Originally Posted by
FullThrust
Older individuals being less likely to have kids on their health insurance is a hard concept to grasp? My comment was regarding mainline pilots because the post I quoted was regarding mainline furloughs. At the voy most pilots are closer 20 than they are to 65 so the demographic is different.
Yeah this is not accurate at all. Lets just assume the difference in cost was something crazy like $3000 a month more for a pilot with dependents (FYI it isn't). So that's a difference of $30000 a year, a lot of money but when you compare it to salaries is just a drop in the bucket for the mainline folks.
I mean a senior wide body captain is making upwards of $300,000 a year and a junior FO just starting out is making $93,000-$135,000 their first and second year. So again, a difference of like $170,000-$200,000 a year. That small difference in health care costs is nothing compared to getting rid of the senior captain in terms of cost savings. When you add in retirement, 16% a year AA pitches in, that far exceeds the cost of the healthcare alone, close to $50,000 a year for that senior captain.
Anyway, all that to say senior pilots are far more valuable to dump than a junior one.