I think this is one of the biggest issues surrounding this business. No one is arguing that 9/11 and the following 10 years were a giant **** sandwich. But no one who was hired in the 80s and rode a 73N or 7ER captain spot through those years is a deadzoner. In my mind, the only people who would fit that definition that are still around would be those who were older than the average new hire that came on in the late 90s, just prior to 9/11, and are about to age out. That demographic cannot be very large. It doesn't seem to match the number of people here, and on the FB group, that are claiming that they are a deadzoner. It's been 16 years. Between the pay raises, increased DC, and the largest bull market in history, most people should be able to survive in retirement.

I only included quotes from the older captains that I flew with. Late 50s on up. The younger guys who are captains actually don't talk like this. At least not the ones that I've been around.

Also, I thought all the deadzoners were in a really bad place and had nothing for retirement. Now you're telling me that some of them are doing really well? But that doesn't matter because junior pilots = bad. Junior pilots make 200K per year, 16% DC and get to upgrade quicker than you did! So what is this really about then? Deadzoners having nothing for retirement? Or could it be resentment that the junior pilots have a brighter future than you think they should have? So, now you want us to make a carve out for you because we have it too good and you don't have as many millions as YOU think you deserve for retirement? Please...enlighten me! Because from where I sit this just looks like greed and jealousy.

You know what - some older guys had dream careers. Some youngsters will have dream careers. Some older guys had terrible career timing - some younger guys will have terrible career timing. Lets not add to the the factious old vs young argument and further divide the Pilot group. 80% of us are fairly solid with 10% on the margins of each demographic.

Scoop :)

so that we can gets some facts as opposed to emotion....anybody have the pay tables from bankruptcy thrugh to the current one

I hear a lot about 16 years to catch up....I think some pilots are underinformed as to just how shi**y the pay was for a lot of those years. If you take a 46% pay cut in rates, it takes a 92% increase in rates just to get back to where you started( and then factor in inflation. Not advocating for anything....just more factual data.

Furthermore, we have do some thing in the past and will continue to do things in the future that are targeted and don't benefit the vast majority on property. Elimination of B-scale and Corbra benefits and prolly hotel rooms for initial training are some I can think of. We did it because it was the right thing to do.

When we use the term “catch up”, are we talking about catching up to a high water mark? Did I hear wrong that the pre-bankruptcy pay tables weren’t necessarily reflective of the previous decade? If someone is looking up old pay rates, I’d actually like to see them back into the 90s myself.

I’ll probably look at any sub-15% profit sharing check as substandard for the rest of my career, but we know that those profits really were an anomaly.

I don't have them handy but we're they $24/hr for the entire recession with a 50% match up to $1000?

Catch up wasn't my term...it was used by previous posters.

As I said before, I made about 175K in 2006 and in the 2009 as a 20 year pay 76 capt. Hard to save your way to what some seem to think all pilots should have after 10 years of post bankruptcy contracts trying to claw your way back. What does a 76 FO make in their 3rd year as a comparison?

Again...I am not asking for anything nor expecting anything, but I do think there is a group of pilots who under-estimate how damaging those 10 years were.

I'm sure someone has the payscales for those years. Hopefully they will post them so that more facts and less emotion prevail

175k in 2006 is 235k today. Apples to apples and all.

I made 11K as a pilot in the military my first year...total. Is that germain too. Let's try to stay on subject vice trolling.

40 years ago? No. It's not relevant. Many people made that 30 years later in their first year out of college/flight school.

This isn't trolling. It's pointing out the tone deafness of someone telling people who likely made 20-30k for an excessive amount of time that he had to take a pay cut to still make almost 200k and how we need to make it up to him.