Well I can tell you just by glancing at it that it's way off. Heck, they've got a Hawaiian pilot making over $1.8 mil in 1999. Which they highlighted and said that the data appears questionable. If they are questioning their own data, then I'm not putting too much confidence in their chart. But hey, if you can look at the pay scales and believe that there is a $2300 average difference per year, then that kook-aid they're serving over there is much stronger than even I thought. I'm not in any way trying to get into a "my W2 is better than yours" debate, but c'mon man.....use your head.

 

Actually, yeah that data is in error. I can promise you that it is way off for SWA pilots.

 

The average is skewed due to the number of pilots being wrong...... Carl corrected the math and the average is 191,600.

 

I don't trust the data. It's poorly done, and very inaccurate. Case in point below.

 

Had a VA guy on our jumpseat last week. In our discussion, I told him that like many pilots, my ideal job is SWA. He then responded "I don't think their pay rates are sustainable; someone is going to come along an undercut them."

I asked him, "aren't you that guy/airline, flying similar equipment for low rates on similar city pairs?". He seemed genuinely offended.

Am I not right? Or do you VA guys just think you're exempt from that classification?

Disclaimer: I've ridden VA and I like the product, and understand that most of you escaped regional jobs by going to VA. I respect that. I just hope that you guys aren't all delusional like this guy was. He seemed to see no problem with the pay rates and "agreement" you work under.

 

That just makes me wanna......oh...wait...never mind....it's time to go take another Septra DS as my uti is flaring up...thank goodness for the medication so I can continue to me a good boy!

 

Just to let you know the majority of the VA pilots do not feel that way. Most of the pilots there are not from the regionals but furloughed from other airlines and if you fly on VA you will notice alot of ****ed off pilots right now. The wages and benefits were fine for the first few years but now it's time to pay the piper.

They want pay and benefits to be within industry standards. Starting next year December 13 th you will see a mas exudes of pilots from VA if things don't change. So don't look at most VA pilots as the one that made the comment.

People like fish are cluless by bashing the pilot groupe he shows by comments made he has not been with a ALPA airline that has shut down or furloughed. That is what a lot of the VA pilots are.

VA will be just another regional airline if it does not change and the pilot that gets hired will be fresh out of flight school.

 

You're exactly right. And you witnessed their collective reaction. They have no problem with dragging down the rest of us.

Its OK to drag us all down, as long as its only for a few years, is that right? The only way VX will get to "industry standard" is to drag us all down to their level.

***

 

I find it disturbing that an international organization that manages airlines all over the planet comes to the US and offers the lowest pay and benefits of all the airlines under their brand and people find this to be OK!

I agree that airlines in the US should start paying industry standard wages, but the average wage of pilots working for all other industrialized, "first world" nations is what we should be aming for and not the average pay of the lowest paid pilots of all other first world countries.

 

Well said. But the lure of the "quick upgrade" or "shiny jet syndrome" is more powerful than logic to an airline pilot.