Opinion: How Unions Contribute To Pilot Shortage | Commercial Aviation content from Aviation Week

 

I like your response and citing of a study supporting your rebuttal. Good job.

 

It's spot on

 

I think he nailed it.

 

The author, an aviation industry consulting, isn't wrong.

He also isn't "right".

 

One point he makes is "equitable distribution of pay across its member base." That's not incredibly unreasonable. I'm biased at the bottom the same way somebody at the top would be, but should a regional FO make $20,000 while a widebody Captain pulls in $250,000? Surely there should be improved pay as one progresses through their career, but that discrepancy is pretty extreme.

The popular opinion is that pay should just be raised for everyone. That's fine and well and I don't know a pilot who'd disagree, but while it's realistic on a very small scale dramatic pay increases can't be given to everybody at once. So where should we start, at the top or at the bottom? I have my opinion, a 777 Captain will have his.

 

I somewhat agree with his main point in these two paragraphs:

While Moak tells many half-truths with regard to numbers, he forgets to mention a truism: It is his union and other labor organizations that collectively bargain for the pay and work rules at the nation’s regional airlines.

ALPA talks about creating a level playing field without referencing the union’s own role in determining pay and benefits at the regional level. A race to the bottom has been a part of organized labor’s DNA for decades, in part because low labor rates at regional carriers cross-subsidize the higher rates paid at the mainline airlines.



It's not the unions fault that is creating a pilot shortage though..it's the fat-cats at Delta, United, and American. Having ALPA represent the regionals and the majors they have agreements with is a contradiction in itself. A-scale, B-scale. If you were to make them one then there would be no regionals..which would be a good thing.

 

While ALPA's intention wasn't to keep commuter pay low, the cause and effect of their policies certainly did.

The biggest pill to swallow for the commuters is how little they are paid relative to their cockpit companions. At mainline carriers, F/Os top out at 70% of CA wages, where as at the commuters you're lucky to hit 40%. A select few come close to 50%.

Those in charge of the negotiations at the commuters have placed a far higher amount of money in the hands of the "senior Captains". If F/Os started at $25/hr but went to $70/hr you wouldn't see such a big campaign about wages. Most will make only about $40,000 a year waiting for their upgrade.

 

"The pie is only so big" they say...unless you are C-level management, then they simply bake more pie.

Conveniently overlooked by the author (an aviation industry consultant) is the basic economic reality that major airlines have squeezed the margins of their regional capacity lift partners, so that even IF the regional partners wanted to increase pilot compensation as a way to increase recruiting/retention in accordance with Econ 101 theory...they simply cannot afford to as the mainline isn't going to increase the partner's fee in order for the partner to hire and retain their pilot workforce.

 

Is that the fault of ALPA National, or ALPA Local pilots at each given airline that ratify CBAs containing such <I hate this effing word> "inequality"?