Since I took a decent amount of time writing these two posts, I hope people don't mind that I repost them here (as one post) so that the folks that only peruse the Major forums can offer any insight.

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. Of course, you need to figure out exactly how many pilots you have and what their actual average salary is, but keep in mind, this is still a very real and very valid example, because while you increase your pilot pool, you increase your flight numbers, which just increases your chances of a crash. Worth it? Worth it.

For context for my post above, let's look at MAG. Looking at their most recent financial data (includes subsidiaries), their block hours for the year stand at 571,827. Let's say that they stay in business for the next 25 years with no change, positive in negative, in either their pilot numbers or pilot efficiency (aka, pilot numbers stay the same, block hours stay the same). That equals out to 14,289,295,675 miles flown. Now, in 1996, the NTSB approximated that carriers experienced fatal .026 accidents per 100,000 flight hours, or about 3.8m flight hours between fatal accidents. It can certainly be argued that pilots make or break a carrier when it comes to accidents, simply on the statistics of pilot error vs mechanical concerns (I know, I know, if 8 things break that the pilot is supposedly able to deal with, and he/she can't and crashes, that's pilot error, but bear with me). So take those statistics, and Mesa will be exposed to about 3684 "potential accidents" (14b divided by 3.8m). It can certainly be argued that pilots make or break a carrier when it comes to accidents, simply on the statistics of pilot error vs mechanical concerns (I know, I know, if 8 things break that the pilot is supposedly able to deal with, and he/she can't and crashes, that's pilot error, but bear with me). So let's say that with any reasonable training (.026/100000 includes foreign countries too, so let's give MAG the benefit of the doubt) and maintenance, 95% of these situations can be averted. That still leaves 184 situations over 25 years where pilots make the difference. Let's assume that MAG is a much, MUCH less liable company than mine, and that they've figured that with all things considered, an accident will cost about $100m (that's basically the cost of the AC and 1.5m per pax, so no future loss of revenue, no realistic liability numbers, no raised premiums, etc) . That works out to about $18.4b in potential losses, or about $441k of potential savings PER PILOT PER YEAR! Of course, should pilots be paid that full amount? No, because of acceptable levels of risk, but should pilots at any carrier lay down and accept $20k salaries under the excuse that they aren't valuable enough of assets to earn more? Absolutely not.