Originally Posted by Fly4hire (Post 1653042)

Frank,

I guarantee you the Co. looks at pay-banding as a HUGE money saving opportunity. Better think hard about what that means for us. Sure we'd see some short term gains on the surface but likely at the long term cost of career advancement. I don't want a trivial pay raise in exchange for reduced career progression opportunities. The biggest pay raise you'll get is moving to a higher paying seat.

Sorry, but I kinda doubt all WB will get paid at 777/744 rates, nor MNB at 739, or SNB at M88 rates with additional time in grade steps. Management says training is no cost, so what's the incentive other than to reduce staffing (=increased productivity) which helps us how?

Strikes me as more selling off of our career for transient dollars. Staffing = seniority, and while pay comes and goes seniority is form entire working lives

Originally Posted by Vikz09 (Post 1653034)

Email from a friend at Endeavor


Wait another 2 weeks and see what management creates to keep the endeavor pilots from jumping ship. They are losing 50 pilots per month and only replacing 8 because of the crappy pilot contract that was forced upon them from management and ALPA. The are going to dangle keeping more 50 seater's than originally planned as well as a flow through.

Now what happens to those who were unsuccessful in the ssp? Are They now become eligible to become Delta pilot's because management needs to pay them slave wages? So instead of admitting they screwed up by forcing these changes to pilots pay and benefits. ... management and Alpa will dangle a flow through to staff endeavor. Endeavor is already paying former captain's who were downgraded to FO, captain rates again, just to keep them from leaving for Spirit and jet blue. Last week alone I heard 30 pilots put in their 2 week notice for places like Spirit and Jet Blue.

Look for massive cancelations this summer from endeavor. This was a management decision that back fired but I suspect they and Alpa will spin it as a positive within 2 week's. Lastly, endeavor had to return or turn down 3700 hours of flying for July.

Watch for the floe headline within 2 weeks...I wish I could put money down on this in Vegas!

Originally Posted by Bucking Bar (Post 1653103)

We pulled down the CAL Codeshare when it was no longer used.

Let's pull down the Alaska language as this becomes the Company's business plan.

Originally Posted by RonRicco (Post 1653168)

I am little apprehensive even writing this post as it requires public math, but what the heck. I also hope Tsquare will jump in with his ideas and suggestions. Pilots keep bringing it up "bigger pays more" but I have yet to see what it would pay the other way.

If I understand the argument correctly, since Delta is not a "wide body" airline, most of us will not fly the equipment that pays the most until late in our career, if at all. Seniority based pay would, for lack of a better term, spread the wealth across all aircraft thereby allowing a pilot to make more $$ earlier in their career. (TVM) I don't think anyone would argue that a 777 and 717 both takeoff on the same leg, that the 777 can "afford" to pay more and without increasing pilot casm per seat.

So the question is, what would our pay rates actually be? (Here comes the math) The simplest solution is to figure out exactly what our seniority based pay rate would like without increase system wide pilot casm.

I took each category and the number of captains (assuming everyone is 12 year) and multiplied that times their hourly rate. For example, there are roughly 230 777 captains that make $263 an hour. 230*$263=$60,500. That can be done for each fleet and you end up with a number of a little over a million bucks for one hour of flight pay system wide.. Now one can go back and divide that number by the total number of captains (around 4800) and you end up with about $215 an hour to pay every captain the same rate while keeping the same pilot costs that we have today.

$215 is a little lower than I expected, but the same reason that people are asking for seniority based pay (lack of wide-bodies) is the same reason the math comes out the way it does. Not so different than taxing the rich and spreading it to everyone else, it just doesn't end up being that much per person.

Now, I will freely admit I may be way off base with my math, but I would like to see an example from a proponent that shows what our rate would be while keeping our current costs, except for the savings from training costs since that would be directly related. (Pick a number and spread it across the fleet)

Once the rate is fixed, I also wonder what metric we use to establish rates going forward as the fleet changes? I certainly think it would drive us towards larger aircraft since pilot casm would go down since rates would be lower on those aircraft than it is today. If we add 20 777, do we just take the old $263 rate and further spread it across the fleet? Do we just go off some sort of pilot casm number and just try and get increases off of that?

