Originally Posted by
Paid2fly
Seriously? There are no pilots at any regional in this country whose pay "needs to come down"! There is no such thing as an overpaid regional airline pilot.... Please stop trying to sell this profession out, thanks.
Now that you've vented let's look at an example. My commuter is around $100/hr for senior CA, but FO pay is capped at $45-ish an hour.
The latest contract voted on at RAH had senior CA's getting fairly large raises, something like $130/hr top out. At 60% pay (a BS differential IMO, should be 80% if not more) the FO's should be making roughly $70/hr. Yet the top out was the same, $45-ish an hour.
Now, I would agree, if you can raise FO pay $30/hr without impacting CA pay go for it, but quite frankly that is unreasonable and doubtful any pilot group would get released for demands like that. Just not realistic. Not only that, but highly doubtful a negotiating committee run by CA's 90% of the time will ever vote for a pay schedule like that unless they aren't effected, ie the track system.
The solution is to cap CA pay, bring it down, and raise FO pay, to make it more in line with what a professional should be getting paid. Also reduce the ridiculous 18 year longevity scale and bring it down to a 5 year scale.
UPS was the only company in recent past that did this. Come contract time the CA's got minimal raises because the FO's were going to be FO's for a long time, and they knew that, so they gave the lions share of the gains to the FOs. It was admirable.