Originally Posted by rickair7777

My solution to this is eliminate longevity and use a flat payscale. No raise just for hanging around longer. But the upside is the industry/market economy would have little incentive to replace pilot groups just because they've been around for a while.

This would work for majors as well as regionals...too many LCC startups are thriving because they get to pay all of their labor at the bottom of the scale starting out. That's an artificial advantage.

The new scale would be set based on where people currently on that scale sit...ie junior narrowbody might use year 4 scale, senior widebody might be year 12 since almost everybody on the fleet is already 12+ years in.

Longevity could still count for things like increased vacation accrual...a little reward for sticking around but enough to create a big competitive gap with new-hire.

Seniority would still apply for bidding equipment, upgrade, schedules, vacation, etc.

The trick with this is the implementation...anybody who is already above the average would not want to take a paycut so labor would have to force this kind of structural change at a time when the airlines could afford to grandfather senior people on their current hourly rate. Hmmm...now might be a good time for that.