Did Delta open it's doors with industry leading pay rates? How about 15 years in?

Doubtful that they outsource. The pilot group united as ever, since they haven't gotten a raise in 3 years amidst record profits. Can't imagine they'd sell out at this point.

As to your Wall Street comment, with the stock within .60 cents of an all time high and record profits, I think Wall Street is happy. They're one of 2 airlines that remain investment grade.

Outside of Atlanta (and maybe New York), Delta is just another mediocre domestic carrier.

 

Never said that. Was just dispelling the myth that swapa has been a leader in the industry. They have not had to deal with the rj plague because their mgmt. never asked for it. They had smart enough mgmt. to realize what a black hole the rj is/was. Don't think for a minute that the swa pilots wouldn't have bit off on a $50 hour raise pre 9/11 for some small lift outsourcing. As for 15 years in, what about 25(1998) or even 30(2003)? The only reason they are at the top was because of the legacies ch 11's. I am glad though they did not cave and sign away their raises post 9 /11 to stay competitive with the legacies in ch11. Good for them and us. As for the pilot group being united, I agree also. That being said, they will not raise the bar. They never have and never will. They do not like being the top and would much rather the rest of us pass them up so they can go on another growth spurt. They do much better being around 4 or 5 in the compensation competition.

Btw, are you at swa or just another disgruntled, I hate delta dci type?

 

No! I don't want to talk about national seniority! Why do you union entitlement apologists always bring that up? National seniority is just a different angle on the same disease.

No it's not necessary. But clearly you understand it's "evil." Why is it necessary? It cripples your career and locks you in to your low paying airline job giving you zero negotiating power. The negotiating power of the union is just an illusion.

No it wouldn't, it would suck even worse because you would take away all competition. You'd have to be a communist to believe this would be a good thing. Not a modern communist but an old school "workers paradise" type.

I don't think you are a communist...I think you, like most pilots, have just been immersed in this world so long you can't see past the problem and are caught up in the bs so deep you can't see daylight anymore.

People bring up comparisons to other professions to support a broken system (seniority) but the comparisons actually serve to prove exactly why the current system of entitlement labor is actually so different and unique compared to those other professions.

I've become ashamed of our industry and profession and what we've allowed it to become. Although I'm certain Lenin would be proud.

 

That has absolutely nothing to do with a free market system of supply and demand. You are describing a seniority system where senior pilots are rewarded with larger equipment to justify higher pay, not a system where the highest skilled or most qualified pilots are rewarded with the best jobs in an open and free market. To believe they are the same thing means you would have to confuse seniority with experience, ability and qualifications.

No you didn't make any point because you are describing people who accomplish higher pay through performance and competition in a free market, not people who achieved those levels by seniority alone.

A pro football player can't bid the quarterback slot based on time with the team alone. News anchors don't get their job based on seniority or longevity.

In fact these professionals are often hired from a competing company, network, or team and placed directly in those positions over colleagues who have worked longer and harder than they.

Exactly! So let's get rid of it altogether.

When I see a senior pilot hiding behind his seniority number I see a guy who is afraid to be compared on an open market, a guy who is afraid that his co pilot may be better than him or that RJ pilot who does 6 landings a day can outperform him in the sim. I see pilots who don't have the confidence to compete for a better job and pretend they are so good they no longer have to.

Personally I believe in a free and open market. Bring it on!

 

NineGturn, read "Flying the Line" if you want some arguments why a seniority system is preferable to a merit based system for promotion. Based on your name I guess you come from a military background. You probably think promotion should be merit based. You are completely wrong, in my opinion.

Pilots who carry passengers have NO business competing with each other. That kind of motivation doesn't belong in the back of the minds of someone making life or death decisions. The safety record of civilian flying is so much better than military flying for many reasons, one of which is the ability of civilian pilots to say NO. The last thing our industry needs is sycophant and ambitious pilots taking unnecessay risks to promote themselves. It's been tried and failed.

While seniority has it's faults, it ensures that pilots can make go or no go decisions without thinking it will distroy their careers. Fortunately it's here to stay. If you want to rave on about the union and their inability to raise the bar, you're going to have to find another way. Individual, merit based promotions, is never coming back in a big way.

