Originally Posted by tom11011

Read before voting. Identities are hidden in the poll.

Everyone tends to agree that regional airline FO's should be paid more money at regional airlines, even airline management. But how far would the regional pilot group as a whole be willing to go? I suppose the answer to this question might have something to do with whether you believe a regional airline is a place you can make a career at or whether you believe its 'up and out' only.

Even if your regional airline had the best intentions towards its pilots, they don't get to set the ticket prices. They are constrained by the pot of money given to them by their parent airline. And your airline management doesn't even decide how the money is divided up, the pilots do.

Get a bigger pot of money you say from the parent airline? Be careful because if you ask for too much, other regional airlines will fly right in under the radar and underbid you because they can afford to do so with newly found pilot concession money. Some call this type of pilot affliction SJS.

So could you support a flattened pay scale where Captains and FO's make the same amount of money? Where only years of service pays higher? Where size of equipment doesn't matter and is determined by mainline pilot scope provisions? Potentially, it could look like this- a pay scale that starts at $40,000/yr and tops out in year 10 at $80,000/yr, regardless of seat. That's a $4000 per year raise.

What are some of the benefits you ask? What if you have to start over at a new regional airline because you want to move, or you hate the company, or the company goes out of business, etc... think about how much easier it would be to do just that. Right now, you are screwed, it's HARD to leave after the first year. And think about this, the company is now more on the hook to make the place better otherwise they will have to deal with FO attrition and all the training costs of that attrition when pilots decide airline B is slightly better. All of the sudden they have a vested interest in keeping pilots happy if they know pilots have other better options and do not have to take such a massive pay hit to keep them from leaving. Pilots become less of a slave to the company.

The poll question is "Should Regional Airlines Flatten Pay Scales".