Airline Pilot pay justification
 

Hi Nerd,
If you're looking for anybody in this forum to disagree with you, you may be waiting a while....
chuck

hey bud,

nope, I just want to open up the eyes of the blind,......and push for full contract restoration, with or without ALPA.

This is a great way to think of it. Thanks for the post.

The public often thinks of the year end total paid out- including payroll tax, benifits and hourly wages- and thinks X is fair for a pilot. But because most folks have know idea what a CEO, or CFO, etc, does... they figure the millions a CEO make is almost fair.

If the conversation was shaped in the terms of hourly pay per ticket per hour, it would be clear how poorly we are paid for our contribution to the bottom line.

I totally agree with you Nerd, but if you think of it from a greedy SOB management standpoint, $3.50 extra per ticket while moving say 50 million people per year is $175,000,000 that the airline could/would just pocket. So unless the flight attendants start passing around a jar, we won't ever see a penny.

Increased barriers to entry for the pilot profession are the answer. Requiring 1500 hours is a good start. We should push for higher standards and over time the pay will follow. The legal and medical professions have good barriers. What if getting an ATP were as difficult as passing the Bar exam or Med School boards?

Great idea and that is what many of those professional associations do. They limit the number of entrants.

The reasons that those two barriers are so hard is not just the test, but the predetermined number of applicants that are allowed to be certified. It is called limiting supply. It is something that we really should look at.

Those increased dollar amounts to pay for higher wages have been there for a long time. That extra cash is in the pockets of executive bonuses, stock options and salary.
This is standard in EVERY industry (my wife's job too). It's rich get richer, poor get poorer.
I agree we need to battle it out on the table. It shouldn't, but it takes striking to get back to where we were.
The above is a great explanation. But when we come up with great ideas like this, executives say "wow, great idea!..Thanks!" and puts that money in their own pockets.

Great post Nerd.

Somebody brought up the seniority-based pay scales, and the ingrained "pay-your-dues" system that's plaguing the airline industry. I will also say that the problem isn't the management. The problem is the collective mentality of airline pilots in the US.

After my airline collapsed (Aloha), many of us lost everything. Nerd, imagine yourself right now, you are an experienced captain making a solid living, but due to really poor management, you find your airline collapsing and now you no longer have a job. OK, it happens to the best of us, you say. I will go and find another job. But unlike most other "professionals", you, despite most likely decades of experience in the cockpit, years as a captain making decisions, are limited to making less than $3000/month again, and that's if you're 'fortunate' enough to get hired an outfit like say Allegiant or JetBlue.

"It's not fair to have anyone off-the-street or some 'brown noser' bypass me (in terms of pay, seat, etc.) - I was here first" is the argument you'll hear from the people in any airline.

What also fosters the above argument is are the tiered payscales. Everyone rightfully wants to protect theirs. So as a result, if, God-forbid, your airline goes out of business, and you're young and 'fortunate' enough to get hired by another airline, remember, your experience, your time in the industry, your previous compensation do not matter one iota. You are still sentenced to under $3000/month.

... and what's even more shocking is that the pilot population accepts that as normal.

Do airline managers 'lose' all their years of experience when it comes to their compensation? Maybe their 'loss' is about equal to the percentage of pilots' pay cuts as parts of concessions.

The management sees this as a way to keep your wages low simply because you will have to start over somewhere else, and to many, it might be financially impossible. Just think in terms of concessions you've given over the last decade, still better than losing your seniority-protected pay, right? In the meanwhile, look at the airline executive compensation and bonuses while you were taking pay cuts and losing your pension.

Sadly, US pilot population accepts this as normal, and as long as that mentality persists among the pilot ranks, you will not exact any changes.

As a result of this, many of my former airline colleagues took jobs flying for overseas airlines where there is no 'seniority system' like in the US, where you are paid as a professional from day 1 as opposed to 10 years from now.

