Originally Posted by
hockeypilot44
I'm with you. I have found that no one wants to work 100 hours months or even 80 hour months. It just takes 80 hours of our current pay for most pilots to live paycheck to paycheck. The 100 hour guys are mostly captains that lost their pensions and are terrified of retiring without enough money. We are our own worst enemy. If we all fly 90-100 hours per month, most of us will be flying smaller equipment for a less hourly rate meaning more work for the same money. I think DALPA is going about this the completely wrong way. We want more money, not more work.
Hockey, when I was hired, they were also negotiating a contract. When you got into the 727 and looked up, there was a slogan scratched into the dome light covers. It said, "More Money, More Time Off".
It took me a while to figure out what they were talking about, but you've broken the code. The "more time off" we get, the more pilots they need in each (higher paying) category, which leads to upgrades, which leads to the "More Money" part.
Some pilots think that flying more per month will bring them a fatter paycheck. But flying -more- per month will have the exact opposite effect. Delta will need LESS pilots, starting at the top, and displacing all the way down. We will then be getting "Less Money (being displaced) and Less Time Off (by having to fly more to make up for the pay cut)
Too bad we don't have dome lights to scratch the slogan into! I'd go back to a fixed 75 hour cap tomorrow, with bow wave and spill back, but I doubt the ALPA guys, who are getting what, 87 hours(?) per month now, would go for it.