The lunacy of airline pay calculation
03-24-2015, 09:46 AM
#31
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2011
Posts: 787
Pay pilots based on how much time they spend at an airport (or on duty) and the airplanes will never leave the gate...
We get paid less hours, thus (on average) our hourly wages are higher to compensate. That being said, I have younger relatives in college that make more in a day at their internship than I do in a day at my career. Go figure.
We get paid less hours, thus (on average) our hourly wages are higher to compensate. That being said, I have younger relatives in college that make more in a day at their internship than I do in a day at my career. Go figure.
03-24-2015, 09:53 AM
#32
The NeverEnding Story
Joined APC: Sep 2005
Posts: 7,512
Flying the Line Vol 1/2 covers the history of ALPA, from the early days of collective bargaining in a fledgling industry to the upheaval post-Deregulation. Covers lockouts, strikes, scabs, Lorenzo, and every variation in between that influences the decision of pilots and pilot groups to this day.
Hard Landing is a great insight into the viewpoint of airline management and how different tactics (namely Kelleher at Southwest and Crandall at American) were utilized for growth...and how those tactics influenced employee morale.
If you or anyone else can't find "professional development" from reading those historical perspectives of our industry and apply them to the circumstances of the last 20 or so years up to and including today...well, we're bound for another frakkin' Cylon loop because all of this has happened before and will happen again.
Hard Landing is a great insight into the viewpoint of airline management and how different tactics (namely Kelleher at Southwest and Crandall at American) were utilized for growth...and how those tactics influenced employee morale.
If you or anyone else can't find "professional development" from reading those historical perspectives of our industry and apply them to the circumstances of the last 20 or so years up to and including today...well, we're bound for another frakkin' Cylon loop because all of this has happened before and will happen again.
03-24-2015, 09:58 AM
#33
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Apr 2014
Position: RJ right-seat warmer
Posts: 632
Originally Posted by Utah
OP, you seem like a smart, educated guy. The answer to your question is obvious. We get paid the way we do because we are willing to show up for what is offered.
In your case that's a guarantee of 76 hours a month at $24 an hour, -- or $1824 a month or $21,888 a year. Kind of makes you a little sick thinking about it that way. All of that education and money spent of flight training for that level of compensation.
In your case that's a guarantee of 76 hours a month at $24 an hour, -- or $1824 a month or $21,888 a year. Kind of makes you a little sick thinking about it that way. All of that education and money spent of flight training for that level of compensation.
Thank you. To the other posters, I'm not complaining about the amount of hourly pay. We all understood the pay rates before we signed up.
What I just can't understand is why, in the modern age, anyone of us is OK with giving, say, 14 hours of our day and being paid for 4. How is it that we've all agreed that time spent preflighting an aircraft, running pre start checks, checking weather, etc., is all time that should go unpaid?
I suppose the other way to look at it is to ignore the hourly pay and simply look at the monthly guarantee as a monthly salary.
It still boggles my mind, though... In my other life I run a small design studio that does a lot of work for a company that begins with G and ends with oogle. We have a number of designers and writers on our payroll. I've tried to explain the airline pay system to my team and they simply can't believe I'm telling the truth. If anyone in the design industry tried to implement similar pay rules, they'd instantly find themselves bereft of employees...
03-24-2015, 10:06 AM
#34
The NeverEnding Story
Joined APC: Sep 2005
Posts: 7,512
Are your employees salary or hourly?
If salary, do they work 40 hours a week, or as many hours as necessary to meet the clients' needs? Is there any way for them to earn income beyond their salary (bonus excluded) for working beyond the standard "work week"?
The pay system isn't "better" or "worse", it is just different...and really, its not a difficult concept to wrap your head around.
Put another way: athletes are paid by "game checks", yet they are still expected to train in the off season, show up at training camp, come to practice, and participate in OTAs, etc...
If salary, do they work 40 hours a week, or as many hours as necessary to meet the clients' needs? Is there any way for them to earn income beyond their salary (bonus excluded) for working beyond the standard "work week"?