Unfortunately, in the US, I don't see the pilot compensation system changing without radical changes in pilots' collective way of thinking, and sadly, I think it's highly unlikely.

I've always thought that if people believe we should limit the number of pilots that they should be the first one limited. I'm sure their mind would change.

The landscape is changing fast as we see consolidation of regionals as well as majors. With the economy showing a positive trend, their may be an opportunity to recover lost ground in pilot contracts.

Thinking outside the box may be the new mantra, and help improve the quality of life for all pilots.

We don't deserve to be paid what we are paid. ;)

In my case you are incorrect. If it improved the profession, I would be all for it. What you talk about is the "I" or "Me" mentality that has really killed this profession.

If I could not pass the new barriers to entry I have no fear that I would not land on my feet somewhere else.

See this process starts long before the Medical Boards or Bar Exams. It starts with entry and weeding out in the process and culminates with these exams. We have some of that here, but not to the same degree.

Your total pilot cost calculations are a bit off. You have to add back into the numbers the amount of times a pilot gets paid and is not generating revenue. This includes credit hours, canceled flights and trips, sick time, vacation, reroutes to lower time rotations, Weather and other cancellations ect. Then you have to add in the total cost to provide reserve coverage for each flight. Then the costs for pilots on disability and retirement expenses. Your cost projections then go up quite a bit. The actual number you should use is the percent of pilot costs verses overall cost to fly a passenger from A to B. Its currently about 8 percent at Delta. So if a passenger is paying 100 dollars for a leg then 8 of its goes to the pilots.

A very good point. Many of the leverage issues this profession faces are a result of portability of ones skill set. To be successful in a industry wide leveling of seniority and experience, a proposal and plan needs to be formulated. Many people including Pineapple Guy have made posts about this over the years on here. For one to be remotely successful people need to realize that everyone will be negatively effect initially. Everyone MUST look at the long term gains of doing this. I always though that we should agree to a plan now, and implement it in seven to ten year when the glut of the Cold War Warriors retire.

This is an interesting way to look at compensation, but for all intensive purposes it is a moot argument.

I'll play devil's advocate here for a second, this entire arguing point on why we should have pay restoration can and will, if utilized during a contract negotiation, be diffused by management with ease. Management will show us all these different types of numbers, graphs, tables, and analyses to show us that other operating coasts severely eat away at the operating cost of each and every flight. They will swear to it that restoring pay or regaining anything above that will weaken the company's operating performance.

So as far as rationalizing to the company goes, they could care less. Furthermore, rationalizing to the public, they also could care less.

Most people will agree that pilots should be compensated well, but it's hard to believe that when the average person will spend about 2 hours searching for the cheapest ticket on the internet, even if it's just a few dollars cheaper. So, there you go, people really do have a problem spending a few extra dollars on a ticket.

I know this may seem like a pointless tirade, but I think there are some realities in it that we all need to cope with. I think you article brings up some good points, so don't take this post as a dismissive counterpoint.


The realities as I see it are this:

1.) We, as a Labor Union, are not managing or deciding in which direction to take the company.

2.) We, as a Labor Union, must decide to make an educated determination of what capital the company has to work with independently.
(Without ANY communication with managment)

3.) We, as a Labor Union, are the ONLY people who can decide on what are contract and compensation SHOULD BE.

4.) When approaching the negotiator's table, we should have a Narrow Range of where or compensation packages SHOULD BE. Anything below that is not even entertained for a second, period!

The minute we try to rationalize on why our pay should be more, we will get an even better rebuttal from the management side. At the end of the day, it's not our problem, just like our personal finance isn't the management's problem.

It's the equivalent of buying a car and having the car salesmen show you the invoice while pleading with you that him and his dealership is taking a hit by selling at the proposed price. My response to that is, not my problem. I should know, as a well-informed consumer, what a fair price is for the car. At the end of the day, the price of the car is set by what people are willing to pay for it.

