Originally Posted by Daniel Larusso

Problem is that he is correct though. If you actually but the people who figure out what compensation amounts to negotiate/accept at any given airline you will find that there are tradeoffs. These tradeoffs are far more obvious at regional airlines and low cost carriers like airtran and Jetblue. While the lcc's typically have better FO wages than the regionals both tend to be pretty low, graduate slowly and have almost zero growth after year 4-5. The justification from their unions is that 'everyone one should be a captain by then, so why waste money on good FO scales when we can add money to where the pilots should be by then?' Everybody plays along happily as long as there is growth. Ever wonder why Mesaba, Comair, Am. Eagle, Horizon FO types seem a whole lot grumpier than their counterparts at places like SkyWest, Mesa, and Republic/Shuttle Ameirca/Chautaqua? Check out the upgrades and payrates and you'll find a big piece of the puzzle. Look at the FO's starting to percolate over at jetblue and airtran as they start to realize that every one isn't going to get that quick upgrade. The majors do the same rationalizations but it typically has centered around age 60 retirement. Most companies that had or still have a DB plan have more side letters and loa's covering every senior special interest group that held power at one time or another. The A scale deal over AA where only they can vote on changes to their A plan is a classic-don't be surprised when that one pops up again here in the future when more seniority segment deals and 'multiplier' greed eventually catch up with the plan. The pax airlines tend to have a much smaller percentage of widebody a/c than cargo carriers making those aircraft more senior. Check out UA's old contract 2000-it gave 28.5% pay raises to what were considered widebodies(777,747, DC-10) and 21% to narrowbodies(757/767/737/A320)-it even went so far as to come up with 'special' payrates for newhires that weren't the full 21% raise represented in the contract. The justification given was that it was the right thing to do because of the forced retirement at age 60. The multiplier increases make up for the 'loss' and the reason for the spread on the widebody v. narrowbody payrates was twofold: to help the senior headed to retirement who needed those few higher paid years as widebody capt. for their fae credit and to correct a supposed injustice because they felt previous contracts sacrificed what the widebody pilots felt were fair raises via Decision 83 in order to secure better narrowbody rates. Incidentally that will happen again since all of the pax carriers rolled their junior narrowbody guys back to the dark ages in the last few years. All of this stuff is fine and dandy until you change the assumptions it was based on which age 65 most certainly does. Changing the FO payscales to reflect the new world under age 65 isn't a grab, it's in-line with what got the payscales to the point they are in the first place. They may not admit it unless you press them, but ALPA national costs out every little piece of these contracts for their carriers and individual carriers often employ additional consultants to do the same during times of negotiation for new contracts or worse concessions. They know exactly how much they've taken from FO compensation to beef up Capt. compensation and what it would take to even everything out so that everyone's career projected earnings will remain roughly the same. I am not saying the scales were wrong to date, obviously the majority of us felt they were fair, but as long as DW is talking about doing the right thing he should follow through in an area that is admittedly tough because we as a union and profession have a tendency to make all things Captain holy and readjusting the FO payscales to reflect 65 flies squarely in the face of that. Does make for an interesting cockpit conversation though.