Originally Posted by
RonRicco
It is an interesting exercise. I ran the numbers a few years back and the seniority based pay rate would be just about 757 pay. So, everyone that is “junior” to the 757 would get a raise and everyone senior would get a cut. (Obviously those pilots would have to be grandfathered in)
Of course you also get into expectations. Since a blended rate would be lower than our current top rate, are the pilots that aren’t flying that equipment, but can hold it in the very near future now stuck at the blended rate?
It also seems like people misjudge what it will do to them. It seems like there is a lot of “this will be great, I can fly the A220 and never leave.” Can you? You might be bumped right out of that seat and now flying Lagos because the pilot who was chasing the money would prefer to stay within a couple of time zones of home.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying there isn’t workable, but there is always an opposite reaction and that result may not be what the advocate expected.
The 737/320 would go unbelievably senior.
Your premise of the average/median pay is correct if the payscale is lineal. The issue is the transition to it. Once it is implemented you could do that, but I would actually have the yearly increases higher for the first 15 years since the FO pay would still be based off of it, but after that they could taper down somewhat. So far the only downside I have seen is when we slide backwards and furloughs become necessary. There is no lowest paying category to displace to and I believe the junior pilots would be relatively evenly spread throughout the fleet. We'd have to come up with a mechanism to get around that. Heck we pay guys for doing nothing anymore, so there's that. Maybe furloughs are a thing of the past.