1986 Salary Survey
 

Going through my garage yesterday I found an old FAPA salary survey. There is too much info to list is all here but here are a few examples. First though, consider inflation. If you apply the rule of "72" you see that if inflation is 3.6% per year, it take 20 years for prices to double. Consider this when you see how much guys used to be paid.

Northwest 747 CA 162,000
Delta L1011 CA 160,800
Flying Tigers 747 CA 174,000
United 747 CA 160,800
USAir 727 CA 141,137
American DC 10 CA 142,400
B727 CA 118,200
DC9 CA 111,700

Horizon F28 or DHC 8 CA 40,200
Comair SF340 CA 35,500

There is a lot more info in this survey. I will try to post it as a scanned document soon.

Flying Tigers?

-LAFF

AKA FedEX
...........

That's funny.

Did some research and came up with this....

http://www.flyingtigerline.org/

Sounds like a fun airline to work for...Guess these were the good old days...

-LAFF

Yep. Great company, definitely FOW ("Flavor of the Week") airline c.1977-80, and the one I most wanted to work for at the time. Then Steve Wolfe took over, threatened to break up the airline and sell it piecemeal. Because of that, and the general feeling of doom and gloom that settled over the company, there were several years when FT couldn't hire guys off the street to save their a$$. (I was one of them) Anybody else remember the "Save the Tiger, kill a pilot" bumper stickers in the LAX parking lot?

Then around '88, FT became part of FedEx. This was at a time when the legacies were hiring like crazy, leading to FE and UPS having their own pilot-retention problems. Southwest was having the same problem, although it was an OK place for an ex-military guy to get some 121 experience prior to applying at a major.

My, my, how time and circumstances change our attitudes on what is a "good" place to work.

I wish I could remember which issue of the ALPA magazine it was in. They published a letter that was written to the pilot group in the 50's from managment at Flying Tigers about contract talks and that with the prospect of bringing a new/larger type of aircraft on property and growth and can't afford the proposed pay rates.

Intersting read. I also wish I could remember the pay rate that was listed in there as well for a 4 engine captain. I thought it worked out to somewhere around 275-300K in todays dollars.

Future
 

I wonder if one were to project those pay rates 20 years into the future what we would have? At least half again of what he have today anyway. In today's dollars an international 747 captain would be around 70 to 80 thousand.

Skyhigh

The last shall be first...
 

Very true. And it's amazing how many people think that, for some reason, such change will now slow down or even stop. As mutual fund prospectuses warn: "past performance is no guarantee of future results."

My point is, salaries should have doubled by now. Interestingly the pay for Horizon and Comair have pretty much done that. However the major airline pilot pay has done the opposite. This is not news but look how far we've fallen. 160K then should be about 320K now. Delta was right in there before their big fall.

I believe we should use this data to rally support for huge pay increases. This has to be done by ALPA national scale of course. We need 100% raises to get back to "the good old days". This is what has to happen.

1. Get as many major contracts as possible to become amendable on the same date. 2012 would be good timing. This has to be the only part of the negotiations that is not negotiable.

2. Decide, on a national level, on one contract. There should be regional differences in pay and differentials for aircraft size etc...

3. When the date approaches, call the management of all the concerned airlines together and negotiate.

The idea here is to level the playing field. All airlines would pay the same (with small regional differences) so they would not be able to use different labor costs as an excuse for profit or loss. Labor would become an expense as non-negotiable as fuel. "You want to fly 737's? This is what it will cost you!"

It is a pipe dream, I know. If I was running for ALPA president, it would be my platform. It could happen but it would take an extraordinary leader with vision.