Originally Posted by
Name User
Pilots are mostly paid by the aircraft size so the labor savings isn't as significant as the labor saved on paying all the other personnel such as ground workers, FAs, gate agents, etc.
As an example, FAs at my company make $70/hr top scale (and there are a ton at top scale) where as at my regional they topped out around $40 and there were maybe a half dozen at that rate. Same goes for ground crew, here it's $35/hr IIRC and at the contractors they start at $13 and top out around $17 IIRC.
Meanwhile pilots on the 50 seaters make around $80/hr and our 737/A320 guys make around $270. So not a huge disparity in how the salary scales on a per pax basis.
Probably one of the most inaccurate arguments I have ever heard, and it's surprising how much mainline pilots blindly believe it. The disparity is often more than 100%.
First year CA pay on the A319 (128 seats): $255/hour = $2 per seat
First year CA pay on the E175 (76 seats): $76/hour = $1 per seat
Run that "Proportionate" math by me one more time. It gets even more ridiculous if you compare FO seats and higher productivity of regional pilots.
Regional pilot subsidize mainline pilot wages. It's a Ponzi scheme.