The pay system isn't "better" or "worse", it is just different...and really, its not a difficult concept to wrap your head around.
Put another way: athletes are paid by "game checks", yet they are still expected to train in the off season, show up at training camp, come to practice, and participate in OTAs, etc...
03-24-2015, 10:28 AM
#35
Prime Minister/Moderator
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: Engines Turn Or People Swim
Posts: 39,277
Originally Posted by kfahmi
This is an honest question.
The system of pay in the airline industry is beyond convoluted. The rules covering regular pay, soft pay, deadhead pay, breaking guarantee pay...I mean, they make the engineer's panel of a Lockheed Constellation look positively minimalist and simplistic by comparison. Just trying to understand the airline pay system would probably drive an accomplished corporate tax accountant to an early grave.
I know of no other industry that is legally allowed to require an employee to report for work at 0800, finish duty at 2100, and get paid for 4 hours of work. (As happened to me today.)
Why are we paid this way? Why don't we have a system like every other hourly job in America, where you are paid from the time you clock in till the time you clock out, minus perhaps a lunch break?
Why do we allow ourselves to give 13 hours of our lives for 4 hours of pay?
Seriously?
The system of pay in the airline industry is beyond convoluted. The rules covering regular pay, soft pay, deadhead pay, breaking guarantee pay...I mean, they make the engineer's panel of a Lockheed Constellation look positively minimalist and simplistic by comparison. Just trying to understand the airline pay system would probably drive an accomplished corporate tax accountant to an early grave.
I know of no other industry that is legally allowed to require an employee to report for work at 0800, finish duty at 2100, and get paid for 4 hours of work. (As happened to me today.)
Why are we paid this way? Why don't we have a system like every other hourly job in America, where you are paid from the time you clock in till the time you clock out, minus perhaps a lunch break?
Why do we allow ourselves to give 13 hours of our lives for 4 hours of pay?
Seriously?
My opinion...
1) Eliminate longevity for pay purposes. Equipment/seat pay would be a fixed figure (subject to COLA raises). This would allow airlines to attract and retain entry-level talent, and remove most of the incentive to destroy a high-longevity airline and replace it with a low-longevity startup.
Longevity would still apply for traditional things like vacation accrual, 401k vesting, etc. so you do get rewarded for sticking around.
Seniority would still of course apply for schedules, vacation bidding, equipment/seat/domicile bidding.
2) A step further...eliminate block pay and replace with duty pay (like any other industry). Duty pay would be lower than current block pay, based on a formula like this...
Assume a five-hour block is minimum desired productivity, and say three legs is average.
Old rate: $100/block hour
New rate: 5 hours x $100 = $500 for the day.
Now we add up the non-flight duty for three reasonably efficient legs:
Report - block out: 45m
2nd Turn: 30m
3nd Turn 30m
Block in- duty off: 15m
Total = 2 hours
Block + non-flight duty = 7 hours. Since we got paid $500 for that reasonably efficient 7 hour duty day, our new duty rate would be $72/duty hour.
Ramifications:
- Company has incentive to schedule efficiently...non-productive duty time is no longer free to the company.
- If company can't schedule efficiently we get paid for our time.
- Super senior folks no longer enjoy windfall combinations of high pay combined with highly efficient trips while junior folks suck up lengthy unpaid sits combined with low pay and multiple legs.
- Seniority still buys many perks...you can bid long duty days to get pay more if you want, and still get weekends holidays off as always.
- We get paid for IROPS.
- Takes some of the sting out of switching airlines, but that shouldn't really be necessary since there would be little incentive to shuffle flying around.
03-24-2015, 10:45 AM
#36
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Position: B777 Capt
Posts: 844
Originally Posted by kfahmi
I read Flying The Line a while back and fell asleep. Guess I'll go look at it again.
Get out now because you won't be any less of a complainer at a major carrier.
If you don't have the desire / ability to read and understand the history of ALPA you are wasting your dues dollars. ALPA has a lot of warts and the books put them in perspective as a necessary evil.
