Originally Posted by
gloopy
I do too. My main concern over it is the risk that it would favor growth for larger planes while also favoring fewer smaller planes. Once the pay is the same, sure go ahead and give us a few A380s and give tons of 767/777/787/350s to JV partners. And forget about ever recapturing scope. As hard as that would be anyway (100% possible, realistic and worth it, but hard nonetheless) it would be even harder to try and bring 76 seaters back to mainline...or even the next gen 100 seater...at 747/380 pay.
I'm not saying a workable solution isn't possible, but I'm just not seeing one at the moment. Even if we had a dynamic rate that flexed for everyone proportionately to how much of each fleet type was pressed into service, that wouldn't do anything to fix that flaw in the system and would actually once again push the majority of the group very hard to outsource the bottom end so as to not effect the top pay downward. The only incentive would be that small percentage of very senior FO's and very junior Captains in the "habitable zone" of potential upgrades/downgrades in the near future with a small movement either way, and thats not enough. The company would then have significant pressure to keep the size of aircraft as big as possible and even more incentive to outsource more. UPS uses longevity pay and while their rates are good they don't fly anything under a 757. That would be very bad for us if we went that route, even with their payrates and retirement.
So for a LBP system to work, it would have to incentivise smaller aircraft (the much fatter part of the bottom of the pyramid rather than the top) and I'm not seeing how it would do that. If that could be addressed I would be in favor of it.
You can also simplify the current system in to Narrow, and Wide. Wide starting with the 757. Or you can do a Narrow, Wide, and ULH which would basically look like this
744/777/330/765
7ER/767/752/753 etc
73N/320/m88/90/dc9/e190/CS-10/300
Point is to look at the trends with AF type JV's and then find a way to make the most money for our groups. A straight LBP may not be the answer but we must realize where our growth seat are going to be and I suspect that it will not be in the 777 range. I should be, but this company seems content allowing AF to purchase and fly that metal. I think we will see that trend repeated with Skyteam Partners and future JV's.