Our contracts our only worth as much as what we are willing to fly them for. No one else will lift a finger to change that, not the flying public, not the government, and definitely not airline management.

Sailing, lets not forget all of the back office support staff that allocated as pilot support. These people do not generate revenue for DAL, we do but their costs are associated with our support. (CPO, CPSC, Scheduling, OCC, Benefits Administrators etc)

A great idea, except for one small issue called the RLA. I don't believe there is any legal way to try and limit pilot numbers.

On the subject of restoration I am all for it and would love to see it. It would of course mean that pay rates at Delta would have to double from current rates and other expenses soar. A true restoration contract would move total pilot expenses at Delta from about 2.2 billion a year to 4.5 to 5 billion a year. As a senior pilot I would love to see that happen.
If however I was a junior pilot I might have a different perspective on the issue. In the time I have been in this industry airlines that have allowed their costs to get out of line with other airlines have withered on the vine. Those with a advantage have prospered. Two easy examples. AMR had a large cost advantage over other airlines from 85 to the early 90's. They grew at a rate almost never seen at a large airline. When there costs jumped up higher then other airlines that trend reversed itself. The second obvious example is SWA. Low costs gave them sustained growth year after year. Then through a odd set of circumstances they lost their historical employee cost advantage. That also ended the decades long run of consistant growth.
Delta management does not care what they pay us at Delta. They only care what they pay us relative to the competition. This is a brutally cost competitive industry. The only real path to restoration is steps taken over time that other airlines follow. We can certainly open for a restoration contract. I can tell you what will follow. Management will say, Thank you for your opener. We will present our counter off in June. We will say June is 6 months away. Thats crazy. Management will say you are mistaken. We meant June of 14 not 13. They will simply refuse to negotiate. The NMB will allow them to do this because they will view us as not negotiating in good faith. Don't think so? Look only as far as American.
I always asked those that want nothing short of full restoration to provide a plan to achieve that within the tremendous restrictions the RLA imposes on us. I have never been given a single answer to how. I have only been told wants. Big difference there.

I think the strategy that will put more money over time in my pocket and allow for continued growth for the junior pilots is to take a more pragmatic approach. We open for a contract that will be industry leading but not way out of line. We let management know that this is contingent on getting a contract done on or near the amendable date. We make some nice gains begin getting those gains quickly. We sign a short duration contract like they used to be. Hopefully 3 years but no longer then 4. That allows other airlines to hopefully leapfrog us and puts us back at the table in 2016 going for the second big bite of the apple. If we open for a restoration contract we will still be negotiating and working under the current contract in 2016 without question. Thumping our chests and demanding restoration may make us feel good but I don't see any way it puts the most money and quality of life in my families pocket.

There are many factors that influence the growth and prosperity of a company or industry. How do you know that it was this one factor, and this one factor alone, that was responsible?

I'm in favor of raising the standards and barriers to entry, which will reduce the number of pilots. If that means I should be eliminated, raise the standards to eliminate me. I'll just work harder and meet the higher standards, as would many others. That is GOOD for the profession as a whole.

Raising standards and barriers to entry for the entire profession is the most sure fire way for raising pay at other airlines and thus our own airline. When becoming a commercial pilot takes the same education, testing and commitment that it does to become a doctor, we will see restoration across the industry.

Our biggest focus as a labor group should be raising the bar to become part of this group. When earning an ATP becomes akin to earning an MD or JD, we will see improvement across the entire industry.

So what are the barriers that you suggest to limit pilot numbers? Most pilots that talk about limiting the number of pilots just want to limit the number.

So what standards and barriers would you add?

Here are a few for starters.
-1500hrs for carrying passengers.
-College Degree for FOs.
-Masters Degree for Capt.
-ATP testing similar to Bar exam or med school exam.
-1,000 takeoffs and 1,000 landings for ATP (500 must be full-stop).
-500 hours PIC.
-300 hours of instrument time.
-200 hours solo or instructor time.

