Full pay to the last day 100%. I'm in the bottom 20% of my seniority list, but I'd rather come back to a job that was worth a **** eventually than give up concessionary pay.
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Full pay to the last day. My personal experience: furloughed in 2008 from a regional. We took pay cuts and work rule concessions. We had snap backs that were supposedly iron clad. They weren’t. Fast forward to present day and I am 600 from the bottom of a legacy seniority list. I am still feel the same way.

Pilot concessions will never save an airline

 

If (when) furloughs happen, they happen regardless of any concessions we take- A look back at the history of this industry should illustrate that. The good news is this time we all have 5ish more months to prepare.

 

I'd take a temporary haircut to keep my brothers and sisters employed, but we all know that is a pipe dream. If we were given contractual assurances, along with incentives to do so that cost the company little money, but up the quality of life, I would do it in a heartbeat, but that is pure fantasy. As someone already said, they will take the pay cut and then furlough anyways.

 

I think everyone would agree to take what you say, however as you stated, none of us actually believe it will matter nor will the company uphold their promises.

It’s a lose lose.

 

If people are on the street? Yes, scummy.

Doesn't matter what your excuse is (probably the same excuse used to cross a picket line).

 

If nobody's furloughed, sure do whatever.

Pick up from pilots all you want, that helps the other guy out, and it's not going to matter to furloughs either way.

 

Also, regarding reduced lines...

Airlines like that right now because of the government bailouts, they can't furlough but their payroll costs are only partially covered so they're happy if you take ILs.

But steady-state, they will not go for reduced lines and no furloughs... they're still on the hook for full benefit and training costs, so that's not going to be an option... unless you give up something else to sweeten the deal.

 

You need to keep in mind management's goals when considering this question. In a downturn they are bleeding money and that has to stop. A company cannot continue to lose money month after month. Management is responsible to stop that from happening. We, as labor, might want them to throw all that money our way, but that isn't their job. If they aren't bringing more money in than they are spending, they have to fix that immediately.

And there are two conflicting considerations when it comes to pilots. One is that in the long term, it's more cost effective to have fewer pilots working more hours. Each pilot costs overhead. Health insurance, parking pass, CQ, line checks, all the various administrative stuff. Additionally, if the number of block hours they can sell is less than the MMG of their pilots, then they're paying the difference with no benefit. This would lead them to immediately furlough as many pilots as necessary to have everyone flying 90-100 block per month.

On the other side, for every two pilots you furlough, you have to do downgrade training for one, plus rehire and retrain when you bring them back. That takes both time and money.

Normally MMG isn't a big pay issue because management wants everyone to fly as close to that 100 hour limit as possible. As long as you don't give up pay rates, any loss of MMG should be temporary or irrelevant. You do need to be careful that your pilots can still put food on the table with whatever MMG you agree to go down to though. Taking MMG down to 10 hours per month to keep everyone just means everyone starves. There is a happy medium. Obviously, at the regionals where pay rates are lower, you need a higher MMG to keep food on the table than you would at a major.

 

I been through this back in the 80s and 90s. I can tell you, unions have little power in these situations. Companies will furloughed as many as they need, and if union don't agree to their terms, they will furlough more. Its a loss cause when it comes to benefits n pay.