In late '08 or early '09 the IBT tried to draw up an LOA to increase FO pay and give slight increases beyond the topped out five year mark. WH literally laughed.

Flash forward to '12 and the Company can't fill seats because of that same laughable pay, but now WH/BB are all concerned about our FO's financial wellbeing.

Not being able to attract new hires because of the crappy contract is one of the few pieces of leverage we have. As someone sitting at the 36.62 mark, I will grudgingly sit at this payrate a bit longer in an effort to fix some of the QoL items in our contract for everyone (and in the long term, myself even after I upgrade). Slightly more pay without fixing such items as cancelation pay, minimum duty day, and real overtime pay are useless.

These QoL/ softpay issues are going to be even more important when the new rest and duty rules go into effect as the schedules are likely to become much more unproductive.