JetA Heartburn

That's because most software engineers, accountants etc. are non union employees. They can negotiate pay from employer to employer like most professional workers i.e. salary required and benefits. Airline pilots are unionized because they are just hourly employees with common set skills.

globalexpress

Nice use of a fancy word. That would be a good one for the GMATs.

Sure you can compare economic productivity. The 300-ish pilots at Great Lakes are a significant cog in the process that allows Great Lakes to bring in 138M in gross revenue in 2012. The loss of even a portion of those pilots puts that future "138M" in jeopardy. You don't think you can derive a measurable economic contribution of a Great Lakes pilot to Great Lakes Aviation, LTD as I could a software engineer at Microsoft and make a comparison? Sure you can.

And you could take it one step further than that. Look at the "Airlines for America" home page. They say that, "Commercial aviation helps drive more than 10M American jobs and 5 cents of every dollar of U.S. GDP." So according to the industry's own trade group, apparently Part 121 pilots play a significant role in our country's economy. Just like a nurse. Or a software engineer. I'm sure an ambitious economics student could write an interesting paper making comparisons between the economic contribution of a Part 121 airline pilot vs. a software engineer vs. a nurse vs. a McDonald's employee vs. a housewife to a given economy. All measureable.

If they can't increase fares then Mr. Voss is going to have to eat his losses until the contract can be rebid. Sometimes when one bids a job, it doesn't turn out as profitable as originally planned. Maybe he should have heeded Mr. Cohen's (RAA mouthpiece) numerous public statements about an "upcoming pilot shortage" and bid his contracts accordingly with that future cost baked in. Oh well. He can pay a market wage to his pilots or he can watch them walk out the door or he can choose to fold the whole operation up.

bernouli

Schadenfreude..

CptGSXR

I'm not a fan of keeping two threads running about Lakes but since someone asked....


There has been multiple memos about the company's response to this situation. They have flat out lied to non-pilot workforce (gate agents, rampers, customer service) about the cause of canceled flights and lack of new FOs. Long and short of it is that Lakes blames the FAA for their predicament, and that things will go back to normal when the other airlines stop 'poaching' their pilots.

As far as letting people go, I have heard anecdotal stories about FOs being put on leave until they complete an ATP on their own. I however cannot back this up as fact.

NormalAbnormal

According to Yahoo Finance, GLUX revenue was $135.91MM over the last 12 months with net income of $1.47MM. I absolutely agree with you that the pilots are a significant cog in the process.

I'm merely trying to point out that Part 121 pilot's pay is a function of revenue carried per hour on their aircraft. A 19 seat aircraft has a lot less revenue per hour of operation than a 50 seater, 76 seater or a 550 seater. Less revenue is available for pilot pay.

A software engineer's pay is a function of the total revenue over the commercial lifetime of their product.

A nurse's pay is a function of patients taken care of. Nurse's unions are constantly fighting the battle of how many patients are in their charge vs their pay rates.

An accountant's pay is a function of the number of clients they can service.

I'm not saying you can't derive the economic contribution of a pilot, software engineer, accountant or nurse. You certainly can. I'm saying that you can't use the same reasoning for setting compensation levels across those industries (accountants and nurses are the most similar). You're comparing apples to oranges, pears and kumquats.

globalexpress

I will give you that. That premise is the cornerstone of ALPA's beliefs on how pilots should be paid, for example.

So I would certainly agree with you that Great Lakes (probably) can't pay a Beech 1900 F/O the same as an A380 F/O. Less revenue is available for pay. However, I would argue that Great Lakes is not paying their current pilots ENOUGH from the revenue THAT THEY DO RECEIVE.

I mean think about it. A few 10's of pilots are jeopardizing over 100M+ in gross revenue and millions of dollars of net profit. Wouldn't it wouldn't be smart to raise pay in order to at least retain the experienced pilots you have already? That way you don't have to worry about replacing them with "hard to find" (he-he) guys with over 1,500 hours willing to work for $16,000 per year and no pay during training?

Did Great Lakes seriously send home guys that were a few hours short of 1500 hours, costing them probably tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars in economic damage, when they could have just rented a Cessna 150 and said, "Hey guys, here's a Cessna 150 all paid for. We'll pay you your pathetic 16 bucks an hour to go fly it around for a few hours until you hit 1500." They could have spent thousands to save tens of thousands.

Look, the airline industry is stratified in the eyes of the pilot community. We could all argue as to the order of that layering, but I think most pilot professionals would agree that the Great Lakes pilot job is way down near the bottom**. So you can I can argue all day about how much Great Lakes management can afford to pay its pilots, but at the end of that day, it won't matter. Great Lakes is not held in high regard by the pilot community- their pay sucks, and they have a history of treating their pilots poorly. It's airline pilot purgatory. When they fix those problems, they will have all the pilots that they need.

But maybe the damage they have done to their reputation over the past years cannot be overcome no matter how much they decide to pay their pilots. It may be too late. And if that's the case, then Great Lakes will just be one of the many airlines that gets written about in the airline history books. Too slow (or stubborn?) to adapt in a very rapidly changing industry.

**That is meant in NO WAY to demean Great Lakes pilots. Any guy/gal that can hand fly a 1900 day and night, good weather and bad, in the terrain, certainly has my respect.

JamesNoBrakes

This is exactly what I was thinking when they were crying in that article about having to fire pilots that were 1hr short.

Captain Tony

When I quit flying a Brasilia at Lakes, and started flying a Brasilia at ASA, I got a $5/hr raise. Second year was almost $10/hr more. ASA Captains were making $10-$15/hr more than GL CAs. This was over 10 years ago. So there's your apples to apples comparison. Today, just look at SkyWest's E120 rate if you have any further questions. GLA has plenty of room to improve their pay and working conditions. They just don't want to because Voss is such a cheap skate miser who is proud of operating the sweatshop of the industry. So he can deal with it or RIP. and the industry will instantly improve either way.

There's a reason why ALPA was the biggest proponent of the 1500 hour rule. Increase the barrier to entry and you instantly add value to the industry. The American Medical Association has been doing it for years by controlling entry into medical schools.

Captain Tony

Watch GLA go back to the late 90s by handing out pink slips like candy and preventing their pilots from getting hired anywhere else. Or start hiring guys with a DUI. Pilot shortage solved!

Hurryage65

Cannot wait to see lakes go under. After everyone finds a new flying gig