TED74

Most airlines do this already, Delta included. One rate for multiple aircraft types. Some of us have interest in "expanding" banding so there are fewer rates for our expanding variety of aircraft. For example, some people think we could simply have Small, Medium, Large rate categories and call it a day.

To go from what we have now to a "simpler" distribution like the one above, we would have to adjust pay for individual types in a non uniform manner. For instance, if we were to band 330 with 350, the 330 rate would have to increase significantly more than the 350 rate would increase between this contract and our next one in order to match them (AA already does this, I'm told). Theoretically, the 350 could even remain unchanged (or even drop, though that's unlikely to garner any support for good reasons) to accommodate a larger increase in 330 pay when merging the two.

The same theory applies between NB and WB...even if you didn't change the bands themselves but simply wanted to create less discrepancy between 320 and 330 (as an example), "NB Pilots" would get a larger rate increase than "WB Pilots". I put those in quotes, because really most of us are or will soon be only one AE from swapping from NB to WB or vice versa.

Pay banding is a simple concept but adjustments to it are very complex. There are lots of good arguments for and against changes to banding.

In my personal opinion, this next contract is as good a time as any to make major changes, since there will already be major training cascades due to accelerating retirements and fleet composition changes. Honestly, those are also the same reasons some cite for why it's a BAD time to change.

The historical loss of pensions and calculations based on Final Average Earnings (now irrelevant other than for disability) alters the discussions around traditional pay structure. It used to be great to make a ton of money in your final years since that drove your retirement value. Without a pension, one's nest egg now grows better (on average) with flatter pay over an entire career... make more earlier to give those funds time to grow in the market. That's all well and good for folks who have a whole career under such a structure, but it does negatively affect those who are just finishing under what would be a smaller "top rate" without having had the expanded lower rate to compensate.