I will agree and disagree as well.

Agreed with the statement management wants to make to the Street.

However, if I had time I'd research this little fact, as gruesome as it might be, yet illustrative. (Headed back to the salt mine.)

How much did BHM cost UPS in payouts?

What about that unfortunate and hard to watch MD11 crash in NRT?

Or perhaps the incident that destroyed the MD10? In MEM?

How much did the last major airline crash with significant fatalities of passengers cost in payouts? Thankfully, and knock on wood, we haven't had one in awhile. Might have to extrapolate data from perhaps 191 and adjust it to today's dollars.

This week in Bloomberg Business Week, I know, lots of "studying" going on to "stay awake" ;) the department of transportation has put a figure on human life at $9.3 million per I believe. Part of the GM ignition key debate going on.

FYI. Ball park $1.76 billion for a full 757

I think your are taking that to too much of an extreme. And sorry, but I don't buy the whole responsibility for XX number of lives as making any one pilots' job "worth" more than another's. Sorry, I just don't. Carl might think he is more important then you or me, but the AJC will still use the same font for it's headline if you or I bend metal. So using that as a metric for determining pay... again... imho.. is pure folly and short sighted. Or maybe we should be paid for the number of people that are actually on the airplane if the responsibility for human lives is how you think we should be paid. I think the MD88 would go amazingly senior if that were the case. I think the point of a UPS/FDX comparison as far as management is concerned is from a business perspective in terms of profitability and excellence of those businesses. I think management is tired of the constant cyclical swings of this industry and are really working hard to break that cycle. Consolidation has helped immensely. The fees of which you speak are also a method to do that. As an added bonus it gets the gubbamint out of our wallet. IMHO, kudos for that.

I hope Delta avoids it. They would use it to LHR, AMS, NRT and CDG and reduce frequency. That costs us jobs.

Exactly. But what happens when we code share with those that do use the giants. 747s and 380s.

I know I know. Production balances and all. Look backs. Compliance.

When will the final verdict be in ?

Your logic is flawed though.

Take Carl's pay being more than yours for example. Sure, maybe it doesn't make much sense.

But as far as life insurance policies and true spreadsheet "value" of what's on board, Carl's got ~400 people worth and you've got ~250 people worth and both of those are still an extremely steep ratio to a cargo plane with 2, 3, maybe 4 people on board.

400-to-3 is a 133 to 1 ratio.
250-to-3 is a 83 to 1 ratio.

Both are in the neighborhood of 100-to-1.

So, in this method of comparison, which is exactly what the FAA used to justify not making the 117 rules apply to cargo, even you and Carl and even most 717s and RJs are basically in the same league up against an MD-11.

The point: if it's about what's being carried, which you brought up with the diversion example, then the pax planes are carried way, way, way more valuable goods.

What would be interesting is to know how much in each flight Delta pays for an insurance premium vs each FedEx or UPS departure.

With FAR 117 upon us now, I think we should be paid a "Federal regulatory recovery fee" in addition to our Current pay. Passengers don't think twice about them now at the hotel front desk or car rental counter.

This fee would be added to each ticket, per segment and labeled as such. It would then go directly to the pilots. Add that to our current pay and no one would be talking about restoration.

Talk about management twisting into a pretzel to explain it to those working on the other side of our door.

OK, then we should be paid for the value of each of those passengers at the same rate, each time we turn a motor, because you cannot say that a passenger on an M88 is worth less than a passenger on a whale... can you? ;)

Let me get my M88 bid in on the next AE.

I'm not refuting your entire post but I do have to throw a flag on the field with this one.

The only thing dumber than spending big time money to commit to the long term business model of the world's largest 50 seat fleet that they couldn't staff anyway even if they were willing to fly their network with the most uncomfortable and insanely expensive seats in the industry (i.e. the mother of all empty threats) would have been to have furloughed 1200 pilots in 2012. We can barely handle the flying network gave us hiring 100 a month with all hands in the fleet on deck pushing a 100%+ oad factor (slightly exagerated but not much) as it is. Just when exactly could they have furloughed 1200 pilots only to immediately recall 1200 pilots, far, far, far under the typical 2 year "ROI" footprint for even a much smaller furlough.

So while you were only saying we were 200 fat instead of 1200, furloughing even that amount of pilots would have been a costly blunder.

You've ignored the whole discussion you brought up, which was about what a flight is worth.

You gave an example of a diversion.

I gave an example of life value on board.

You still think a FDX pilot carrying envelopes deserves to be paid more for doing the same job that you are carrying billions in life insurance policies, not to mention the true "value" of someone's life?

It's a psychological move. You dont like doing it, so you will do it less. Automatic functions for "calling in sick" will make it easier for sick-call abuse to occur.

TEN