Originally Posted by
themotleyfool
We as a pilot group should look at the split pay for the saab and ask ourselves is this the type of precedence that we want to set for airlines in the future. The short term everyone is thinking; "oh its ok, I will be out of here in a year or two when the great pilot shortage comes." If the shortage comes or not, I don't know, but I don't want to send the message saying it is ok to have a B pay scale. This has already been tried with TWA and even overseas with Cathay Pacific. We have to stop selling out the junior man just because we get half of a bone right now for immediate gratification.
I think that from MGMT's perspective they are unable to provide mesaba saab rates to the future use of the sf because the business models are vastly different. The Mesaba saab rate is based on a capacity purchase agreement with Delta that generates much more revenue than CJC's pro rate agreements for that airframe. Since the future of that flying will likely be under cjc's pro rate agreements (No risk for Code share partners) the revenue won't be there moving forward for the SF
All of this being known, it still does not seem justified on the labor end of things to pay one guy more than another for essentially the same job. however looking at it from what is possible at the negotiating table, the rates they were able to secure are not bad.