I guess I am a little dense this morning, but I still don't get it.

Not to pile on T, but if that is the case, why is there a $24 difference between 7ERA and 764A/330A? That is the largest "step" on our pay scale by a wide margin, if you don't count the step between EMB-195 and DC-9. An quick, unemotional glance at our pay chart sure makes it look like 7ER and smaller are getting narrow-body pay and those above are getting wide-body pay.

I don't want to get into semantics. The 757 rate was raised to match the 767 rate. That's a fact. As to the other part.. it goes right to the heart of my argument. 747/777/330/and the 2x4 make up around 12% +/- of the fleet. More people NOT on that equipment, making substantially less...

When's the AE results gonna be out?

Just been hit with a trip to ATL for bounces. Anyone have experience in this? What exactly do you do in the sim? Is it just 3 bounces or a whole profile?

At "quittin' time" (more a mood, than an actual, measurable, time) they'll hit ENTER, then run for their cars and make smoke peeling out on Virginia Avenue. After a couple of days of personal leave, they might come back into the office Wednesday before deleting their voicemail in bulk and doing a clean install of Windows Me (or whatever they run on their 8086 machines).

Flintstones Theme Song - It's quitting time. - YouTube

Here's your AE:


At least it beats:

Heard it is a full MV in the #1 MD88 Sim, even if you don't fly the MD88.

The neat thing is, the SIM is a dead ringer for the hardware used in the movie, Apollo 13.

And I was hoping for the DC-9.. get used to it before the AE comes out.

The sad part is after being around and seeing the training center I'd believe it ;) I haven't seen this many floppy drive computers in one place since elementary school :eek:

Let me take (yet) another shot at explaining some major shortcomings of LBP.

First of all, let's be clear: we're talking about shifting wealth. Let's set aside the idea of negotiating a new contract, so we isolate this discussion just to LBP. Let's just say we want to reach a LOA on LBP. We're not going to bring, for free, all pay to the 747 rate. So LBP would require some averaging, probably weighted by fleet size. But let's say, for argument's sake, that this is important to us.

For this generation, this pilot group, if we take a snapshot, we get winners and losers. Porbably everyone 757 and up loses money, and the DC-9, for several months at least, sees the greatest improvement. Everyone then chases QOL, and the system undergoes a massive realignment, as senior pilots, now much poorer, "chase QOL". Or maybe they do what pilots have always done, especially pilots that just took a paycut: they chase money. The only way they can do this is to get to the front end of a categoy, any category.

Then what?

Over time, passenger numbers grow, and capacity is added. Under the old model, pay is roughly related to size, though it's not fully proportional. There is no pilot cost incentive to pick small or large airplanes, though larger is a little cheaper.

But when you make them all the same, crew costs on a DC-9 are outrageous, vs. a 747. IOW, the incentives for large airplanes are obvious, and the disadvantages of small airplanes equally obvious. And, since capacity is increasing, Delta simply increases aircraft size. In fact, the incentive is to replace capacity (including growth) with less, but disproportionately larger, large airplane. We may see the A380, after all. Who doesn't benefit? The Delta pilots.

Under the traditional system, when capacity grows, we have a pre-set, guaranteed way of benefiting. Under LBP, a guaranteed way of losing.

And let's not kid ourselves by suggesting a new contract would change the damage of LBP. Even if there were significant raises, LBP still shifts wealth. If there were large % increases across the fleet, except for the largest airplanes, we would still see a rush from those airplanes to the top of every category, and we would still be left with a built-in loser.

But at least, the (fewer) pilots remaining would finally get to see more WB's on property, and they would get to be paid (very little) to sip their coffee as their junior, poor a$$ is once again enroute to Narita.