Originally Posted by
Rotator
The whole regional airline complaint about low wages is interesting, but have regional pay scales ever been good? Some posts make it sound like the Mesas and the Great Lakes and PFTs of the world are a drag on the aggregate regional pilot salaries. Are these low wages at the regionals a new phenomenon or has it been like this for many decades? Are the low paying regionals and PFTs really creating a problem for everyone else, or has it always been this way? Just curious if there is any historical knowledge out there from some of the graybeards.
Regional pilot wages have gone up on several occasions, however the CPAs that the regionals operate under causes almost guaranteed bankruptcy. This in turn causes the contracts to be abograted because the "mainline" controls the revenue that the regional receives. There is no supply and demand mechanism at work to raise the wages because that is how the system is designed. Look at Comair and Pinnicle as two prime examples. However, this has caused a macro economic shift in the supply curve of pilots willing to do the job. If it were not for 9/11 and the great recession, this would have happened a long time ago. But the reductions in flying by the majors caused an over supply of pilots leading to overly suppressed wages of pilots. That is my two cents. Hope it helps answer your question.