Originally Posted by
FlyingKat
I don't know if you have compared the cost of living in places like ORD, EWR, IAD, DEN, and SFO with other places around the country. But if you do that it doesn't take a Harvard MBA to figure out why people would commute over living in base. My house payment will get me a decent one bedroom apartment in most of these places. Not to mention the constant opening and closing of bases. It just isn't affordable. I'd love to live in base if I was paid enough to live there, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. This will just add to the cost of this profession, and cause more people to decide to move to other professions for economical reasons, particularly FAs. Maybe when your A320 is flying around half empty because of a decrease in regional feed due to a lack of crews, you'll start to understand. If you think I'm kidding, go look around at flight schools around the country. This profession is rapidly becoming economically unsustainable for the average person and is probably already there. As much as I love this business, if I were starting right now there is no way I would do it because of the numbers. To quote Smisek's memo when you add up a huge student loan payment, a crashpad, and now as much as $320 a month in fees to commute to work it creates a gap, and there is not a reasonable model for recapture. When I was an FA, a policy like this likely would have driven me out of the business, it was that close of a break even operation for me financially. We are about to enter a very interesting time in this business where actions like this are driving potential employees away, and airlines will have to start competing for employees, rather than relying on having 10 or 15 applicants for every job. This will begin with the regionals at first, but will eventually work its way up to the mainlines as well.
Why do you think I don't understand the way this works? If you read my post you will see that I've been there, done that. You have a HOUSE PAYMENT?? When I was flying for my first regional I shared a one bedroom apartment with 3 other pilots. One of whom had a young son. At my second regional, I graduated to a 2 bedroom apartment which I shared with another pilot. And yes, it was a high cost area. That was just the way it was. You couldn't DREAM of buying a house while working at a regional. And you CERTAINLY couldn't dream of affording a crash pad AND a house.
If you've been hired at a regional in the past 10 years, you should do a quick search back into history and take a look at what it was like before that. Regionals are paying a SIGNING BONUS??? Man... back in the early 90's they wanted you to PAY THEM to come work for their crappy wages and work rules.
I have been saying for the past 2 decades that the increasing race to the bottom will eventually have an effect on the ability to fill the cockpit seats. So far it hasn't happened, but hopefully it will soon so that the working conditions in this business will turn around a bit.
I definitely am sorry that the costs of commuting are going up, and that once again Jeff is squeezing the employee turnip. But to come on here and threaten the United PILOTS (who had nothing to do with any of this) that you are going to deny them the jumpseat ON A ROUTE THAT YOU TOOK OVER FROM THEM is going to be met with little empathy.