Originally Posted by
Gary et al
A chunk of it was in reducing the $70 first year ask to something more like what it is now. Think similar to Hawaiian. Dropping 1st year pay by $30/hr for roughly 250 pilots * 5 years is 33.75 million.
Having better 1st year pay would be great, but honestly it is more of a recruitment tool for the company. If people want to come here and stay, crappy 1st year pay sucks, but we all deal with it knowing that it finally gets better. Of course the union would rather keep first year pay up, but they aren't going to cut the rest of our pay to do it.
I can understand the strategy, and see why the union is doing it. It looks bad, but then again we don't recruit pilots....the company does.
I guess what I'm more concerned about is the union is planning on taking FO rates from 68% of what a captain makes, down to 60%. I've heard this from MULTIPLE sources.