And just to head this off at the pass, I am sure the next post is going to be "why can't we increase the cost of the contract?" I am not saying that, I am just trying to figure out what exactly my pay rate would be today, only accounting for an increase efficiency due to less training, not some percentages we negotiate in the future. In other words, if have a 2 billion dollar contract for just pay rates, what would that 2 billion look like if we all got paid based on seniority and seat?

Originally Posted by FmrFreightDog (Post 1653092)

His 3 book history of the Civil War is incredible. It's probably around 1500 pages all together, but it's almost impossible to put down. The level of detail and quality of storytelling is just amazing.

The Civil War Trilogy Box Set: With American Homer: Reflections on Shelby Foote and His Classic The Civil War: A Narrative (Modern Library): Shelby Foote, Jon Meacham: 9780679643708: Amazon.com: Books

Originally Posted by Timbo (Post 1653179)

Good work on showing the math in public Ron Rico, but don't forget about the 'real reason' the company would LOVE a longevity based pay system, and that is reduced manning, due to the reduced training you eluded to.

We are coming off 5 years of stagnation due to age 65 and merger synergy, so going forward, there will be a lot more pilots swapping seats and stuck in training for a month or more. How many pilots are -off line- going to school is hard to say, but let's use 10% because the math is easier.

IF we had LBP, there would be far fewer pilots playing musical chairs, chasing the big bucks into a widebody, so far fewer pilots required on the seniority list. The bottom 10% of every category could be lopped off, and thus the bottom 10%, or about 1100 pilots on the bottom, would go out the door, or the top 1100 retire and not be replaced.

Then there is the "Productivity" argument. Once you decouple aircraft pay rates from aircraft productivity, why should the company pay a 747 Captain any more than a 50 seat RJ Captain?

Originally Posted by Bucking Bar (Post 1652580)

I had wondered if a bridge order to keep Boeing's 767 line going might be the answer to a 4,000 mile 757 replacement. Sadly, according to one analyst, the answer is no and despite their significant limitations the A321NEO and 737-900 Max are the best the market has to offer right now.

http://leehamnews.files.wordpress.co...pg?w=902&h=680

Even with the latest and greatest 767 mods, it is about 20 percent more expensive all in than a narrow body jet.

Originally Posted by tsquare (Post 1653219)

Why should they pay a 747 captain more than an RJ captain? You think the RJs are gonna take the job of the 777? You said yourself that you would drive to MCO to fly the 717 rather than commute...but for that money thing... I just don't understand why QOL takes such a backseat. So if guys were making top tier wages based on their years of service WHO CARES what airplane they are flying? If it meets their desires for lifestyle, I say throttle up. If management wants to retire all the widebodies and buy all E-170s, good for them. They have to pay you and I more each and every year to fly them. I think the cost effectiveness and economy of scale is out the window at that point. The ONLY argument that I see having any legitimacy is that the seniority at the bottom of the list would be spread across all fleets. So what? Do you see any real indication of a furlough in the coming years? Your retirement argument. 1100 could retire and not be replaced. OK.. oil goes to $150/bbl. 747s go to the desert with no replacement. NOW you have a cascade downward throughout the entire list. How do you justify that?

Originally Posted by casual observer (Post 1653184)

I agree with a point that Scoop made about QOL regarding pay bans. I personally have throttled back to spend more time with my family as a wide body F/O. If we did a pay band that moderated F/O pay, pilots in my position would be motivated to take the narrowbody captain jobs that we can hold to get the more significant captain pay increase (especially, in light of the new productivity that would erode the differences in QOL). So, if you see yourself as a narrowbody captain benefitting from a pay ban, consider the unintended consequence of today's QOL senior F/O's putting downward pressure on the back half of the seniority list's chances for upgrade to captain.

And more generally, it seems like less choice would be less better.