Exactly, it's the stadium that generates the revenue, not the player. Your goal is to compete to occupy the largest possible stadium. Excerpt some owners don't share as much of the revenue for a given sized stadium... it's up to the players to insist on that.

Another way to look at it...

Pilots are only worth the lowest common denominator (ie regional FO) and that is determined by market forces. . Any pilot who gets paid more than that is a special case, and management only tolerates that if the plane in question has enough capacity to generate revenue.

That would be accurate if no regional passenger ever connected. How much money did a major make off the guy I flew PIA-ORD who had a business class ticket to Hong Kong?

That's a factor in theory but quite limited... legacy US Air's last BK was due in part to a business model involving free RJ connections to the hubs.

You will be hard pressed to find a major which will tolerate RJ feed that doesn't at least break even... only place you'll likely see it is if a major has too much free contracted and it's cheaper to fly it at a small loss than pay the penalties to cancel it.

Doesn’t matter. The 50 seat jet produces a 50 seat paycheck. They made the money on the Hong Kong flight, not yours. They can get any regional to bring that connection, you’re nothing special. 50 seat pay for 50 seat flying. Want more? Go fly a bigger plane (except at Envoy, there a 12 yr 44 seat CA can make more than a 12 yr 76 seat CA.... another concession for management to save training cycles.

You’re also dealing with AA thought process. They pull the 767 out of BOS where it ran a profitable BOS-CDG route. Instead they fly them in a 737 from BOS to JFK to catch a CDG flight. Problem is they still have to compete with everybody doing BOS-CDG direct. So, the 737 flight becomes free costing AA big money. So, instead of competing they dump more routes.
JetBlue is now about to start NAT flying. Both United and Delta are planning to increase BOS flying... while AA continues to shrink BOS.
Most mismanaged airline since Eastern.

Oh yeah, just “go fly a bigger plane”. I wonder why I haven’t thought of doing that.

Exactly. It’s like telling a minor league player, “if you want to get paid more, go play for the Yankees.”

That’s the first half of the conversation. It’s followed up by, “oh, the Yankees don’t want you? Then stop complaining and appreciate what you have.”

Neither did anyone at Atlas. :rolleyes:

40k first year, if you're lucky.

You’re taking it out of the context (not surprisingly) of the discussion comparing the 2500 TT regional guy to the 8000 hour mainline guy.

It’s a question of what the revenue generated can support for wages. Larger planes pay more because they can afford to.

But go on trying to pick a fight and argue with everybody.

Generated revenue is a significant piece of the pie, but leverage at the negotiating table is the biggest piece. Pilots at the legacies all have restrictive scope clauses which force the company to deal with only them. What is left over is sold to the lowest bidder and those companies have to keep cost down to a minimum to be competitive for contracts. The regionals just don’t have the same leverage. If one says no, another will say yes. If United pilots say no, the company is stuck dealing with United pilots.

And that is why regionals/FFDs should be carved out of RLA.

Sums it up.

And if there was no ord-hkg service how many connecting pax would be on the regional?

Ask silly questions. Get silly answers.

You are aware there are carriers were all pilots get paid the same regardless of airframe. Some even were the largest is multiples in gross weight compared to the smallest... And there are entire pilot groups that make more than others flying larger equipment that generate greater revenue...

All depends on two things: Revenue capacity of the equipment and your leverage.

All the leverage in the world won't get you paid above the ability of your equipment to generate revenue.

Vast revenue generating capacity won't get you paid above market rate to keep it staffed if you have no leverage.

RJ's have relatively little revenue generating capacity and almost no leverage under the whipsaw model. The gains over the last few years were 100% due to market forces (attracting noobs who have options, and trying to retain some lifers who might be on the fence).

It’s not so much the restrictive scope clauses, it’s more that you can’t tell a Delta pilot to take these concessions or we’re giving your flying to AA. Scope plays a part, but not the largest part. You hit it on your last sentence.

You can have 100% of the leverage, and you’re still not going to get more than the plane’s revenue will support.

Bingo
The gains are entirely due to supply-demand.

How is compensation determined for pilots flying equipment that generate no revenue?

