Originally Posted by
Cabs
I've been lurking and can't keep out of this any longer. The talk is that pay is the only good thing in this TA? IMO, the pay is average at best and also dangerous in the B scale it presents on the E190. DALPA is promoting how the E190 will be 3.5% above JB in 2016 and 9.8% above JB in 2018. How about a comparison of JB and DL rates on the 320? On the 320, we will be 19.8% higher than JB in 2016 and 26.6% higher than JB in 2018! In my book, that adds up to an epic fail on the E190 rates. As it stands now, no one senior to 10,500 will have any interest in the E190. If the E190 rate was 19.8% higher than JB in 2016, the DL rate would be $218. At that rate, it would sit just below the 717 rate and be a real advance in pay over a FO position.
Actually, I was thinking the same thing until my commute home yesterday when I had a chance to start looking at the contract language and the pay tables. The E195 is not going to be an airplane that anybody with 12 years will be flying. Probably. I certainly have no interest in it. So who IS going to be flying it? My guess would be newbies (definitely in the right seat) and those with less than 4 or 5 years in the right seat. Now, how do THOSE rates compare to other seats they might be holding at that time? A 4 year 767-4/330 FO pays $174.28. The 4 year E-195 CA pays $177.35. There's your sweet spot. Take a poll if you want, but first off, I will wager that holding a line as a 4 year FO on the WB is fairly unlikely, and being a senior lineholding CA on the baby jet will be fairly easy. They are nice airplanes, and for those that love technology I would think it would not be unattractive. I could be wrong, but when I think back to when I was a newbie, I would have jumped all over that. You also have to factor in that JB only has 2 aircraft types, and that (I believe) there are guys that have been there a long time that can only hold the E190, or their options on the A320 are not that great. *I could be wrong about that*
This is another example of why you need to look deeper into those pay rates, and another reason why dALPA needs to stop selling payrates with the highest rates on the 777. The rate that everybody needs to llok at is the one which represents the highest rate that the biggest number of DAL pilots will have an opportunity to fly for the longest, and the 777 ain't it by a long shot. Career earnings fellas. That is what it is all about, and yes, TVM has a place in the equation. If you don't believe that, let's get $500/hour on the 777 so that we can rub that in AAL/UAL's noses.