Originally Posted by
SaturnV
I referenced Southwest and JetBlue because you said LCC 12 year captains cost 50% less than 12 year Legacy captains. Spirit is considered a ULCC like you mentioned in your first post so I know you know the difference.
I’m talking about your statement of LCC Captains costing 50% less. SWA is 40 years old and JetBlue is 20 years old plenty of the captains are on year 12 pay. 401k contribution is the same at JetBlue and Southwest too. So same ~$500/hr to operate the 320 or 737.
Also, almost 1/3 (4,000/14,000) of Delta’s pilots have only been on the seniority list for 5 years or less. Newly hired crew as you call it.
As a former CPZ brother (correct me if I’m wrong) I’m not trying to bust your chops on this or be THAT guy. I just wanted to point out LCC’s like SWA and JB don’t have captains out here flying around at a 50% discount compared to our legacy counterparts. That’s all.
I’ll concede that I wasn’t thinking SWA, more JB, Spirit, Frontier, and soon to be Moxy-whatever.
But my point was that the new (and newly expanding) airlines do CURRENTLY enjoy an advantage and that while yes, they have some junior people on board, as the upcoming retirement wave demonstrates, they’ve had a lot of pilots that have been in the top of the payscales for a long long time. And yeah, 50% was undoubtedly a little hyperbole.
Not criticizing anyone, just looking at the demographics and the resulting economics. And ten years from now most of the legacies will have a far less senior demographic, precisely because of those retirees. Read a business article a few years ago about the effect of the increase in retirement age from 60 to 65. One of the things it did was rather dramatically increase the average longevity (and hence the average personnel costs) since almost all those retained were super senior.
The savings in training costs by having people work five years longer were a blip compared to the increase in personnel costs that the increased seniority cost.
The accountants at management no doubt read the same article. Which is why, I believe, they are just as happy to keep flows and preference programs as slow as they believe they can. Your opinion may vary....
