Originally Posted by
Ray Kinsella
Your question should be why does your pilot group fly the same planes (757) on the same routes and schedules for considerably less pay than UPS?
As of 9/1/22 a UPS 15 year 757 captain makes $361 an hour with a higher monthly guarantee than a FedEx 15 year 757 captain who makes $289 (according to this site).
That is one way to look at it. You could also ask why your pilot group flies a 747 for the same pay as a 757?
We agreed to tie our horse to the higher pay for larger metal scale a long time ago. Changing that now would cause a fundamental change in how our pilots bid for seats. Our crew force is comprised of roughly 90% of the pilots on wide body pay. That United pay rate that I referenced from 2019 should be around $395/hour or more today. IMO, getting to that rate, and the equivalent for wide body FO, or higher for 90% of our crew force would be better than getting us all to $365/hour to get slightly ahead of UPS. I'd prefer not to see the passenger carriers pass our pay rates by $30/hour like they did in 2015/16. YMMV.