Originally Posted by
TexasLonghorn
Flexjet was my 1A destination for years, and I've ALWAYS said that I'll stay unless Flexjet gives me a reason to leave. If their idea of parity with air carriers pay scales is this 'throw money at years 1-3 and ignore the rest' idea they're potentially trotting out, then that's a pretty good reason. I'm all for new hires getting compensated in a manner that allows us to be competitive in our hiring processes, especially considering we're raising our minimums while everyone else is lowering theirs. What I'm not going to stay here for is a continued lack of investment in pilots who have been here longer than that timeframe, CGF moneyball analytics or not. I hope that when the new scales are finally released I'll be able to breathe a sigh of relief and tell myself that I was over-reacting. It would've been more prudent to wait to make any sort of announcement until all the details were finalized to begin with, but that's not where we are today. I guess we'll wait and see what the future holds.
While I’m glad that Delta has entered the conversation as the benchmark for pilot pay… The CGF moneyball analytics team has made some very favorable assumptions about career progression at Flexjet and some incredibly lowball assumptions about Delta pay in order to advance their narrative. The Delta Pilot union contract has lots of soft pay items that discourage the sort of scheduling behavior which is normal at Flexjet. That said, those sorts of scheduling things still happen and as a result, I know multiple year two SICs at Delta who are already banking over $250k this year with two paychecks and a performance bonus left to go. All this while working less than the flexjet 8/6 schedule (or pbs equivalent). These figures do not include a 14% direct fully vested 401k contribution. With pay that good for second year hires, I’m not even sure golden handcuffs are a thing anymore.
Understanding that airlines aren’t for everyone and that Flex may have some more tricks up their sleeve before they reveal the final numbers, it’s still early to fully judge what the effects might be. That said, I think the changes are too little, too vague, and (at Q2 of 2024) too late to stop the attrition. Furthermore, no changes to 3yr+ pilot tables in the face of some serious inflation and market changes shows me that maybe this isn’t a career destination that cares about lifetime compensation for what can be a pretty exhausting job vs 121 flying. Their own chart shows as much with a 15yr extrapolated difference (yrs 10 through 25) of $720k-$1.2M.