Originally Posted by
iFlyRC
Low cost? If we made first year pay 30$, that would use up entirely all the money earmarked for us over the next 5 years, leaving nothing for anyone else. Lets do some math... You say 25$ instead of 30$.. 240 pilots * 76 hours * 3$ increase * 12 = 656,640 additional pay to new hires per year. Over 5 years, thats little under 3.3 million. Thats just first year guys.
2nd year:
240 * 76 * 12 * 5 = another additional 1.1 million over 5 years
3rd year:
240 * 76 * 2 * 12 * 5 = 2.2 million
4th year:
240 * 76 * 6 * 12 * 5 = 6.6 million
Total is 13.2 million dollars spent on F.O.'s, leaving 1.8 Million for everyone else, and these calculations only assume line guarantee for your 25/30/35/40 plan. Bravo!!
Yes, lets dump this money on retaining new people while our new hire classes are always full and we have a massive abundance of F.O.'s, and screw the rest of the pilot group.
A much wiser approach in my opinion would be to do smaller changes to increase everyones QOL. Move minimum days off from 11 to 13, allow those who want to work more, be able to work more, and those who would rather be home, be home more. No wonder Spirit has no issues hiring people.
The amount of available money/profit as shown by the books available to us isn't necessarily a fixed amount. Maybe it is a fixed amount to remain profitable, but that isn't my problem...that's the CEO/CFO/COO's problem. And as he/union has said, we won't be profitable for the next couple years. Companies operate much higher in the negative than we are and will be over the next couple years and still manage to pay their workers industry average, which I'm not even asking for. In a few years we will be back to profitable. He can still pay us now even if there is no short term profit. What would happen if we weren't filling classes now or if we stop filling classes soon, and worse, FO attrition picks up and we can't staff? He will HAVE to start paying more or the company will go under or shrink significantly. He (and by he I mean the stakeholders who he answers to) won't let that happen. He knows when he announces more flying that will temporarily curb the staffing shortfalls. Why take marginal gains now when we will have more leverage (inability to staff/retain pilots) in a year? I don't care how limited cash on hand is on a balance sheet, required labor costs can still go up if necessary and the company won't go under. They will fight tooth and nail and drag it out and resist it, but it's possible to get more improvements than we got. It's up to us to make it happen or roll over like the union did and capitulate to the man.
And btw, with their advertised 18 or less month upgrade, they shouldn't care about 3/4th year FO costs should they since we will all make captain pay by year 3 and on right? Also, my proposed cap on FO pay (40 for 4th year) is lower than the new TA gets. Keep in mind this is still what 2nd year FO pay is at SKW and other decent regionals, as are all my pay rates.
Man, talk about Stockholm syndrome.