Originally Posted by
JetBlast77
See, this is where you lose me. I think it is some Republic pilots who have been acting ignorant, naive, and stupid as you put it. It’s nice that you are in contract negotiations but as of right now your pay stands and the fact that you are even willing to fly a SINGLE FLIGHT in a 190 for those pay rates is appalling. 30 years ago the operation would not have started up until the pay issue was fixed. Unfortunately this is no longer the world or industry we live in.
Come on guys, now that they know you'll fly these things for $35 or less an hour, do you REALLY think you'll negotiate anything CLOSE to mainline wages? The whole purpose/way of thinking behind your business model is flying these routes at a lower operating cost. Midwest and Frontier both already showed that they can't do it for mainline wages and be profitable, yet you think you can move in with 190's and negotiate $100 an hour and turn a profit? Unless you raise ticket prices to a point that would put you out of business anyway, this business model won't work the way BB wants it to. The only hope this business has of being profitable (without raising ticket prices) is for you guys to make a fraction of what mainline pay was and BB knows it. This is why we have to hope for a colossal failure.
Jet Blue operates as a LCC on the same equipment and they have good pay rates. Our CASM right now hovers around 8 cents. Flight crew costs only accounts for 1 cent of the total 8. Our operating cost per hour on a 190 is around $2500, aside from fuel. I believe the next highest 190 operator is Airways at around $3400/hour. They could give both seats a $50/hour pay bump and it still wouldn't hurt their bottom line. BTW, these rough numbers come from management.