Originally Posted by
Rottweiler
Good luck and god bless them.
However, one thing that will never change is the jetblue's, Virgin America's, Skybuses', Max Jets.......
They major airline pilot's can walk all they want, but they will never change the fact that LCC's are here to stay.
There was a day when Kiwi, West pac, Winn Air, Vanguard and all the rest would start up and die within a couple years. But there are thousands regional airline captains wanting to make the jump to "big iron" and willing to do it for half the pay and benefits of a major airlines. Combine that with the fact that ther are managements trying to put LCC's together, an FAA all too willing to give away a 121 certificate and a capital market hoping that the next LCC will give a return like B6, and you are always going to be fighting the LCC's.
The big 3 will get their pay back. Then the big 3 will go BK again. it will be a never ending cycle.
I agree that the LCC's are here to stay but I don't think that decent pilot pay necessarily equals bankruptcy. IMHO, the biggest reason why the majors have had difficulty is the complete lack of innovation or creativity. I truly believe that when the CEO's of the entrenched majors wake up in the morning, their first thought is not, "how are we going to make some more money today?", but rather "what are we going to do about those pilots/FA's/mechanics...etc." Look at India, the fastest developing market in the world today. Have any of the U.S. majors gone in there in any great way? Have they done anything to develop the market? There is a huge Indian population in the U.S.. Sure, they have the odd flight and you can bet that when the private Indian carriers start to come to the states in any numbers, the majors will jump on the band wagon and proceed to destroy the yields that could have been theirs in the first place.
You're right that the majors will be continually fighting the upstarts/LCC's etc.. As long as there is a void in the market place, be it capacity, quality or creativity, there will be someone there to fill it. As far as pilot compensation, if the market demands it, the pay will rise at the newer carriers over time. I realize that this is little consolation to someone in their last 5 or 10 years who has had their pay and pension savaged by incompetent fools (union and management).
You may be right if the unions overreach before the carriers are ready to pay the big bucks, then it will start the cycle all over again. If so, then management will only have themselves to blame as the cycle was started by their unending greed, first in overreaching after 9/11 (because they could) and then by their obscene bonuses and payouts that we are seeing now.