I think the introduction of actual competition and the fact that the government no longer sets ticket fares (almost always insuring a profit) is what caused the pay standard to drop.

Since I took a decent amount of time writing these two posts, I hope people don't mind that I repost them here (as one post) so that the folks that only peruse the Major forums can offer any insight.

Disheartening, yes, but not unreasonably so. I'm not sure that I can argue that even the minority most senior pilots should be earning close to a million dollars a year. And I don't think average airline pilot pay is $100k.

Raising fairs is also a dangerous game. While I definitely agree that the latest rush of decreasing ticket prices just to get as close to 100% load factor is financially irresponsible, the Supply Demand curve works both ways. Give out too much supply and your revenues decrease. Take away too much supply (effectively price people out of flying, and for more people than you'd think, $60 does make or break the deal), and your revenues decrease. There needs to be a happy medium. Let's say an airplane has 100 seats. If you sell 90 seats for 100 dollars, you make $9000. Sell 80 seats for $120, you make $9600. Yes, you priced 10 people out of flying, but you retained the other 80 people, for whom $120 isn't too much money. Why do you think WN does so well with it's 60-75% load factors, while Herb says "We aim for load factors in the mid 60s to 70%"? It's because WN is able to still price competitively and OPTIMIZE its load factors to provide the maximum revenue.

Anyway, back to pilot pay: yes, you're absolutely right that, especially at the bottom end, they've become criminally low, especially considering the responsibility on pilots' shoulders. But does that mean that a 15% biannual pay raise per year should be sustainable? I don't know about that.

A great pilot I know once said to me "Pilots don't get paid to fly the airplane while it's working. Pilots get paid to fly the airplane when **** hits the fan." And that's absolutely right. While you may pay 100 pilots $100,000 a year for 25 years (my math brings up $250m), think about the impact of those well rested, well paid, competent, happy, and intelligent pilots during just one hairy situation in those 25 years(hitting the runway on a CATIII/II, or performing checklists correctly). It doesn't even have to be a hairy situation per pilot. If because you have that competent and happy pilot in the cockpit you only avert one accident in those 25 years, you've saved money, seeing as accidents are measured in the range of about a billion dollars (internal study, will not cite source) when you count all collateral damage, liability, and actual loses, you've just saved yourself $750m. Of course, you need to figure out exactly how many pilots you have and what their actual average salary is, but keep in mind, this is still a very real and very valid example, because while you increase your pilot pool, you increase your flight numbers, which just increases your chances of a crash. Worth it? Worth it.

For context for my post above, let's look at MAG. Looking at their most recent financial data (includes subsidiaries), their block hours for the year stand at 571,827. Let's say that they stay in business for the next 25 years with no change, positive in negative, in either their pilot numbers or pilot efficiency (aka, pilot numbers stay the same, block hours stay the same). That equals out to 14,289,295,675 miles flown. Now, in 1996, the NTSB approximated that carriers experienced fatal .026 accidents per 100,000 flight hours, or about 3.8m flight hours between fatal accidents. It can certainly be argued that pilots make or break a carrier when it comes to accidents, simply on the statistics of pilot error vs mechanical concerns (I know, I know, if 8 things break that the pilot is supposedly able to deal with, and he/she can't and crashes, that's pilot error, but bear with me). So take those statistics, and Mesa will be exposed to about 3684 "potential accidents" (14b divided by 3.8m). It can certainly be argued that pilots make or break a carrier when it comes to accidents, simply on the statistics of pilot error vs mechanical concerns (I know, I know, if 8 things break that the pilot is supposedly able to deal with, and he/she can't and crashes, that's pilot error, but bear with me). So let's say that with any reasonable training (.026/100000 includes foreign countries too, so let's give MAG the benefit of the doubt) and maintenance, 95% of these situations can be averted. That still leaves 184 situations over 25 years where pilots make the difference. Let's assume that MAG is a much, MUCH less liable company than mine, and that they've figured that with all things considered, an accident will cost about $100m (that's basically the cost of the AC and 1.5m per pax, so no future loss of revenue, no realistic liability numbers, no raised premiums, etc) . That works out to about $18.4b in potential losses, or about $441k of potential savings PER PILOT PER YEAR! Of course, should pilots be paid that full amount? No, because of acceptable levels of risk, but should pilots at any carrier lay down and accept $20k salaries under the excuse that they aren't valuable enough of assets to earn more? Absolutely not.

Hm, don't know what to think concerning this. Yes, SWA pilots don't get paid as much as the 15%+inflation per two years projection that the article mentions, but bear in mind that they also fly 73s (and 15% every two years?!). That being said, if you look at the REASONABLE projections as forecasted by Capt. Koch (the ones that took Consumer Price Index into account) and adjust them forward four years, and you'll find them pretty similar to the salaries earned by 12 year SWA Captains. Of course, not all CAs earn that much, but if you find ones that work their trips right, you can definitely find some that do. And I'd bet that Capt. Koch didn't decide to use what the slacker Captains were earning.

