Originally Posted by
Quint
No dog in the fight Blue, but you've posted a few times along these lines, and I'm just curious....
At what point would you personally want to push hard for an industry standard package? When JB has 300 A/C? 400? 500? When you get to 5000 pilots? 8000? Or some measure of profit be it dollar amount or percentage. IOW, how much would JB need to grow to meet your criteria? 'Til you make bus Captain?
And when that trigger is hit, what about the guys below you who want more growth, but you are tired of waiting because you've already been waiting 5,10,15 years?
First, it is important to remember that all these guys that are complaining about pay, have attained virtually ALL of THEIR seniority by growth, which was primarily driven by lower costs. They have ALL, since day ONE, worked for a less than "industry standard" package. What they want, is all their cake, and my cake, and to eat it too. They want all the seniority they accumulated by working for less, and now want higher pay, even if it means slower growth for everyone behind them.
So, your question is when. First of all, I want more now. However, I want to be careful how much more and to be mindful of our ability to grow.
We are NOT as profitable as these guys pretend (a record for us is low compared to others). We are small compared to almost everyone, especially now with mega-mergers. We have a lower yielding imature network. We are vulnerable to aquisition. We have entire regions of the country that have NO idea who we are. We have an inept management team that is scared of their own shadow when it comes to growth and competition. We don't have large highly profitable widebody fleets. We don't have anything approaching a well rounded route map for key business travelers. We have a lot of debt. Our stock price is in the chitter. We have the smallest average aircraft guage of any of our competitors.
So yes, I want a more stable, more profitable, more secure JB before I demand pay and benefits in line with 5 of the largest airlines in the world, and one established regional powerhouse mega-profit generator.
Also, one of the problems here at JB is that we have NO retirements for 10-15 years. We do have a retirement bubble, but not until 10-15 years after everyone else. So I would also like for us to be closer to the seniority progression of other companies before we do something that WILL slow growth. That is only fair to the junior pilots here, since the senior guys already milked all the benefits of a growing airline with low labor costs.
It is a tough issue. I am pro-union, but am also concerned about my career here if our growth is slowed. And I will NOT sit silently while blow-hards tell me that labor costs simply don't matter, and that the company has an unlimited ability to pay ANY increase in labor costs, with no adverse consequenses whatsoever.
As much as these guys want to pretend we are, we are NOT Delta, United, AA, SW or even Alaska(have you seen their quarterly profits!?). We just aren't.