Originally Posted by boilerpilot

Disheartening, yes, but not unreasonably so. I'm not sure that I can argue that even the minority most senior pilots should be earning close to a million dollars a year. And I don't think average airline pilot pay is $100k.

Raising fairs is also a dangerous game. While I definitely agree that the latest rush of decreasing ticket prices just to get as close to 100% load factor is financially irresponsible, the Supply Demand curve works both ways. Give out too much supply and your revenues decrease. Take away too much supply (effectively price people out of flying, and for more people than you'd think, $60 does make or break the deal), and your revenues decrease. There needs to be a happy medium. Let's say an airplane has 100 seats. If you sell 90 seats for 100 dollars, you make $9000. Sell 80 seats for $120, you make $9600. Yes, you priced 10 people out of flying, but you retained the other 80 people, for whom $120 isn't too much money. Why do you think WN does so well with it's 60-75% load factors, while Herb says "We aim for load factors in the mid 60s to 70%"? It's because WN is able to still price competitively and OPTIMIZE its load factors to provide the maximum revenue.

Anyway, back to pilot pay: yes, you're absolutely right that, especially at the bottom end, they've become criminally low, especially considering the responsibility on pilots' shoulders. But does that mean that a 15% biannual pay raise per year should be sustainable? I don't know about that.

A great pilot I know once said to me "Pilots don't get paid to fly the airplane while it's working. Pilots get paid to fly the airplane when **** hits the fan." And that's absolutely right. While you may pay 100 pilots $100,000 a year for 25 years (my math brings up $250m), think about the impact of those well rested, well paid, competent, happy, and intelligent pilots during just one hairy situation in those 25 years(hitting the runway on a CATIII/II, or performing checklists correctly). It doesn't even have to be a hairy situation per pilot. If because you have that competent and happy pilot in the cockpit you only avert one accident in those 25 years, you've saved money, seeing as accidents are measured in the range of about a billion dollars (internal study, will not cite source) when you count all collateral damage, liability, and actual loses, you've just saved yourself $750m. Worth it? Worth it.