Originally Posted by
flyallnite
Not agreeing or disagreeing with the above calculus, but can we add a few things to this mix?
The average Southwest pilot may fly more hours per month, but the stage lengths are vastly different and their average load factor is also lower. The DL pilot on average flies more seats per departure, on aircraft that produce more revenue (First/Business, Cargo, Charter Ops), and does all of this while operating in a global theater.
According to the SWAPA flyer, the average Southwest pilot does all of this while working significantly fewer days per month/year than the DL pilot does.
I just want to make sure that if we are going to go SWA/DL comparisons, we consider everything that is in that complex mix.
As we expand our 88-90 (dc-9) fleet and 737 fleet, the production rate of the DL pilot should increase. The new pilots we hire over the next 15 years will come online at the lowest pay rate with 2 weeks of vacation, and we may well have pay banding by then. So going forward, the advantage swings our way.
Aw man, I wish I had the PM's from a while ago but I was given some pay information for a SWA A. Basically they flew about the same hours as we would normally, 80 hours-ish, but his check was $25,000 and he was less than 12 years btw.
he explained how that worked and it did not require funny business like we would need with green slips and the like. Just straight flying, but they get a lot of credit over there. How was it explained, that they're paid by the trip which equals a DAL-HOU run rounded up. I want to say it was something like paying us ATL-SAV trips for every leg, which lets say is 1 hour block. Well if you fly to EWR you get 3 trips, so you get 3 hours of pay for doing say a 2.25 flight. Well, that's 3 hours of credit you get paid so you're up 35 minutes and 1 hour on the leg. Do that over the course of a trip and you're rolling down the street,smoking endo and sipping on gin n' juice with your mind on your money and your money on your mind.
Something like that. I can't remember so don't take my word for it. I'll have to use the search function some time and see if I posted his comments.
FTB
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