Originally Posted by
rickair7777
You're 100% right and usually only the folks who didn't grow up submitting to standard aviation abuse really get this point.
My opinion...
1) Eliminate longevity for pay purposes. Equipment/seat pay would be a fixed figure (subject to COLA raises). This would allow airlines to attract and retain entry-level talent, and remove most of the incentive to destroy a high-longevity airline and replace it with a low-longevity startup.
Longevity would still apply for traditional things like vacation accrual, 401k vesting, etc. so you do get rewarded for sticking around.
Seniority would still of course apply for schedules, vacation bidding, equipment/seat/domicile bidding.
2) A step further...eliminate block pay and replace with duty pay (like any other industry). Duty pay would be lower than current block pay, based on a formula like this...
Assume a five-hour block is minimum desired productivity, and say three legs is average.
Old rate: $100/block hour
New rate: 5 hours x $100 = $500 for the day.
Now we add up the non-flight duty for three reasonably efficient legs:
Report - block out: 45m
2nd Turn: 30m
3nd Turn 30m
Block in- duty off: 15m
Total = 2 hours
Block + non-flight duty = 7 hours. Since we got paid $500 for that reasonably efficient 7 hour duty day, our new duty rate would be $72/duty hour.
Ramifications:
- Company has incentive to schedule efficiently...non-productive duty time is no longer free to the company.
- If company can't schedule efficiently we get paid for our time.
- Super senior folks no longer enjoy windfall combinations of high pay combined with highly efficient trips while junior folks suck up lengthy unpaid sits combined with low pay and multiple legs.
- Seniority still buys many perks...you can bid long duty days to get pay more if you want, and still get weekends holidays off as always.
- We get paid for IROPS.
- Takes some of the sting out of switching airlines, but that shouldn't really be necessary since there would be little incentive to shuffle flying around.
Yes. Exactly. Especially this part: "- Company has incentive to schedule efficiently...non-productive duty time is no longer free to the company.
- If company can't schedule efficiently we get paid for our time."
Let's admit it: If the airline industry had never existed, but suddenly sprang into existence today, would we design a pay system from scratch that remotely resembles today's pay system?
Can anyone honestly answer 'yes' to that question? And if so, what are your reasons (besides 'that's the way it's always been done.')
Look, I'm honestly not trying to be a complainer. I am extremely fortunate in that my ability to pay my mortgage is not at all dependent on whatever money I can make from my 121 job. I'm just legitimately trying to understand the logic of how the airline pay system came to be. And yes, I read FTL Volumes 1 and 2. Perhaps I didn't read closely enough.
I was simply hoping for an intelligent discussion, and some of you have provided that. Thank you. But I'm still no closer to truly understanding why the system is the way it is. I shall read FTL again.