Originally Posted by
DrJekyll MrHyde
I never understood why they chopped first year pay so heavily. Frontier wasn't hiring in huge numbers when they inked those 1st year rates, so the number of new guys/gals on first year pay had little effect on the cost savings in the concessionary contract. Was it short-sighted or just greed? Maybe dc7c or one of the other architects of the 2007 contract can chime in. I'm guessing I'll get something along the lines of, "well everybody else was doing it!"
At the time of the 1st year pay negotiations we weren't hiring, the company had lost money for six straight years / wanted concessions (ended up filing bankruptcy about 18 months later) and had a first year rate way above industry standard. In the four years after ratification of the lower 1st year rates Frontier only hired about 50 pilots.
You couldn't be further off about the motivation behind the lower rates. I don't define greed as refusing to take a pay cut in later years' rates (the voting pilots) to keep the above industry rates for employees that weren't likely to
ever get hired (remember we were losing money / about to go bankrupt as sure as a Trump business venture in AC). The 2007 first year rates were still above industry average
after the cut.
This contract is so outdated that trying to rationalize the changes to the first "whenever possible" 1999-2000 POS contract, which brought us to the 2007 pre-bankruptcy deal, is like asking why they just didn't put helium in the Hindenburg to avoid the fire.