:D

What about all us dumb freight dawgs? My employee uniform is velcro shoes, so i don't know if I could earn a masters degree. Land on a carrier and fly the shuttle, no problem!

So I need to waste more money and time by getting a Masters Degree in something I have no interest in? I already did that for my 4 year degree and it didn't help me be a better pilot. It only wasted time and money.

1500 hrs won't really change much seen as that used to be close to the average in the past and that was when pay for training was around.

300 hours of instrument time or IFR filing time? I'm curious what your total time was when you got 300 hours of instrument?

Why must 500 be to a full stop in the landings?

It seems that you're saying 200 hours of solo time is just as good as instructor time. Is that what you are saying?

Here test you pilot pay justification, from what I heard about a decade ago Gordon "The Great" Bethune was in the CLE Coex crewroom and a lowly Beech 1900 FO walked up to him and asked do you think its right to pay us (1900 pilots) $1X per hour?

Bethune asked "why should I pay you more?"

and you say as a 19 seat 1900D FO, who paid $7500 for training, that you should be paid more because...

If I recall correctly you and I have a very good discussion on this exact same thing. I also beleive that we agreed that given this scenario we would be looking at restoration wage levels at the same time we would be finishing up our next section six agreement (2017)

Lets start the answer to this question with another question. How do Doctors and Lawyers limit their numbers? Go find out the answer to that question and you have important piece of the puzzle.

No matter what pilots or management says, supply and demand effect everything from pilot salaries, hiring minimums, air fares etc. So restrict the supply to match the demand.

+1 for RJSAviator. Great points all. I'll take it one further and note that this is exactly why most of my military pilot buds are NOT trying to move into the airline world after retirement. We just can't afford to start from square one. After 20+ years of flying training and experience, we encounter all these factors that RJS talks about and pass.

We look around at where we'd have to start, what we'd be paid, and how long it would take to advance in the current climate, and most of us just can't do it. Most of us just can't take the 80+ percent pay cut with a mortgage, car payments, kids in college, etc., so we move on to something else. Most of the time, it's not a flying job, unless we are fortunate enough to stay connected to the military in some way or have a stroke of luck and get picked up by a major carrier.

Even then, just as in the Aloha case RJS talks about, those who do make the leap have to suck it up for a long, long time, knowing that we won't get paid what our experience and training should bring (and would in any other industry) because of the seniority system, pay scales, and "me first" attitude that the pilot community accepts as normal.

Now, before you fire up your keyboard to flame me, save it. I don't expect special priveleges, nor do I think anybody owes me anything for my service. Far from it. I'm just making an observation. I find it interesting that every time there's a crash or an incident, someone inevitably says that we should be putting some of those super-experienced ex-military guys into cockpits filled with really young guys building hours for peanuts. As long as I can't support my own eating habit--let alone my family's--on entry-level FO pay (even WITH the portion of my retirement the ex doesn't get), those ex-military pilots will choose ground-bound desk jobs the vast majority of the time...

I gotta disagree on the elimination of the seniority system. Yeah, it sucks if your company goes TU with no fault of your own, however this industry was, is and always be who you know to get with a good major or company. The senority allows a continuous movement up (albeit it slowly), from reserve to line-holder FO, from FO to CA, weekends off, etc. Having management cherrypick who upgrades, who gets what equipment, who is a lineholder vs. reserve would be a disaster. So I'm gonna work for a company for say 15 years, finally upgrade, then have the CP friend who just lost his job go ahead of me because "he a good ol' boy."? Am I gonna have HR plug in someone ahead of me because "We need more black/female/gay/whatever Captains, so your gonna have to wait to upgrade". No thanks. Senority lists has it's problems, but the alternative is much worse.

