Originally Posted by
sailingfun
They are not within a country mile of our inflation adjusted contract 2k rates. I have no idea where you got that info. Their 737 pays 210 per hour. In 2004 the 737 at Delta was around 256 an hour. With inflation adjustments it would have to be near 300 an hour.
Well there's your mistake. You're trying to use pay rates and are comparing apples and oranges. The average SWA Captain makes over $230k/year. Let's just use an even $230k for comparison. So what did an MD-88 Captain (the closest we have to the kind of flying SWA does) make in 2004 (C2K rates) prior to our pay cuts? Well, the rate was $237.37/hour. At 75 hours per month, that Captain made $213,633 for the year. Adjust that for inflation (source:
Tom's Inflation Calculator) and you get $252,803.18 today. It would require no more than a 10% pay increase for SWA Captains to be making our C2K + inflation for the same type of flying. I wouldn't call that "a country mile", but I guess you can if you want to.