Military?

They aren't paid to be pilots, they are paid to be military officers. On exactly the same pay scale as other officers (some of whom in other specialties also get extra hazard/hardship pay). They also pay targeted retention bonuses to try to minimize excess attrition when the airlines are hiring but that only goes goes so far (they cannot offer airline-level pay, and most certainly not to age 65).

Civilian pilots? The airlines set the pace there, corporate employers have to pony up quite a bit to attract and retain folks who would be competitive for major airlines. In fact they are feeling the pain right now. You're going to see the bottom of the 91/135 barrel go away for at least a few years.

I’m gonna go on a limb and say that the little 50 seater can generate just as much revenue per seat mile as the international wide body flights, anyone that disagrees should try to book a one way from let’s say sav-jfk on delta. That flight r/t cost about $600, now go from sav-jfk-ams, that flight cost $900 same days with a bunch more tax. It’s very common for a one leg regional flight to a hub to cost a bunch more than the major charges for connection to a bigger plane. Think of the whole ghost tickets.

The reason they cost more is that they dont want to sell those seats to non connecting pax.
Your assumption goes all wrong when you think they could fill that regional with 50 pax paying 600 bucks each.
They want to fill those seats with premium pax paying 3000 with the connection in J/F.

Now you just need to expand that Revenue per seat mile and equate it to the number of seats, and how far those seats will go in a typical day.
Even though a 777 and an RJ fly at roughly the same speed the 777 pilot moves many more seats over a longer distance in the same time interval that we get paid for. The RJ may get just as much per seat mile, but it is only generating 50-76 seats worth of money to hand to the pilots instead of the 314-396 seats that a 777 moves. Yes we move just as many passengers as the 777 in a day, but with more legs. WHich means more taxi time where seat miles are effectively 0.
A 6 hour payday on a CJR will mean 3-6 legs, which will mean at least 1.5 hours of that 6 hours is taxiing, thus not generating revenue.
Then how much time is spent on those 3-6 legs climbing at a slower speed, descending into the pattern and approach and landing at a slower speed, all while that 777 is cruising along at altitude at .84 for the majority of it's day.
Yes the regional pilots work harder than, in the same environments (or worse) as, into and out of the same airports as the major pilots, but economics just don't support paying the RJ guy the same as the folks flying the bigger metal per hour. Wish it were not true and I'd get a huge raise, but my meager economics understanding wasn't learned from a Berkeley professor so it's just a bit more realistic.

Your entire argument is flawed. RASM doesn't scale based on sector length, hence why Southwest is such a profitable airline. Selling a $250 airfare from Pittsburgh to Chicago (400 miles) doesn't mean a flight from Chicago to Narita costs $4,250. Quite the opposite actually. Shorter segments allow higher utilization dilution amongst revenue units (seats per trip).

A 737 flying 8 sectors a day is spreading its fixed asset costs out over 1,000+ passengers, while a 777 is spreading its (higher) fixed costs amongst 300 passengers, or at the most 600 (two flights).

An RJ operating 6-8 sectors is spreading its fixed costs out over more units than a 777, and the RJ's fixed costs are much less.

You falsely assume long haul flying is the most profitable. It is not at all. Dense, high frequency domestic flying is.

Yeah the best thing that long haul does for the bottom line is to encourage customer loyalty, so they stick with you when they fly domestic.

Scope is the reason that Delta can say this. Scope limits how much the company can farm out. It prevents the very whipsaw that strips the regional pilot groups of leverage. If the pilots at Delta we’re to say no to concessions, with scope maxed out they can’t give the flying away. They could reduce flying or furlough, but that would trigger scope clause provisions forcing a reduction in regional flying as well.

