Originally Posted by
pinseeker
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.
The answer to the first question is that our 74 pay is industry leading
, but our 75 pay is even more so.
Totally understand the fundamental reordering of how folks would bid if you switched to a single pay scale. Lots of your 75 captains would be displaced and the short term training churn would be undesirable to the company as well. Our rate will exceed that $395/hr rate in September 2025. That’s not as soon as I think it should (this Sept would be better), but it’s better than any other contract currently. It looks like everyone will pattern off of us (I hope) and leave our rates looking bad. It would be helpful when our contract becomes amendable in 2025 if FedEx top rate is around $450/hr (or more) and not $70/ hr below ours.