Pilots in India are some of the most highly salaried employees. A captain for IndiGo pulls down as much as 8.5 MILLION rupees a year. At today’s conversion factor of 0.013266823 United States Dollars to the rupee that’s $112,768 a year. Given that it’s the same aircraft burning the same &UAL, it’s obvious where the profit is coming from. Personnel costs.

Everybody is doing it.






One way, I suppose, of coping with the US pilot shortage.

110k in India is like 110 million in the US.
I'm not sure how they can survive paying those salaries. It's more than legacy airline CAs in Europe, where cost of living is much higher.

The more immediate questions are ‘what is the distribution of flying between the two airlines in the joint ventures and how does that affect career progression and wages of the domestic pilots’? One can pretty much always find someone out there to do the job cheaper. That’s what globalization is all about. If a domestic wage agreement has profit sharing built in, then this may be no big deal in that regard. A rising tide lifts all boats, as they say. If it doesn’t… well scope is scope on either end of the flying.

Your scope should address that. Unless you've been asleep at the switch for a 20 years.

Are you still slamming the Gig Harbor mafia?

Indigo doesn't even fly to the US
https://www.airlineroutemaps.com/maps/IndiGo_Airlines

Consider this. People ride cruise ships because they WANT TO. They put up with flying because they HAVE TO. They dress up for dinner on a cruise (except for Carnival). Does anyone still dress up to fly? Customer service and food is generally A++ on cruise ships. It's F-- on airplanes, especially now. If you want a model for success, follow cruise cruise ships. Hopefully in five years we'll all wear a name tag with our nationality written across the bottom.

People are willing to pay for cruise ship service because the ship is basically the destination with some pretty backdrops. People as a whole are not willing to pay for that level of service on an airline unless we start offering NYC-LHR 15 days via dirigible, and the few people that do care buy business class tickets where the product is more or less on par with a cruise unless you get a FA on a particularly bad day.

...who would be summarily replaced with an eager young Filipina in a non-oppressive multicultural and diverse recruiting environment.

Have you ridden business class on a legacy lately? Sure the seats are comfortable but I was on United a couple weeks ago and got a plastic baggie with some crackers and cookies in it. The days of hot towels and conversation are over.

I’m not sure what FAs do much anymore. No alcohol. One half cup of water on a three hour Southwest flight for crying out loud.

It’s never been glamorous but it has gotten downright awful.