Originally Posted by Mesabah

The problem is slim margins in this business. If the pilots showed up to work for free, the airline would only see a small improvement in the bottom line. However, since there is such a small margin, pay cuts make the difference between a profit and a loss. This is why labor continues to take a beating in this industry.

In my opinion, the fundamental problem in this industry is the way airlines have changed their revenue generating policies. For some reason the airlines think that filling every seat on the plane at any cost is better than having it go out empty. THIS IS WRONG, and ever since this way of thinking was implemented, the airlines have lost money. Imagine if Intel, instead of discarding the processors that don't perform up to spec, decided to sell them at a discount price. Instead of paying $350 for a chip that runs at 2.5 GHz you can buy one out of spec for $100 that runs at 2.0GHz. How long do you think it would be till Intel is bankrupt? The cost of the empty seats should be factored into the cost of the filled seats, this was how revenue was generated during regulation. When you create a secondary market for the same product it causes severe downward pressure on the cost of the original product. Management has no choice but to turn to labor for the savings, where in reality they only have to raise the prices of the seats 1% to turn a profit again.