Originally Posted by acl65pilot

Recall that the LUV pay rates until 2005 were well below that of all of the legacies. Their business plan and fuel hedging allowed them to go after the Legacies low hanging fruit for cheaper fares that we could offer with this hedging program. Their pay until the CH11 era paled in comparison to anyone else, and not many ppl "dreamed" of flying the 737 for SWA until that happened.

By default our pay and bennies got a hit in CH11, and they just stayed level. The cargo companies have never gotten to our previous level, and since their companies make a lot of money on a decent margin they cannot drag them in to CH11 to destroy their contracts. Remember that these places had pay that was nothing compared to ours as well.

We are looking at a very narrow snapshot of this industry's history when we state that these carriers are so much better than our. Yes, UPS and FDX will probably keep their pensions, but I would suspect that even with a moderate gain in 2012 our 777 rate will top theirs.

We do need to work on regaining a lot including work rules, but look at the whole history not just the last ten years because it give in incorrect picture of the history of these three carriers and their compensation levels.