Originally Posted by
shiznit
I see that, my napkin math compatriot!
The place I see it differently is that the company doesn't think in A/B positions; they look at overall pilot costs. It may be less overall "A" but if the total cost to run the operation is more, it benefits the company to fill the "A" positions to run an equally effective and less expensive operation (plus the BE seat revenue benefit).
Revenue - cost = profit
The company is interested in results, and not as much how we get there. When Henne-roed and Hummel show SD/RA it's still cheaper to use two/two and not three for a round trip.. I bet I know what RA will choose.
Your entire argument here is based on questionable assumption that the decision is made on the cost of flying X block hours with 4 pilots vs. 3, and the ancillary trip costs for that route.
This is probably NOT the case. In fact there is a massive hidden gain by the company in just reducing overall pilots. For most businesses, the cost of an employee is almost 50% or more than their salary, when you account for taxes/retirement/insurance/admin-overhead. Every pilot you reduce results in HUGE gains to the company that you are not costing out when you look at this as a "can they fly ATL-SFO turns cheaper with 4 or 3?". Add in the synergistic gains of the company staying marginally away from what may in fact turn out to be the critical limiting factor soon, ability to hire and train pilots to fill positions, the whole picture changes.
You can see that the actual costs to fly/pay for any particular routes may not in fact be the critical factor or goal at all! In fact there may be some ratio of increased per/pilot cost increase vs. pilot's reduced that is better for the company.
Every time someone tries to sell me on how a reduced overall number of pilots needed will be better for me... I know they're absolutely not on MY side. And will probably be just fine with me stagnating at the bottom for another 5 years.
ps. good answer from you up above, I'll have to digest some of that a bit. Lots of good thoughts and ideas on what the company MAY be after here.