When we say performance what do we mean?

Is performance 10 redeyes a month? Is performance missing every weekend with your family for the next 6 years? Is performance deadheading to JFK to fly an airplane OAK to LGB and just squeeking in at 15:55 of duty? Is performance taking 12 days off because that's what you have to do to reach the 80 hour "average" mark? Is performance being released from reserve at 5:00 am so you can fly a redeye that night?
or
Is performance flying single day trips on bankers hours with 18 days off?

What I am asking is: do senior pilots contribute $38,000 per year more to this company than the reserve who's being asked to turn his sleep clock on and off like a machine?

Of course, you should be paid more for flying 90 hours but we're not talking about a shallow curve of 28% here. We're talking about 43%! Nobody else does this and there's a good reason why. Several thousand pilots are not going to put up with that kind of disparity for very long. But we're young and naïve.

If 80 hours is the assumed point where we hit average then the pilot who's stuck on reserve or the pilot who's being line capped is being punished with very real dollars - or - the pilot killing himself to fly red eyes month after month who decides to take a break and fly day trips will be punished for his efforts. Is it fair that when we throttle back for our own well-being or for family reasons, that our pay should fall off so precipitously?

Most of our pilots from 100 and up are always going to defend a system where the junior pilots are paid less than industry average to subsidize a salary at the top that is higher than industry average. Most of the middle 300 captains will be a mixed group depending upon who's burnt out. The bottom 100 captains would more than likely support a change to this system. Certainly, if you're an FO at jetBlue you would be misguided to support a system that may be many years from paying you $120,000 annually and this interval is only going to get longer - and - when you do scratch your way to 320 Captain making 85 hours - how long till YOU burn out. Will it cost you your marriage or your family? Will you spend all of your time either working or recovering from work - using those proven AMP techniques?

It would be interesting to put this to a vote sometime down the road.

This system will not stand indefinitely. Nobody can realistically say that, ten years from now, this system isn't gone. Because by then it will seem so unfair that the outcry will be undeniable. Let's get it changed sooner rather than later.