Originally Posted by
Lewbronski
I’m not saying it’s not “significant.” I’m not saying we shouldn’t leverage it.
But I am saying the credible threat of a strike is much, much more significant in terms of leverage than even more than one pilot per day leaving.
The cost to train one pilot is ~$50K. So, let’s say the rate of attrition is now up to 1.33 pilots per day. Even at that rate, a strike, just in the simple terms of straight lost revenue, costs the company 977X more than pilots leaving right now. If the rate of attrition increases to two pilots per day, a strike costs the company 650X what pilots leaving would cost it.
How many flights per day are being cancelled per day as a result of pilot attrition versus how many flights per day would be cancelled per day as the result of a strike? I don’t know the numbers on lost revenue per day as a result of attrition, but I think it’s safe to assume it would take A LOT of flights cancelled per day to begin to approach the financial impact of a strike - probably many, many more flights per day than may be being cancelled now as the result of attrition.
Just saying, it seems like our primary focus as a pilot group is fixed upon a source of leverage that is hundreds to thousands of times less powerful than the credible threat of a strike. It seems to me like we’ve got it backwards.
This exactly. It's a data point, not a negotiating tactic.
a 4 day partial shutdown in December and January cost this airline close to a billion dollars. That's the ultimate leverage. The threat of us setting the parking brake and walking away is what will drive them to come to the table with significant improvements. Not hiring and training a few pilots. That's chump change.