There are pros and cons with the current seniority list system to be sure. But its abolishment, or worse, some lame NSL, are worse than the worst elements of the status quo. The best we can hope to do is to mitigate some of the bigger negative effects. We can do that in a number of ways, while still preserving the seniority system at each airline. Ending this mentality of "first year pay" is one key stratedgy. First year pay should be 2-3% less than second year pay, which should be 2-3% less than 3rd year pay, etc. Take any major/legacy or established LCC's (JB, AT, etc) 3rd year pay and even the perverbial senior widebody captain at a defunct airline should be able to live off that. That ties into another thing we can do, collectively, and that is to stop living beyond our means, leveraging credit, financing punk ass kid's 6 figure art history appreciation degrees so they can extend their childhood for 4 years, party and "discover themselves", the second homes, boats, etc.

If you are an airline pilot and you can't afford to pay cash for anything other than a reasonable primary home and after you pay cash for what you want, you STILL have 6-12 months pay in very liquid savings and an additional nest egg to draw from, then you CAN NOT AFFORD IT. Over-leveraging, particularly through credit, in any industry is a recipe for disaster. In this industry it guarantees disaster if anything happens to YOUR airline/list. We complain about that and some suggest the answer is to give a portability windfall to the "senior" at every airline (who are usually among the most overextended) to the direct detriment to the vast majority of every other pilot everywhere else. Never going to happen. EVER.

At contract time, we can concentrate more on pay across the baord and less on jailhouse lawyer loop holes where a tiny percentage of pilots can triple dip with impunity. There is a cost to that, and contrary to populist belief that cost isn't paid by management, it is paid by the entire pilot group across the entire pay table in all seats, all the time.

We also need some sore of a national hiring list, NOT a national seniority list. Although that hiring list can have a seniority component (i.e. must hire or at least interview...all or a certain percentage...off this list, perhaps in top down order). Military service could easily count as seniority as well as qualifying to be on that list. Each airline could still set its own requirements, like X amount of PIC or not, degree or no degree, ATP or not, and could still interview and choose who to hire, but it would have to be off the list.

So the newly laid off former senior widebody captain would still have to start over. And that would sting, no doubt. But essentially getting guaranteed interviews at all legacy/major/established LCC's first, and if hired by any one of them, going in at a livable first year pay instead of this defacto 1-2 year B scale nonsense would help immensely. If that individual had his fiscal house in order as well, it wouldn't be the career ending bankruptcy divorce causing depression inducing whopper of a start over it is today. Far from it. It would still sting, but it would be infinitely better than today's status quo, while not harming any other pilot group or individual pilot already at any particular airline.

There is no solution that is perfect to everyone all the time. And like it or not, it matters where one gets hired in this industry. There is no way around that. That is part of every pilot's decision making process, career risk management and financial lifestyle management. If your airline goes T.U., you will have to start over. There is no way around that. However we can all work together to mitigate the negatives in that while preserving the positives our seniority list system provides.

I think we are talking about two different things. If you mean a type of national senority list I'm all for that. I was talking about eliminating each companies senority list, which would have management dictate who goes where.

Lawyers and doctors, work independently amongst themselves.
Amongst those professional fields, there is a mutual understanding of what compensation should be for services rendered.

Once an attorney or a doctor becomes more experienced, he or she will gain a reputation that will allow them to charge customers for that particular expertise.

Unfortunately, we as pilots, operate under a mask of ongoing ignorance. What I mean by that is, your average passenger is completely oblivious to the experience level of the flight crew. Dire emergency situations don't occur everyday, but we are trained to deal with them accordingly.
Essentially , we are all trained to one particular standard, without exception. By using the doctor and lawyer analogy, we should get our raises and bonuses based on how well we perform on our line checks and sim rides.

Of course that scenario is implausible, but it brings about one specific point. We as a pilot group must collectively decide as a whole what our self worth is. I think the entire arguing point of trying to raise the standards for new pilots trying to break into the industry is comical at best. It is the equivalent of assigning the responsibility of raising compensation and labor contract standards to pilots who don't even work at an airline yet.