 

Now for the million-dollar question: what's the performance metric? On-time or completion factor can't be used, since there are way too many variables out of the pilot's control, and encouraging people to cut corners to enhance performance will inevitably compromise safety, so that's a big no-go item. Making us do aerobatics in the sim? Maybe, but you better start incorporating aerobatic training in to PPL or CPL under part 61 or 141 somehow, since I'll bet most of us have never done any of that kind of flying. We all have to do essentially the same PC ride in the sim, a few approaches, stalls, steep turns, V1 cut, etc. so it's hard to distinguish yourself there. How do you determine who's the best when it comes to bigger planes, CA upgrades, etc. outside of seniority? I'm pretty sure ALPA went though that debate in the 30s when they formed, and settled on the seniority system. Is it perfect? Hell no! Is there anything better that would actually work in the real world? I can't think of anything. It certainly can be improved, most likely through some kind of "global" seniority list within each major union, ALPA, IBT mainly since I think all others are internal to their respective companies. If you are an ALPA member, your seniority started the day you got hired at an ALPA carrier, and as long as you never joined another pilot union, you keep accumulating seniority in ALPA as long as you are actively flying for an ALPA carrier, even if you are on furlough. If you leave for a non-ALPA carrier, for example, you start over at the bottom of that carrier's union's list, and if you go back to ALPA later, you start over at the bottom with ALPA, or at least you get no credit for the time you spent away. Perfect? No, I'll admit, but more in line with how seniority works with other unionized industries, electrical workers and such. At least as far as pay rates are concerned, it makes sense since you don't have to bite the bullet and go back to food-stamp first year pay every time you change airlines as long as you stay with ALPA carriers or IBT carriers exclusively.

 

They did. And another thing. What if the "best" pilots got to fly the biggest or fastest or whatever, does that mean the passenger public would know that when they fly a smaller plane, they are getting a lessor pilot? When I fly as a passenger I'm very happy to think there might be a roger ramjet up there sitting next to a more senior dufus. At least one of them is competent. In a merit based system the last two pilots would get paired together. That doesn't sound too great.

 

Your numbers don't make and form 4 data does not include the same items from airline to airline. In 2012 the average wage at Delta was 158 k a year. It was 157k at SW. The benefit package was 51k per pilot at Delta and 27k at SWA. Sine then delta wages are up 16% with SWA showing I think a 2 percent gain. Delta retirement funding also went to 15%. In 2013 SWA reported total pilot costs per hour at 809 on the 737-800. Delta was 972.
The pay rates at SWA came from the 2001 contracts at DAL and UAL. SW agreed to rates almost 20 percent below the standard while having much higher productivity. They have never led the industry or established new standards despite being consistently the most profitable and by far having the best financials.

 

The revenue per pilot tells the story:
SWA is $3.21 million per pilot
DAL is $2.8 million per pilot

The interesting thing with DAL is because of the staffing model, domestic has slightly higher revenue generation per pilot than international. ~$2.7 million for the widebody pilot, ~$2.9 million for the narrowbody.

 

I appreciate you have an opinion, and I respect that. But it's just an opinion. If a merit based system is good enough for every other profession out there, including fighter pilots, soldiers and police officers...then it's good enough for airline pilots.

If you are acting in an unprofessional manner in order to achieve promotion that behavior will be apparent and will get you canned before you move ahead anyway. Stop acting as if being an airline pilot is so difficult and noble.

And I don't believe it's ever been tried and failed. I've never seen that seniority promotes safety. The system forces airlines to dumb down standards to allow pilots to upgrade who otherwise aren't ready except for being next in line. Modern next gen airliners are designed to be idiot proof and it takes more and more effort to crash them.

That's nonsense...if you are operating in a free market system and you believe your employer is pressuring you to behave in an unprofessional manner, you can quit and go work for the competition in a similar position at similar pay without having to start at the bottom. In our current system you can't do that.

Besides, the seniority system is not a prerequisite for the protection of a union. I'm not against unions per se, I'm just against ALPA because they so adamantly back the seniority system, work on behalf of management more than for pilots, and feed the pilots a bunch of propaganda so they don't realize they are living in a communist microcosm while the rest of America is (mostly) free.

That makes no sense.

For one thing you are pretty much describing the system in place today.

Secondly You're assuming that the career progression would be the same as today where pilots would downgrade from jet captain to be a copilot on a larger plane (a wasteful phenomenon created by the seniority system in airlines).

Third, you are trying to apply the faulty logic of the seniority system in a non seniority environment. Why do you think everyone will want to fly the biggest and fastest planes? In a free market system there will be incentives to work as a captain in a smaller plane such as higher pay and shorter routes closer to home which will attract many senior pilots. I personally flew long haul and was bored out of my mind...I just liked the layovers but that got old too.

And in the end the most important issue here is that airline pilot salaries have been steadily declining at all levels while other professions have flourished in our economy. I'm sure you have a whole list of people you've enjoyed blaming but the reality is that we are working with a broken system that is designed to lower our wages and lock us into a job with almost no negotiating power by taking away our ability to walk to the competition.

Follow Albert Einstein's wisdom: If you keep trying the same thing over and over expecting different results....