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.

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.