Things have gotten as bad as they have because ALPA will essentially ***** themselves out to ANY pilot group willing to divest 2% of a pilot's pay while increasing the member population. Scope was allowed to be given away by those who have passed before me, and ALPA did absolutely nothing to discourage this. As of result of these haphazard decisions, the traditionally, less-experienced regional companies were allowed to grow exponentially at the expense of mainline cutbacks.
Now mainline pilots want to raise the standards, seems backwards to me.
Man up and demand the contract you think you deserve, and if you want a pilot with a Master's Degree in the left seat then you better add another $100K to the captain's salary, at least.

So I'll follow up your question with another question. Do you not know how lawyers and doctors limit their numbers or are you just asking that question to ask the question rather than answer my question in this three question ramble?

Supply was rather low at the regionals near the end of this hiring spree and that didn't help raise the regional wages.

I know! I know!

When someone needs a lawyer or surgeon they'll always go for the best one they can possibly afford because, in general, people hate dying and they hate going to jail.

When someone buys an airline ticket they'll spend two hours online to save five bucks because nobody dies on airplanes anymore.

ugh, this is us, below, we're kind of the same, we turn a screw on a damn assembly line:

http://www.treehugger.com/toyota-ass...ne-photo01.jpg

Want proof, don't turn that screw like they told you and see what happens.

The nature of what we do as pilots is that we promise to take that plane fly it to the place you told us to fly it and be within these tolerances and to operate it based on these proven and safe procedures. Then we hand it off and the next two guys do the same, then they hand it off, and the next two guys do it the same. There may be some variation in PA's, attitude, consistency of landing, overall smoothness, etc, but if everyone does their job then you should not be able to tell them apart. That's the goal.

So if you're not supposed to tell people apart, how do you reward them based on merit? You don't. What you do, however, is not hire those who you deem not to meet your requirements and you don't pass those who do not meet your requirements.

^^^ 100% agree

^^^ It blows my mind that any supposedly intelligent and educated pilot couldn't understand why seniority exists.

Do you know most companys hire middle management from within only?

And do they do it on merit? Not always. Sometimes its because someone has been there longer. Sometimes its sexist or racist or another -ist. Want that open ended loosey-goosey system to manage 12,000 pilots at Delta alone? Not to mention 68 categories of schedule bidding every month and daily trip assignments and reassignments?!?

What about vacation? I want Christmas and July 4th, where do I go lobby for that? Who do I pay? Who should I send gift cards too?

And what happens when its time to furlough? Hmm? Sounds like a fun place to be. Sure those lawsuits would be flying.

---
I think the NSL is a nonstarter. I mean a Captain at CAL decides he wants to be an AMR Captain, AMR is about to have a bid with 737 openings, CAL Captain applies, he gets an interview, whats the guy got to say?

CAL Pilot: I'm a great Captain! I've got 20 years of accident free flying! I'm typed! I know how to be an airline pilot. I never call in sick unless I'm sick. I'll be committed to you. I'd love to be based in Dallas!

AMR HR: Well, we have thousands of great Captains and thousands of great FO's who'd like to be a Captain. 20 years accident free, 99.99% of our pilots are accident free too. And whether your typed or not doesn't matter, we've still got to send you through our training. And yes, all of our pilots are airline pilots too and they know how to do it. We have lots of people who never call in sick. If you were committed, where were you 20 years ago? Or 18, or 14, or 10? You'd love to be in Dallas? So would a lot of our Miami, San Juan, New York, etc. pilots.

Nonstarter unless you think an airline views their FO's as incomptent and poor hire choices. Then I concede an NSL might have a purpose. :rolleyes:

I think its as low as $2 actually. According to some DAL network folks I've heard from.

Yep, contracts are already set in stone. You've got years, maybe more thanks to the RLA, before you get to the point you could even begin to claim you need to pay more because entry barriers are higher thanks to the FAA.