Originally Posted by
dojetdriver
True, but look at just about ANY "regional" airline out there. The pilots make up the largest employee group. They also make up the largest chunk of the the payroll of non management employees. By default, pilots have the biggest target painted on them.
I did the math for a flight a couple months back and each passenger was paying $79 for Jet A and about $4 for my services. Maybe $18 for the entire crew, and the difference in labor and fuel is 60 bucks. A whole lot of rampies would have to touch their bags at $8/hour to equal the cost of fuel.
For what it's worth, each passenger needed to pay Delta a nickel to make up the difference between the non-competitive Comair FO they got and the underpaid Mesa FO they could have had.