03-24-2015, 10:51 AM
#37
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2011
Posts: 1,152
Originally Posted by kfahmi
Utah,
Thank you. To the other posters, I'm not complaining about the amount of hourly pay. We all understood the pay rates before we signed up.
What I just can't understand is why, in the modern age, anyone of us is OK with giving, say, 14 hours of our day and being paid for 4. How is it that we've all agreed that time spent preflighting an aircraft, running pre start checks, checking weather, etc., is all time that should go unpaid?
I suppose the other way to look at it is to ignore the hourly pay and simply look at the monthly guarantee as a monthly salary.
It still boggles my mind, though... In my other life I run a small design studio that does a lot of work for a company that begins with G and ends with oogle. We have a number of designers and writers on our payroll. I've tried to explain the airline pay system to my team and they simply can't believe I'm telling the truth. If anyone in the design industry tried to implement similar pay rules, they'd instantly find themselves bereft of employees...
Thank you. To the other posters, I'm not complaining about the amount of hourly pay. We all understood the pay rates before we signed up.
What I just can't understand is why, in the modern age, anyone of us is OK with giving, say, 14 hours of our day and being paid for 4. How is it that we've all agreed that time spent preflighting an aircraft, running pre start checks, checking weather, etc., is all time that should go unpaid?
I suppose the other way to look at it is to ignore the hourly pay and simply look at the monthly guarantee as a monthly salary.
It still boggles my mind, though... In my other life I run a small design studio that does a lot of work for a company that begins with G and ends with oogle. We have a number of designers and writers on our payroll. I've tried to explain the airline pay system to my team and they simply can't believe I'm telling the truth. If anyone in the design industry tried to implement similar pay rules, they'd instantly find themselves bereft of employees...
You keep saying you don't understand but you won't follow the advice given that explains it to you.
Read the books. Stay awake. Then if you want to effect change, work from the inside to begin this change verses just *****ing. It's all explained pretty clearly.
03-24-2015, 10:55 AM
#38
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2011
Posts: 1,152
Originally Posted by BoilerUP
Flying the Line Vol 1/2 covers the history of ALPA, from the early days of collective bargaining in a fledgling industry to the upheaval post-Deregulation. Covers lockouts, strikes, scabs, Lorenzo, and every variation in between that influences the decision of pilots and pilot groups to this day.
Hard Landing is a great insight into the viewpoint of airline management and how different tactics (namely Kelleher at Southwest and Crandall at American) were utilized for growth...and how those tactics influenced employee morale.[B]
If you or anyone else can't find "professional development" from reading those historical perspectives of our industry and apply them to the circumstances of the last 20 or so years up to and including today...well, we're bound for another frakkin' Cylon loop because all of this has happened before and will happen again.
Hard Landing is a great insight into the viewpoint of airline management and how different tactics (namely Kelleher at Southwest and Crandall at American) were utilized for growth...and how those tactics influenced employee morale.[B]
If you or anyone else can't find "professional development" from reading those historical perspectives of our industry and apply them to the circumstances of the last 20 or so years up to and including today...well, we're bound for another frakkin' Cylon loop because all of this has happened before and will happen again.
03-24-2015, 11:36 AM
#40
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2005
Position: RJ Captain
Posts: 1,174
I'm sure you've heard this before but being on reserve versus being a line holder is almost like working for two different companies.
Reserve pairing aren't subject to duty or premium guarantees. Line holders typically would only wind up in a situation like that if there were a maintenance problem at an outstation or bad weather delays. Myself, I haven't been delayed more than an hour or so in years.
Just another one of the reasons why hundreds of FOs that could upgrade choose not to. -- or why the "lifers" choose not to move on and start over at the bottom.
Reserve pairing aren't subject to duty or premium guarantees. Line holders typically would only wind up in a situation like that if there were a maintenance problem at an outstation or bad weather delays. Myself, I haven't been delayed more than an hour or so in years.
Just another one of the reasons why hundreds of FOs that could upgrade choose not to. -- or why the "lifers" choose not to move on and start over at the bottom.
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
captain_drew
Flight Schools and Training
38
12-05-2012 08:29 AM
