IMHO, these issues break down to "pay for jobs". 1, 10, 100, 1000. Doesn't matter.

It's that simple. If you are OK with trading pay for jobs, the only thing left to talk about is the price.

FWIW, even the Instructor issue comes down to pay for jobs. At NWA, the instructor cadre was about 400-450 pilots. Not all of them were training at the same time, but whatever fraction you want to use, that number had to be made up with some amount of additional staffing.

Since there is some confusion on this topic, the NWA IP postion worked like this:

1) All events where the motion was on required a SLI. All checking events required an SLI. All seat support for checking events required a seniority list pilot.

2) SLIs were also checkairmen, although your "grew into it", meaning you taught for a while before getting your letter. SLIs also did OE. There were some cases where there were "OE only" instructors, but those were the exception. Line checks were also done by SLI.

Typically you were hired to do OE, did that for a while, got checked out in the sim, did that a while, got your checkairman letter, did that a while, then you could become an APD. Line checks were usually done by "senior SLIs"

3) SLIs were line pilots first. It was not a full time position. You flew the line, in your position, 6-8 months out of the year. You would often do 2 months in the sim, then two months back on the line.

4) SLIs received the max category pay for the month for 16 events, a $600 override, positve space to MSP and hotels.

5) You could only get an IP job for an aircraft you held. If you got displaced or bid off, you lost your IP job.

Nu