Originally Posted by
Warhawker
If we can maintain the schedule flexibility, I'd be happy with a couple hairs under legacy pay. the QOL (you can argue with current OT) has a monetary value.
It's pretty simple. We fly more people. We fly the same type. We should be paid the same. If we get to within 5% of legacy rates, LTD, 401k, etc. while maintaining our flexbility - we (in my opinion) will have a fair contract.
If you can get within 5% of legacy payrates, that's great. Take it. It is widely known that Premium revenue and International subsidizes our narrowbody payrates at United, which will be hard to match in these times, to be honest.
I think there is a running myth that other airlines have no "schedule flexibility". At United I have only flown one trip that was on my original schedule for both May and June and 4 of my trips were all picked up from open time or traded from trips I originally bid. I am in the bottom half of my base as well. Sure we have some junior pilots that get redeye flights that fly over a weekend that can't just drop every trip into open time, but we have a very robust trips trading/drop system. We do not have a 100% "can drop" policy, since the airline just can't have every pilot drop all their Christmas trips etc.
I just checked for the rest of June on the Airbus, probably a similar sized fleet to Frontier, and we have 256 trips that are in open time for Captains for the rest of the month. These trips are predominantly open because of trip drops. Only 14 of them have a redeye segment in them. Anyone that has a trip they don't want has a lot of choice of trips to trade into.
Its great that you have a lot of QOL and trading flex, but other airlines do as well. None of us are "stuck" in our monthly trips. This perspective is good to know so that your management doesn't overstate other parts of your contract so that they can short you on take home pay.