Originally Posted by
⌐ AV8OR WANNABE
Roberto, how many years did it take you to upgrade to the left seat? …or were you hired as a captain? I’m asking because I know many guys/gals were hired into the left seat when UPS started up as an airline.
I don't think the "young'uns" are trying to force the older pilots out - they just want to preserve their upgrade expectations they all had when hired. The new law skewed those expectations tremendously. The way I see it, in one pen stroke their former "older union brothers" who'd been planning their retirements all those years all of a sudden got a 5 year bonus on the backs of the "young'uns."
The law is the law and there's nothing that you or I can change but I'm just pointing out that in the view of many "youn'uns" it's the older pilots trying to force out the younger pilots and not the other way around - force them out from the left seat.
It IS greed all right, from BOTH sides. The only difference is that the older guys got a HUGE retirement package increase they never even planned on getting and now they expect the younger pilots to be “glad” that all this "great experience" will stay in the cockpit with them for 5 more years.
Whereas YOU now have the option of retiring at 60, 61, 62 1/2, or maybe at 65 I bet you the "young'uns" will not have that option unless they are willing to take an "early" retirement option, meaning they’ll take a penalty.
I know you'll say that we have to fight for that option in our next contract BUT I bet you the company will throw in some kind of cash bonus for us to give up the possibility of retiring at 60 - …and the older guys will take the cash and just let the younger guys work longer. Nothing new – just look at the 1st year pay here – who cares about the “young’uns” right? After all, they now have 5 more years to pay off those credit cards.
I can already hear you say “well, but second year guys make sooo much money nowadays; it took me 5 years to break through 100K, etc...” Well, I’d argue that if you take the inflation into account your pay as a new-hire AND the following years was higher in the past than it is now. Especially IF you were hired as a captain…
Fire away…