Originally Posted by
CX500T
Pulled 23M7 coverage for a couple categories, (atl320 and nyc7er) that seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, figured out the pay per trip.
Compared time to bid packs total time, got a percentage.
Multiplied that out by year 8 pay rates for seats, as the median pilot is around there (I'm 52% company on year 8 pay) and scaled it by the total block flown by the company.
This is a Fermi estimate thats correct to an order of magnitude, within certain bounds, and I picked the lower bound that still met a 95% confidence solution.
If you want a full on forensic accounting analysis if this, I ain't got time for that. I was able to blast that out in about 30 minutes.
Fermi estimates are good for a quick "is this worth further investigation" calculations but I wouldn't go into negotiations based on it. That's the lower bound. High end was 300+ but that's factoring in other costs like a 23M7 IA driving another GS or IA later if a reserve got it.
You’d absolutely have to do some serious research to come to an actual number but I don’t doubt for a second there a significant cost of downstream effects.
I know it’s anecdotal but recently this situation happened to me:
- Late night GS comes out for a turn. I’m 1-2 pilots away from getting the trip and fully intend to fly it. 23.M.7 invoked.
- IA call goes out. I try to get it but someone junior snipes the turn. Check the coverage report and the trip No-Opped.
- Another GS comes out a few moments later. 23.M.7 again… this time I win the robocall lottery and get turn #2 as an IA
- Show up to fly this new turn and talk to the CA. Turns out his FO got re routed to cover the same turn that No-Opped. The same turn I tried to get as a GS on step one of this journey.
Just walk through that single narrative and count how many times someone got paid to cover a single turn via the downstream effects. If this is happening at any meaningful scale the amount this problem costs the company can grow quite quickly. The challenge is doing the forensics necessary to find all these costs twice removed from the initial 23.M.7.