Originally Posted by
acl65pilot
George you are correct with the metric you are using. It is a different table. My point was in direct reference to the tables I posted. Block hrs per pilot. I need to look at the raw form 41 data, but as I recall they only put total block hrs not pilot block hrs on the Form and as a result that metric is skewed.
I also agree with you pilot costs per ASM. It is a good metric to use, but again we are looking at our operation with a ton of augmentation on LH and ULH flights versus a airline with all domestic two man ops. What would be more telling is to break it out wrt to domestic and international two man versus international three and four man ops. Then you can compare apples to apples.
Of course the ops of augmented flights still have the costs associated with them, but the RASM is vastly different.
Ok, let me flip it around.
Change nothing.
No change in our ALV,
No change in our work rules
No change in our staffing
No change in our training backlog
No change in augmented crews
No change in overstaffing on the 777
and increase pilot compensation by 30%
All that would happen is even with all the high cost items at Delta, the pilot portion of CASM would be equal with Southwest.
The difference between DAL and WN has less to do with pilot compensation and more to do with everything else. (Debt, infrastructure, equipment, other employee groups, etc.)
I'm glad we have a sharp team running the ship, improving the CASM with the end result of getting better RASM.
But when we look over the fence we can see that WN has a higher pilot portion of CASM. When you factor in augmented crews at DAL the percentage WN spends in excess of DAL could easily go higher.
I'm saying there is headroom, and if we're all not in training, the headroom grows by another 10 points as seen in the 2009 numbers.
Put another way: If DAL and WN had the same RASM, pilots at Delta are providing 30%+ of the RASM. It's like reverse profit sharing...
Cheers
George