To enjoy the same buying power, quite simply.

When I was home a few weeks ago, I got him to pull my dad's 1990 pay and such records. 134,000 that year as a CA on the DC-9. Oh, and a full pension and excellent, cheap healthcare.

Guess what guarantee on our current pay rates get you as a DC-9 CA? 136,000. Corrected for inflation, that 134 is well above 200,000 in today's dollars.

Think about how much more everything costs now than back then? Gas was under a dollar, it's 3 times that... most food items and essentials are about that much more as well. Not to mention how much money we have to take out each month for healthcare...

That is also why 4/8.5/3/3 is downright laughable... particularly that it was partly "paid for" by giving back profit sharing.

That is why keeping up at the with inflation at the very least is essential.

So, in your world, we don't really need a raise, we just need to live within our means? Are you trying to get a management job, or are you just drunk?

No, I want and insist on a raise but to answer your question, I don't "need a raise" Last I checked the TA offers close to a 13% raise by the amendable date and almost 20% 2 years after the amendable date. If you don't consider that a raise than I think you are the one who is drunk. :cool:

You want a list of what costs more than it did 10 years ago:(and none of my cars are SUV gas guzzlers (2 are paid for - my airport car and my wife's care) - all get at least 30+ mpg - we have a lot of hills where I live - I do better than that on the flat parts):

1. Food
2. Utilities (Water, Electricity (we don't have gas for heating in my town))
3. Gasoline
4. Insurance (Homeowners, Cars, Personal Liability)
5. Health Care (when I got hired no out of pocket premiums and deductibles/co-pays were much lower)
6. Dental Care - I am in good health and have always taken care of my teeth and even with that I have needed 2 root canals - even with insurance they are not cheap - much more expensive than the one I had 8 years ago (once again "our coverage" is much worse than it was).
7. Car Maintenance - Tires, Fluid Changes, other routine maintenance.

If that's not enough for you I'm sure others (especially people with kids) can chime in.

That is NOT what I said or hinted at.

Your previous comment about how you don't care about inflation and how you don't understand how it affects you was what I was talking about.

Simply put, the dollar today doesn't have the buying power it did ten years ago (or any other time in history). So yes, while you might be single and get to enjoy your toys, make no mistake, the money in your wallet has a much lower purchasing power.

For example, back when I was a kid, 50 cents bought you a coke and a candy bar (each 25 cents). Now, each of those items today are nearly a dollar or more.

I bought a high end pickup truck with all the fixin's back in 2001 for $24,000. Four days ago, I just bought a brand new one for $44,000 (after rebates, incentives, and dealing).

The houses you own have DROPPED substantially in value because while everyone's income has gone down (except for government employees) and the cost of goods have gone up, resulted in mass foreclosures and short sales as people couldn't make ends meet. Today, there is a record breaking number of empty homes on the market which is dropping the bottom out of the housing market. You'll be lucky if you aren't upside down on your home.

Let's say one of your homes cost you $190,000 back in 2000. And today you get lucky and are able to sell it at $175,000. So you only lost $15,000 right? Wrong, you actually lost $64,000. Why? Because back in 2000, $190,000 had the same purchasing power as $254,000 today.

There, that's how inflation and your ignorance of it affects you. :D

What the others are saying on this forum, is that because of the financial crisis that is unfolding, inflation and interest rates can not stay at their all time lows. In essence, the pay raises will not keep up with inflation.

We have interest rates today for homes in the low 3%. That is ridiculously low. Go talk to your parents and grandparents about when annual inflation in the late 70's hit nearly 14% and interest rates on homes were something like 20%.

For example, a $190,000 home at 20% interest on a 30 year loan has a monthly payment of $3174 and a total cost of 1.14 Million dollars !!!

Educate yourself.

Actually all of your assumptions are wrong. 2 of my the homes I bought were bank sales 2 years ago in markets where they are now worth close to 25% more than what I paid for them. They are now worth that much more because the bank sold them well below market value and they are in a market where the prices have been going up the past couple years. My main home I have owned for 15 years and luckily I'm not upside down since It was purchased well before the bubble burst. The other 2 homes are investment rental property. Sorry you wasted all your examples and assumptions on someone where they don't apply. As far as your $44,000 brand new pick up, well you really need to educate yourself. One of the dumbest financial moves out there.

Repost from L&G

Thanks CVG.

If we can change the work rules and get that 45 up to 60, that's 15 hours on average per pilot per month.

Paper napkin math here so be warned...

But if I just do a snap shot of ATL 88 B, DTW 330 B, LAX 73N A and NYC 7ER A, it says on average 19% of our active seniority list is on reserve.

Using the 22D3 number of Nov 12 of 10,596 pilots x 19% you come out with around 2,026 pilots.

2,026 x 45 hours a month is 91,200 hours. As in the amount of flying done by reserve is 91,200 hours. Take 91,200 and divide it by 60 hours and come out with 1,519 pilots.

506 less than we have now, if you can get 45 to 60.

When pilots demanded SWA pay, they were rebuffed with "do you want SWA work rules too?"

Well if we're trying to move towards SWA work rules like reserves fly every day... shouldn't the W2 pay match?

And match without some hookie our "pay matches if you look at a larger airplane than a vast majority of their flying and turn the numbers sideways and subtract their total compensation and hold that number til 2015 when we can be equal."

Yes, negotiations. With these kind of productivity increases, "negotiations" would have provided for an offsetting SWAPA style daily guarantee of 6+ per day. Instead we got an almost negligible increase in average daily guarantee and even that has an exception for many red eye trips. And this increase in reserve guarantee is also based on a large increase in productivity for all pilots...not just reserves.

Negotiations would have been great. This was an embarrassing steamrolling.

Carl

Hey, I'd be all for it. Plenty of friends work at SWA and love it. Does that mean management will operate one aircraft type?:eek: