Originally Posted by
Excargodog
Not talking about failure per se. They didn’t FAIL when they went into bankruptcy, just used the threat of failure to void contracts, cease paying into pension funds, and enable furloughs. Just like Alaska had their pay cut 26% at the whim of a mediator when management convinced him they needed it to stay competitive.
https://www.seattletimes.com/busines...rlines-pilots/
Assuming the Big Three or Big Six will never have their own ‘Kasher moment’ in the event of a significant downturn is - I believe - unwise.
The history of airline pay has been a volatile one. Those assuming it can only go up do so at their own risk. Yes, I believe over the long haul with prudent money management you will very likely do better at a legacy (at least one with widebodies) than at a ULCC. But that’s over the long haul and with prudent money management. I know a couple of retired Delta pilots that could tell you stories about building their retirement plans around pensions that were suddenly greatly reduced. They certainly aren’t living in cardboard shacks under the freeway even now, but their retirements certainly were a severe cutback from what they had planned on.
Pilot compensation can go down, and it might even need to under certain circumstances. Hopefully the union would stay in the driver's seat on that.
If AS had their pay cut in arbitration, it was because THEY signed up for said arbitration. Outside of BK, RLA has no provision for someone to arbitrarily assign you a pay cut.
And BK is legally harder now than 15 years ago.
My gut feel is that any routine, moderate recession would not see furloughs at most (big) majors... furloughs create big training costs, so you have to plan on keeping furloughed pilots out for at LEAST three years. Retirements would aggravate that calculus.