppesen Private Pilot Syllabus is a different book though. Having a syllabus, any syllabus, is cool and good and you should probably think twice about any flight school that does not follow one. Good points!
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Dec 5, 2023 01:16
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Kwolok posted:Where would you recommend taking the online courses? I've always been a fan of the Gleim test prep, but never took their ground schools.
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Dec 5, 2023 01:49
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Kwolok posted:Are there any hidden fees or bullshit charges schools or instructors tend to try and sneak in I need to look out for? Are fuel surcharges still a thing? I haven't been watching GA prices for a few years but a lot of places would quote an hourly rate and in small print have an hourly fuel surcharge.
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Dec 5, 2023 01:51
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Landing fees maybe?
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Dec 5, 2023 02:16
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Two Kings posted:US major Airline pilot contracts generally don’t allow you to keep separate pilot lists and contracts. they could also operate hawaiian under its own certificate using alaska pilots too, like atlas does with the polar certificate
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Dec 5, 2023 03:22
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Walrusmaster posted:
CBJSprague24 posted:I've always been a fan of the Gleim test prep, but never took their ground schools. I used gleim for ppl and found it adequate, but the king stuff for ifr has felt way better e: and you get the king dreams included
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Dec 5, 2023 03:50
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Thanks for all the above guys. I've scheduled my class 3 medical exam in a couple days and I'm gonna go talk to my local school following that
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Dec 5, 2023 08:00
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Animal posted:When I go home a switch flips and I completely forget about aviation unless I’m reading this thread or someone asks me a question about flying, or a coworker contacts me, etc. Life becomes all about my kids, what are we gonna eat today, my friends, wrist watches, and video games. Then a day before my next trip I remember I’m a pilot. And that’s cool when it happens, I actually love my job. Best thing about the job in some ways, I was self employed for 3 years before I started flying and it never ends, quit work eat dinner and pull out the laptop cause no one else is gonna do it. Now I land shut down and go home. I don't think about work till I have to go to work. The company has occasionally sent an email when I'm off looking for someone to cover something, I'm free to ignore it or I can pick up a ridiculous amount of money to sell my day off. Friends of mine in an office environment struggle to disconnect and I'm like ha ha tell them to stop contacting you and they're like oh no I have to cover this. gently caress that my time off is sacrosanct now.
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Dec 6, 2023 01:36
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What do you guys think about trips that end with a red eye? I’m gonna try to volunteer for one this week that has one leg home that pays 2 days. Yeah I hit the pillow at like 6am but then I’m off for the rest of the day before getting another 4 days off. Seems kinda dope.
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Dec 6, 2023 02:14
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Rolo posted:What do you guys think about trips that end with a red eye? I’m gonna try to volunteer for one this week that has one leg home that pays 2 days. Yeah I hit the pillow at like 6am but then I’m off for the rest of the day before getting another 4 days off. Seems kinda dope. You should do it if only so you can get a feel for whether you wanna do it in the future. SomeDrunkenMick posted:Best thing about the job in some ways, I was self employed for 3 years before I started flying and it never ends, quit work eat dinner and pull out the laptop cause no one else is gonna do it. Now I land shut down and go home. I don't think about work till I have to go to work. The company has occasionally sent an email when I'm off looking for someone to cover something, I'm free to ignore it or I can pick up a ridiculous amount of money to sell my day off. Friends of mine in an office environment struggle to disconnect and I'm like ha ha tell them to stop contacting you and they're like oh no I have to cover this. gently caress that my time off is sacrosanct now. I accepted a promotion at my airline that will sadly put an end to this, I’ll be working a lot from home, and occasionally choosing a trip to go fly. I’d much rather be a line pilot, but the amount of money I will be making will mean a better future for my family. Buying a home in NYC will become realistic.
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Dec 6, 2023 02:22
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Animal posted:You should do it if only so you can get a feel for whether you wanna do it in the future. Thats kinda my process outside of “ask the thread.” If I hate it I’ll avoid it in the future but I’ve been talking to a surprising amount of captains at all ages that like it. Animal posted:I accepted a promotion at my airline that will sadly put an end to this, I’ll be working a lot from home, and occasionally choosing a trip to go fly. I’d much rather be a line pilot, but the amount of money I will be making will mean a better future for my family. Buying a home in NYC will become realistic. I said this in another thread but congrats again!
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Dec 6, 2023 02:29
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Rolo posted:What do you guys think about trips that end with a red eye? I’m gonna try to volunteer for one this week that has one leg home that pays 2 days. Yeah I hit the pillow at like 6am but then I’m off for the rest of the day before getting another 4 days off. Seems kinda dope. What sort of redeye? I'm not a pilot but the mid-con redeye is to happiness as the CR2 is to the fifth concentric circle of hell. I steadfastly refuse them even if I don't have to do poo poo afterward. If your sleep cycle and general happiness permit it, go for it.
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Dec 6, 2023 02:58
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Beef Of Ages posted:What sort of redeye? I'm not a pilot but the mid-con redeye is to happiness as the CR2 is to the fifth concentric circle of hell. I steadfastly refuse them even if I don't have to do poo poo afterward. I think this analogy needs reworking, did you write it after a mid-con redeye? Unless you mean that the CR2 should be lucky to occupy only the fifth concentric circle of hell, which is reasonable.
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Dec 6, 2023 05:16
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Rolo posted:What do you guys think about trips that end with a red eye? I’m gonna try to volunteer for one this week that has one leg home that pays 2 days. Yeah I hit the pillow at like 6am but then I’m off for the rest of the day before getting another 4 days off. Seems kinda dope. E: my tolerance for red eyes increases if it's an enhanced crew, but we do have a cushy crew rest bunk.
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Dec 6, 2023 06:41
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PT6A posted:I think this analogy needs reworking, did you write it after a mid-con redeye? Unless you mean that the CR2 should be lucky to occupy only the fifth concentric circle of hell, which is reasonable. Yeah, that is what I meant. I plead Woodford Reserve.
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Dec 6, 2023 11:58
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Animal posted:You should do it if only so you can get a feel for whether you wanna do it in the future. Do what's best for your family, I'm trying to change airlines at the moment will be on less money but I'll be home every evening and it facilitates my wife changing job with a chunky pay rise that will be more than enough to balance out the deficit in pay. After a manic summer commuting I realised I'm gonna miss too much of my kid growing up if I don't make a change and money can't buy that.
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Dec 6, 2023 20:36
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