No, dummy, RA pay is NOT "Capitalism"
 

This is such an outstanding post it deserves it's own thread and should be pinned to the top of this forum for quick reference...

nailed it
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Very well said

Excellent!

May 18

I can't wait!

True capitalism would be a world without unions.

Pay at regional airlines would go up, and pay at the majors would come down slightly if unions were abolished and if the market truly set airline pilot wages.

It's "Bonuses" not bonus' ..

I think you are still missing the point though. Everything that was just said assumes regional airlines should continue to exist. They should not. Pilots should be doing everything they can to accelerate their demise.

If pilots cannot negotiate an extraordinary contract at this level, then no contract at all should be agreed to, just let nature take its course.

Pilots are dumb and short sited. Regional flying is nearly 50% of all airline flying, that's not small potatoes. You might not be able to strike, but you can certainly ensure that you are doing your part to see that your regional airline can't survive.

The solution is to make things so expensive for your company that it is not profitable to continue operating it, thereby forcing aircraft back home to mainline.

Everyone complains, complains, complains, but nobody has the guts to do anything meaningful. The solution is so simple but so few can see it. Pilots should start by dumping their unions and just let anarchy reign. Unions at the regional level are nothing more then a focal point where airlines maintain control- take that away and let the company deal with each pilot individually and see what happens.

Everyone sounds like they are waiting for someone to help them. Helps not coming, most of you are too new to know nothing has changed in 20 years. Pick up your pitchforks or just wait it out till it's your turn at mainline, what will it be?

Assuming mainline carriers can make money operating from small cities point to point in which I highly doubt. If I am paying non-stop I expect non-stop service no If, and, or but! Hub and spoke systems are based on cheap labor, and other cost savings.

Price the cost to charter a King Air or Pilatus and then price the cost of an airline ticket for a family of 4 and then revisit this statement.

That was bugging the living crap out me.

Their business model is not your concern or your problem. They pay us to fly airplanes. They pay bean counters to count beans. They pay planners to plan.

The original poster says its not capitalism, but its not true. Company wants to pay a certain rate. There is a group of pilots who agree with that rate and fly the airplanes. It's just that simple. Pilot shortage is a direct result of capitalism working as its supposed to. The company wants to pay a certain rate but there is not enough pilots for a variety of reason to satisfy their need for pilots. What to do?

I would prefer to charter since I used to fly jet charters. The service is different from airline service as day is to night.

Public school system byproduct

Me, too. Especially because it was repeated so many times.

So you call out 2 companies for giving bonuses but you forget that most of the regionals are doing it such as SkyWest, Endeavor. Others are doing things like CQFO as a carrot. Almost all regionals are currently doing something to break status quo just my 2 cents.

What airline are you at because chances are they are doing something above and beyond to get butts in the seats.

Cool populist rant right up until the first paragraph where he spews forth major pilots are paid above market levels. Crack a history book once in a while and come back and try again without the Occupy crap.

Yes regional pay needs to come up. It is, but not as fast as it should. In any case regionals should be gutted by legacy scope anyway long before outsourced lift provider pay gets to where it needs to be.

The regionals are the only way major airline pilots can gauge themselves professionally. They get to turn their noses up to the regional pilot as he passes by in the concourses only to log onto the forums and hand down life lessons, all while keeping completely silent in your jumpseat. They may beat their wives, wear white sneakers with stone washed jeans, and have a son that despises them...but at the end of the day, at least they're not regional pilots.

The CQFO program is in the contract. How is that, or any other union approved incentives, breaking status quo?

skywest has no new hire bonus unless you come in with a CRJ type

The difference at Endeavor is that ALL active pilots get the bonus, not just a new hire. It was effectively a $20,000/yr. temporary (4 years) pay raise

It really is that simple, you compensate based on what compensation someone is willing to accept. It's no different in the business world where we accept or turn down jobs based on what we think we're worth.

What if the bonus owns something;)

^^^Bleak but true^^^

Majors are above "market rate"?

Hardly...

If your only considering the US, well then they set the market rate.

And if you compare international and contract jobs they're either on par or lower than market rate.

How much do you think a E190/A320 captain is worth from and international perspective? If anything the "majors" are still below market rate.

Overall theory is correct though, the regionals are obviously not paying market rate. We are all trapped by the seniority system, in some ways it benefits certain people, but overall pay rates it doesn't help at all. Bedford would love to be hiring FOs at 40-50k right now, but he doesn't want to at the same time double CA pay.

Buddy your company TSA has an advertisement at the top of this page offering a 10k signing bonus who are you trying to kid.

Yes once again as you stated its temporary!!! In your own words after you took a massive concession. How did your bonus bring the industry up when you took a massive concession. My point is this we can all look at any airline and try to sling mud or we can actually try to start doing something about it. I just get sick of this justifying the actions of your pilot group mentality while you try to bash other pilot groups!!!

