Originally Posted by
Planepirate
Yes you are missing something. I used to think it was as simple as margins too, but it’s not.
For example: Delta had a Q3 margin of 15.6%. Total income was $1.72 billion. Delta has about 14,450 pilots. So that means that Delta made a profit of $119,000 per pilot for that quarter.
Spirit had a slightly lower margin of 15% for Q3. The profit was $65.5 million. Divide that by 1850 pilots and Spirit made approximately $35,400 per pilot for the quarter.
$119k vs $35k
Although the margins are similar at both Airlines, it doesn’t paint the whole picture as to what the company can afford to pay. As you can see, Delta can afford to pay much more.
That being said, both Spirit and Frontier could afford to pay industry standard and still be profitable in the current environment. The company will disagree with that statement. The question is: who will the mediator believe?
Income vs profit hmmm... not really the same thing. And I don't think they made 1.7 billion in a quarter. I'm just doing this quick and I found a couple figures but let's say they profited 550mil that's roughly 38,000 per pilot. So, you were saying?