Let’s do this, the 50 seat jet on that route makes $300 per seat while the 777 makes makes 500 per seat (averaging selling half the first class seats). 50x300=$15000 revenue for the single RJ flight, and 300x500=150000. So the 777 makes a bunch more for the single flight, but in the 10 hours the 777 is doing that one flight(including the loading and unloading) the RJ did 7 1 hr flights generating $105000 in revenue. Now let’s look into costs, the RJ captain$75hr, fo$45hr, and fa$25 hr can stay with the plane and work all 7 hours of flights over the 10 hour day which brings total crew cost to $145 or $1450 for the full 10 hours. The 777 will need 1 captain $350hr 2FOs$230hr ea, and at least 6fa at $25hr. Which brings the hourly cost to $960 per hour or $8160 for the 8.5 hour flight. Next is fuel the 50 seater burns 3000lbs hr max for 7 hours means that it used 21,000lbs(3230 gallons) . The 777 burns at least 13000 lbs an hour for a total of 110500lbs(17000 gallons) at $2 gallon the RJ used $6460 while the 777 used $34000 in fuel.
Now the totals
777 brought in $150000
Spent $8160 on crew and $34000 on fuel
Revenue after very basic operating cost $107840

The regional brought in $105000
Spent $1450 on crew and $6460 on fuel
Revenue after basic operating cost is $97090

So over the course of the day the 777 brought in slightly more than the regional, this was assuming best case numbers for the 777 and worse case for the regional. Averaged out per hour of flight the revenue after basic operating cost is with in 10% of a 777 yet pilot wage is 5-8x less per hour

WB averaging 500 per seat? Your airline is going bankrupt in a hurry.

What ticket prices did you use per class to come up with that number? You know there are often only 20 to 30 seats available in the cheapest fare buckets?

Edit. You did say worst case for WB, but thats nowhere near realistic even as the worst case scenario.

There are ALL sort of items that go into the full cost to run a WB vs and RJ. Back of napkin isn't going to cut it. We don't have the tools to compare revenue and costs.

You're in a regional thread explaining mainline leverage. Regionals do not rely on scope for negotiating leverage.

What strips the regional pilots of leverage is they can get ANY regional to do the flying. Scope just says how large a plane the regional can fly, and in some cases limits destination pairings. Who does that flying is a matter of winning a contract bid.
So, there is nothing preventing them from telling PDT pilots to take these concessions or we are transferring the flying to TSA. THAT is the whipsaw game at regionals, not scope.

As long as the flying farmed to the regionals is transferable, regional pilots have very limited leverage.

This is correct.

It's possible we will see more leverage in the near future, if a regional or two go out of business and the industry consolidates. The more Skywest/Republic can charge, the better it is for all the pilots involved.

This is true. You also have to account of landing fees, and various costs for support services as well. Too many variables.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Scope does not just say how big a plane can be or restrict certain routes. It also restricts the company from entering joint venture or code share deals where some foreign partner does most of the international flying. The size of the plane is important, but the most important part of scope is a hard limit on how many planes can be used. Since scope limits the amount of flying that can be farmed out, the bulk of the flying has to remain at the parent company and flown by legacy pilots. That is where scope gives legacy pilots leverage and much better working conditions and pay. Since scope is maxed out, the company can’t whipsaw them. Scope is everything, and that is why the legacy pilots are not going to budge. I know that the UAL negotiating committee has made it clear that the pilots are not giving relief for one plane, one seat, or one pound. You are absolutely right about the whipsaw at the regionals. Unfortunately it is working well for the company and will most likely continue until the market forces a change.

Or maybe it is a conflict of interest for the same union that represents the regional pilots to also represent the mainline pilots? :)

The regionals would have leverage if ALPA would cooperate on negotiations. Each MEC negotiating separately on how to undercut the other is idiocy.

There was an agreement for regionals to stand together, however there was one regional in particular that sold all the others out for their own personal gain(hint PSA)...

Oh my god let it go

And again, we’re in a regional thread.... preaching to the choir bro

Then explain Republic and Gojets. Their union isn’t doing mainline and regional.... they aren’t doing any better. ...that’s a nice sound byte, but it’s not really accurate. The fact is the mainline and LCC carriers have leverage that regionals don’t. Their flying can’t be transferred if they don’t take concessions. At the FFD carriers it can be. That isn’t ALPA’s fault. It’s just fact. Get in, get your time, get out.

If true, that would be a very clear, jail-time antitrust violation

Truth hurts...!:cool: