Originally Posted by
Dashdog
This is the best summary of our industry I've seen in awhile. When people ask me what I think of VX, JB, Spirit, ect., I never quite know how to answer, but from now on I'm just going to paste this on my phone, and show it to them. I don't hold any grudges against my fellow pilots for taking these jobs, but I do resent the system that creates them, and keeps our compensation and work rules so poor. I have a friend who is younger and works for JB. He makes more than I do (I work for a legacy carrier- it doesn't matter which). It's hard for him to understand that one of the reasons my pay is so low, is because of the success of his company- which got successful for the reasons stated above by gloopy. I don't hold it against him, and I don't want to see his pay go down, but some day (possibly soon), he will be in my shoes watching some other ULCC start-up undercutting his company and putting downward pressure on his pay. Hopefully he'll be able to understand better then and maybe work towards a real solution. Going by history (and all the ridiculous arguments on this forum), I don't think the chances are too good.
Trying to understand how our industry got this way is kind of like the 4 blind men trying to describe an elephant each holding on to a different part. One has an ear, one a leg, the trunk, the tail.
I work for a self described ULCC. Prior to this my background was military so my perspective is neccessarily narrow. Even so, I don't see how my carrier is responsible for pilot woes at the legacies. Consider these points:
It was the legacy carriers with the blessing of their respective pilot unions that created B scales and fostered the growth of regional airlines. Neither of those two descisions had anything to do my carriers existance. They did have much to do with wrecking T&C of pilots
The fallout from 9/11 gave airline management a cover to gut labor contracts in a way they probably could not have done before.
It's not entirely a zero sum game. As with Ryan in europe, our market is customers who normally would not have flown at all, or rarely.
One of ALPAs mantras is that pilot costs have nothing to do with the success or failure of an airline. Complaining about pilot wages at a LCC is therefore a straw man argument.
Before you complain about low wages and poor work rules at an LCC, however, you might want to do a little homework. Ive been with my carrier 13 years and my T&C are quite attractive and probably better than yours.
I'm not looking for a fight. Lots of smart folks with more time and skin in this game than I have. From where I sit I just don't see LCCs being responsible for whats wrong with this industry. JMAO