The entire employee cost is looked at, not simply the wage per hour. They look at everything from the on-boarding costs which includes the recruiting staff, the interview hotels, medical tests, transportation; then new hire on-boarding, ground school, hotels, transportation, simulator time, the instructors time, the administrative staff time; then paying the company share of all benefits, providing paid vacation time, and paid sick time.

It is much cheaper to pay an OT premium, even at 100% than to hire an extra employee that costs all the extra training, benefits and vacations. That holds true right up until the point that it becomes cheaper to pay all the misc costs to get the lower hourly rate. When that happens is something only they know.

You can't advocate NOT picking up OT, but you certainly shouldn't be encouraging it. The flip side is, if your pilots are already doing the right thing and the company has quietly threatened the union for a job action due to a large drop in OT pickup, then making that post would be a smart move.

This is for any airline, not just yours.