Now, I can't touch the 74 (or current day T7 numbers for comparison), but at least narrowbody salaries at the evil LCCs isn't criminally out of line for what the narrowbody norm was back then. There's no denying that salaries have come WAY down, but let's not start the infighting between fellow pilots at different carriers! It's not the pilots who asked for lower wages, and I wouldn't come close to calling any of the LCCs scab-airlines filled with SJS pilots who would fly for pennies just as long as it was a big jet.

The blame lies elsewhere, shared among the sense of entitlement that the entire American public has (I actually think this is the worst one), the greed of some top management (middle management ain't that bad), the rising price of oil, the general surplus of pilots, the fact that I wouldn't say the job is getting harder, the general lowering of upper-middleclass to lower class wages (while widening the gap to the elite), and a bevy of other reasons that each take their toll on pilots' (and others') salaries.

If you look at chart for a stock price the big picture changes as you click, 1 week, 1 month, 1 year, 5 years, etc.

For this industry a good time frame to look back would be equal to how far you have to go. If you have 30 years to go, look back 30 years and draw a trend line. If you have 5 years to go look back 5 years.

Sadly a newbie looking back 30 years has to project 30 into the future, in which case the trend is NOT your friend. There is nothing in place to reverse the trend right now but a bunch of hot air "We're Taking it back", "Fix it Now", etc. Nice but no credible action behind it.

There are several items in place or in motion to continue the trend. Further improvements in automation, NextGen ATC, MPL, Labor laws, Age 65, etc.

His "REASONABLE your term" CPI went to 2003. It's getting close now to 2008.

CPI 1978... 2003 was 2.82 or.......... 100,000 737 CA needed 282,000 in 2003


CPI 1978... 2007 was 3.20 or.......... 100,000 737 CA needed 320,000 in 2007


If you guys are getting 320K at LUV, good on ya! Haven't made any progress but at least you haven't fallen behind inflation! Good work men! Wish I could say the same for the rest of the industry.


http://146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

Well, I certainly hope that I'm not the newbie, I was simply trying to put some context on the value of pilots. I do think that the trend will continue for the next few years, but with the rate non-legacy options are becoming better, I don't think it's far fetched saying that the majors will be forced to improve their compensation packages, otherwise they won't have enough pull from foreign carriers, freight carriers, LCCs, corporate, private aviation (not everybody wants to fly the big jets!), other sectors outside aviation, and, last but not least, a few of the top tier regionals to fill their ranks, which will in turn cause painful growth hampering.

I'll definitely side with you that the further automation of the industry isn't going to help our cause, though, but you have to keep in mind that while there are these trends pointing downward in pilot workload, there are also positive factors that counter them. Take for an example a pilot flying into LGA. The pilot today has much, much better equipment to provide situational awareness and aid in controlling the aircraft, but the pilot of thirty years ago likely had two other pilots in the cockpit (one extra one over today) and much less congested airspace. You lose a little, you gain a little. Would I say that it's easier or harder to fly today that it was 30 years ago? Well, unfortunately, I don't have QUITE that much scope to work with, but it's certainly something to consider.

Pilot workloads have and will continue to shift around to different responsibilities, and I personally think that a lot of the automation doomsday talk is a little silly. After Jimmy Doolittle made his first completely blind flight in 1929, did people say "oh, look at the avionics advances, well, flying's going to be a lot easier from here on out". Well, maybe, but I wouldn't say it did, it simply progressed from one challenge to another one.

If you'll read what I wrote:

AKA, add 4 years to 2003. I did the best I could, the CPI numbers for 2008 haven't been released yet. At least, as far as I know.

Not every Captain makes that much at SWA, as I said, it takes a little fancy work, but I'm sure that not every pilot at United made $100,000 in 1978, though please feel free to prove me wrong. It probably wouldn't surprise me at all, especially considering that Capt. Koch alludes to the almost $500k salaries that the 74 Captains were making.

EDIT:
And I'm not quite sure why you think that "Reasonable" isn't a fair word to use. Am I wrong thinking that 15% plus cost of living raises every two years indefinitely is excessive? While I understand in our liability obsessed culture these days, pilots are possibly more susceptible to being sued, is there anybody who honestly thinks that 15% every two years for thirty years is actually reasonable?

No that's fine, I intended no sarcasm.... I think it's great I didn't know you guys were pulling in 320K. I wish my W2 Block 1 was in the 2XXs, you guys are Rock Stars, 320K is outstanding! My hat is off to you.

The link was a CPI calc:

http://146.142.4.24/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

No harm no foul!

And that's the very calculator I used to come to my conclusions :) .

They do at UPS and FDX. I know of almost every CA here, Intl., is going to make around 320K. Thank Goodness. Some will pull in 375K, ANC Based guys.