Lambourne

Then you need to get involved in your association. Put your ideas to change compensation to the test. Use your vast business knowledge to convince your negotiators to make a radical change.

The key is what are the costs difference in your plan versus the current system.

You don't need this job? The job doesn't need you either.

NineGturn

Don't take such posts personally. There are a lot of posters in these forums who are here for the sole purpose of disrupting any serious conversation and discouraging people who have genuine questions and concerns.

Remember, management and ALPA doesn't want you talking about this.

As I said...like talking to a brick wall!

JamesNoBrakes

$70/hr with no benifits for only "flight time" is not all that generous, or are you paying that for the entire time someone is "on the job"?

kfahmi

Of course it doesn't. Who said otherwise??

Larry in TN

It may be a terrible system but it's the best one anyone's been able to come up with so far. Seniority protects Captain's authority as management can't use a pilot's willingness to cut corners as a gauge for promotion. With seniority a Captain can stand up and say no to an operation that he doesn't believe is safe without fear of it affecting his career advancement. See "Flying The Line" for the story of how this developed.

He has posted multiple messages on multiple forums detailing his experience with interviewing and training with this airline including the airline name. I haven't said anything that he hasn't already posted.

ASMs is how an airline tracks its production. Cost per ASM (CASM) is how airlines track their per-unit and labor costs. RSMs is how an airline tracks its revenue. Read an airline's annual report.

The airline, like any business, wants compensation to be proportional to production. Crewmember pay per flight hour is reasonably proportional to production so it works for management. Management also wants the pay system to provide incentive for the existing employees to voluntarily produce more as that allows them to operate with fewer crewmembers which lowers overall labor cost. The current system provides that incentive.

The crewmembers want to work efficiently while at work so that they can put in a full month in as few days away from home as possible. Duty and Trip rigs provide incentives for the company to produce schedules that are as efficient as the flight schedule and duty/rest rules allow.

The problem here is that Skywest's duty rig apparently only applies to trip construction and not the actual time on duty. That accomplishes the goal of providing the incentive to produce efficient trips. The problem comes in when there are delays and cancellations which extend the duty day.

CASM is always significantly higher in a small jet than in the larger mainline jets. Three or four times higher.

The smaller jets are used to keep the yield high on routes which can't support higher yields with higher capacities. If the airplane used is too big the airline has to offer too many seats at too low a price driving down the yield. With the smaller jet you eliminate most, if not all, of the cheapest fares and dramatically reduce the number of cheaper fares that are offered. The result is a much higher yield for the flight which overcomes the aircraft's high CASM.

It is very common in many industries to find that the more productive employees are paid higher than the less productive employees. A pilot who flies a larger airplane is producing more ASMs per hour of flight than one who flies a smaller airplane. The airline can sell those ASMs to produce more RSMs which means more revenue.

Bottom line is that the smallest airplanes don't produce enough product, which leads to not enough revenue, to support significantly higher pay for the crew. The larger airplanes produce more product and revenue which allows the higher pay which had been negotiated over the decades.

kfahmi

On the job. From the time you show up till the time you go home.

And our junior folks are in their mid to late 20s. Wish I had been making anything close to that when I was that age.

NineGturn

Very well said. That's exactly what it is. Except that it has been refined over the years to work in favor of management and the mainline airlines especially with the help of ALPA to benefit a very few people.

Larry in TN

How would you suggest pilot compensation be structured?

NineGturn

Actually there are many other ways it's done but the seniority system as it's implemented in the airline industry is unique to this industry. Many airlines outside the US operate on very different systems. Just about every other industry operates differently as well.

This is a myth! Seniority doesn't protect a captain, it imprisons him. Regulations and professional conduct as well as the airline's desire to be safe are what protect the captain. Without seniority the captain could have the option to resign and go work for the competition but with seniority he is imprisoned in his job and bound to the company short of starting his career over at the bottom of a different seniority list. This is even more true if the company happens to be one of the more desirable places to work.

If a captain is a trouble maker, barely passes his checks, uses sick days like vacation days and disrupts the airline do you really believe he should be promoted?

No...they want the lowest labor costs the market will allow for the quality of labor they are seeking.

Nothing wrong with that. But that's a separate issue. Skywest's specific duty rigs aren't really the question. I'm talking more about the industry in general.

No, it depends on the stage length and on the passenger loads and the schedule distribution. The idea is to provide a steady feed to the hubs or frequent service between smaller markets that are close together.

Right.

Also right but it doesn't mean that the pilot of a 300 passenger jet should make $300K while the pilot of a 50 passenger jet should make $50K. What about those 500 passenger jets?

As you said there are many more factors and the cost of the pilots and other fixed overhead (gate fees, slots, etc) along with the specific costs for the equipment (which varies as discussed) doesn't mean that a smaller jet must pay pilots crap wages to be profitable. Otherwise we'd just use heavy jets on every route but less frequently.

Except that mainline used to fly those smaller jets before the regional jet existed and they paid their pilots far better. When airlines aimed for load factors in the 60-70% range to be profitable and used 90 passenger jets on those routes it's not all that different from using a 50-70 seat jet and filling all the available seats as they do today.

In the end you're just rationalizing lower pay. The real issue should be that pilots should be paid what the free market would allow rather than these artificial limits imposed by management and the unions designed solely to keep labor costs down. If a jet isn't profitable then the airline shouldn't operate it. There's a reason all those 50 seaters got built in the first place.

NineGturn

Here...read this post several pages back....

I would take it a step further and eliminate hiring seniority altogether so regional airlines can draw upon the large pool of available experienced pilots paying them salaries commensurate with their experience...reducing training costs and forcing regionals to compete with each other for pilots.