Again, enough money will fix the problem; “enough” being the operative word. A blend of pay & work rule adjustments may very well be the most efficient way to address it; but understand that most work rule improvements actually increase the cost of each pilot- either by allowing him to earn higher credit for the same amount of work (as with increased pay guarantees), or allowing him to do less work for the same amount of pay (as with changes in RSV utilization restrictions). More money doesn’t always mean an explicit increase in pay rates, so I think we’re mostly saying the same thing.

HOWEVER,

Improvements to NB work rules as a primary solution are a little tricky. Because while they would probably make the NB left seat more attractive to current WBFOs, it would simultaneously make staying in the right seat more attractive to current NBFOs. Essentially you run the risk of increasing one drawing pool while potentially reducing another. What you want to do (from a market perspective) is increase the disparity in pay/benefits between NBCA & the (FO) seats people are presently staying in rather than upgrading. The most direct way to do that is to simply increase the rates- so I think there is a strong case to be made for a substantial shift in NBCA pay rates- above contractual changes to pay & work rules that will affect all fleets/seats.

I get that people tend to have some heartache over non-proportional increases, but in reality, these relationships between pay bands that we all hold to are not gospel- they’re nominal. There’s nothing inherent that demands it be so, we just decided at some point over the years that a NBCA gets paid x% more than a WBFO & y% more than a NBFO. As long as we’re not taking money away from anyone (e.g., WBFO getting a lower percentage increase than everyone else) I just don’t know why we wouldn’t capitalize on the market suggesting that some of our pilots should be paid more as a percentage than they currently are.