Originally Posted by
Moonwalker
Not sure it's just about being too posh to fly a smaller airframe. NJ management has showed more than once now over a decade that as soon as there is any form of dip in the market, the first thing they do is to lay off people. Doesn't matter if there is a "new management", the culture is there. With this in mind, being employable is critical. Flying a Global with 45 tons MTOM surely qualifies you for more jobs than a Phenom rating if you for any reason have to look for a new job. Flying a phenom inside the walls of NJ is of course great, but I know more than one who were let go around 2013-2015 with XLS ratings. 5+ years in the LHS at NJ were great as long as it lasted but once they were out they had to buy themselves a 737 rating to land a new job...in the RHS.
I agree, there's more to it than just personal taste and preference for aircraft. I wouldn't want to be one of the guys holding an A380 rating right now too, for example. Yet, that's an amazing and unique aircraft and most definitely not "small" so it must not be about that. Covid was a nice eyeopener, in many ways. Some get out of airlines, some do the opposite, some change aircraft type to a more popular one for job-hunting purposes or some do not want to sacrifice most of their family-time for earn-money-time like they used to do before anymore. We have to think 3-dimensional now. Just looking at one aspect and 'going for it' is not going to help you in the future unfortunately.