Exactly, at the turn of the century and a little beyond, when workers were being killed by unsafe business practices and basically treated as slaves, they stood up against it. Some went to jail, some died, some lost their jobs, but it got so bad they wouldn't take it anymore. At some point, the good of their industry and everyone outweighed their personal concerns and safety.

Actually, it is true. True capitalism would allow the pilots to strike, but...

Judge rules against Allegiant Air pilots, prevents imminent strike - Tampa Bay Business Journal


Interesting. How would you go about this?

.

By illegal job actions and "sticking it to the man."

Couple of ways- stop accepting overtime, stop flying as an FO if you are a Captain, dump your union altogether (go unionless) and let anarchy reign, don't engage in bargaining that lowers quality of life in exchange for more airplanes or flow agreements. If its not a great place to work, smarter people won't work there and nature will just take its course. Let the company decide if they want more airplanes or flow to attract new hires, it has nothing to do with you.

I know how to stop this. Start a union then after it gets big enough write some books about how important it is to have a pilots union and stick together. Then give in to management and give up your scope to protect your higher pay scales. Allow the newer association's to join but be sure the rules mostly apply to you while giving the appearance of equality. If when the newbie's start to complain explain what they are doing wrong and tell them they should not have accepted a job like that with those terms. Oh wait that's already been done. Never mind

Sorry, I didn't think anyone would actually read the long post and the shortened version saved me 2 letters.

Very good synopsis and got a laugh. Nice.

In the late 1800s Rockefeller setup the Standard Oil Trust where the oil companies had to sell out to Standard Oil or join into a secret alliance with them. The Standard Oil Trust was able to control almost all of the oil in the US. People think that monopolies only raise prices but often they are able to push down prices to shutout competition from other technologies. Standard became the only buyer for oil train cars, pipelines, and other items to produce and transport kerosene used to light homes. It set the prices. It was able to drive the price down from 58 to 26 cents which greatly slowed the development of the new electrical systems who had difficulty competing at that price level. Consumers liked the lower prices but paid in other ways.

Currently we have the United Trust, the Delta Trust, and the American Trust and they have acted together to drive down the regional costs. The current model, several independent carriers that compete to operate under the Trust's umbrella. When they are able to keep their costs down they are rewarded with more flying. If a regional is not able to keep the costs down flying is shifted away. The regional is able to tell their pilots and flight attendants that they can't pay anymore or United/Delta/AA will take some of their flying away. And they will.

What other purposes are there to have regional airlines than to drive down the wages and benefits of pilots and flight attendants and to be able to outsource maintenance to low cost operations. Other than pilots and FAs there are not many employees at a regional.

Delta experimented with its own regional, ComAir, and American with Eagle. But those employees demanded higher wages and benefits than the independents. So ComAir was shutdown and Eagle shrunk and is being turned into another independent. ComAir's planes were sent to Gojet and others willing to fly the planes for half the price that the Comair employees cost in pay and benefits. The receiving carriers are told of the great benefits they get from faster upgrades.

For an extra dollar an hour or so the pilots at the mainline carriers agree to allow bigger and more airplanes to be flown by the regionals. Do you ever see an airline place an order for more mainline planes without tying it in with a deal to allow more RJ flying?

Now they regionals are having trouble finding pilots because who wants to work for 18000 a year. People think 23 but remember during training you don't get full pay. Are they increasing pay to bring back many of the thousands of pilots who had to go overseas to make a living? No, they go to the government and demand that the standards get lowered. They go to the government and want the government to setup programs to make pilots who will work for 18k a year. And finally, they start to offer signing bonuses to the new guys so that they can keep paying the current guys nothing. They don't want to pay all the pilots more when they can merely pay the bottom 10% more. For every one they pay a signing bonus to they are able to not pay 10 pilots at a market rate. Most of the pilots there won't leave because they want their precious PIC time or they can't afford to start at the bottom again.

An airline with a union contract cannot pay someone outside of that contract - period. If it wants to change the pay it must come to an agreement with the union. If a contact has expired and is being negotiated there is "status quo". The company cannot pay outside of the expired contract and status quo- period.

If your union lawyers are telling you something else you need to get new union lawyers who look out for the pilots and not the union.

Stop the bonuses and your pay will increase dramatically. Send your union lawyers to court to get injunctions to stop the bonuses.

Let the companies compete based upon the contracts, not the bonuses. Beat the bonus, market pay for all! Beat the bonus, market pay for all!

You make a good post but like most I think you are operating under the premise that regional airlines should continue to exist. They should not. Pilots should be doing anything and everything possible to see that their business models fail. Perfect example, RAH. What's happening there is what needs to happen everywhere.

How about mainline doing same? Stop accepting overtime forcing more to get hired. Dump the 2 class us and them system and be a real union. If you fly a United flight you should be a United pilot, Same at DAL and AA.