I believe the average SW pilot works on average more than 80 hours a month. I would say 85 would be more accurate. That includes reserves. This has been said, and bears repeating, that the $230,000 is an average. They are able to pick up to the max of 100 hours a month, and a lot do. Not all, probably not a majority, but a lot.

They have 15 days off on reserve, but there is no long call. It's all short call, and they don't get credit for the days they don't get used. But here's the thing, if a guy is on reserve 15 days, he flies 15 days. If he's on reserve 16 days, he flies 16 days.

They get incredible productivity out of their pilots.

And believe this, if DALPA went to the company and said let's get rid of ALV, it would be done tomorrow. And my happy butt and at least 1,000 of my fellow pilots would be on the street.

You need to adjust the number of hours by at least 85 to make it a reasonable comparison, and probably more.

Now having said that, I still want a fat raise.

 

I agree with you. It would be stupid to publish the results. Buuuuuut, I have little faith in the survey per se. Remember the MMPI? I will read it, and I will do it, but I am concerned that there will be manipulative questions. I hope I am proved wrong, but I guessssssss I would rather smash my toe with a hammer than stick a needle in my eye...

 

They are Form 41 stats. I also mentioned where some of the stats are not a true comparison. These guys just put the stats reported by the airlines in to graphs and info the common man can understand. Jeez.

 

Interesting. When I brought up the concept of LGBP, some of the resistance I got was that it would hamper guys from bidding a bigger airplane in order to make more money. For you to do what you want to do, we would have to institute a hard hourly cap again, because guys have become accustomed to flying 80-85-90 hours a month. If you think for one minute that when we get a raise that will allow you to make $200K in 75 hours that guys won't work 90 hours and make $240K, you are delusional.

 

I don't know what this survey will have. In the past however there was a option to write a summary of what you were looking to achieve. Hopefully that will be there this year. If you don't like the canned answer section take some time with that option. I do know that ever single one who wrote something in that section had it read by the negotiating committee on the last contract. It was a long tedious job but they did it.

George

 

Fair enough. As I said, I'll do it, and maybe I am making mountain out of mole hill. Like you, I'll wait for the survey to come out. Maybe I'll write a novel worthy of Geoff or Dirk....

 

What we are all forgetting is that the FT/DT will take away the ability of the SWA pilot to pick up the flying he/she currently does. It will put their scheduling rules and utilization more in check with ours. Simply put, less time to work your tail off at a fellow pilots expense. See SWA has never stagnated and that is why this practice has never come to light. As they stagnate more, it will.

Also go look at the mit stats for hrs flown per pilot. Heck I will give em to you.

http://web.mit.edu/airlinedata/www/2...er%20Month.htm

SWA is at 52.00 we are at 42.00. Again I cannot find data that would indicate that augmentation of 8+ hr flights has been taken here.

 

ASM's per dollar of compensation is a real good one. We were off the charts in 2009.

http://web.mit.edu/airlinedata/www/2...mpensation.htm

 

That's the point I'm trying to make. You can select certain stats all day long to make the case against pay restoration. I would expect Swelbar to present stats that can be used to justify lowering labor costs. That is his specialty, and he does it pretty well. I just don't think it's in our best interest for you (or any of us) to take that ball and run with it. Let's spend more time making the case for restoration and less time spouting management's case against it. Seems like that would be more appropriate for what we're trying to achieve, don't you think?

 

I have a feeling that there are some discrepancies with multi-crew flights that make a block hour comparison very difficult to do. While MIT doesn't disclose how they do the math (that I can find) other data analyst that I have seen take the total hours and divide by 2.

The important page is THIS which shows that based on fleet makeup (narrow body vs wide body a/c) we are paid less than: SWA, Alaska, Continental, and JetBlue. Based on the fleet data I found we are even with are right behind AMR.

Again I believe that the Block Hours Flown and the high ASM crew cost likely have a lot to do with Delta's choice to fly a lot of multi-crew international flights and have little to do with anything you and I control.

The fact is that this international flying which makes our numbers appear higher actual makes more money for Delta, at least they claim it does. It certainly should not be used as ammo against us as it is a management decisions.