I didn’t understand this one either. Load factors are in the 90s. What’s wrong with raising ticket prices until load factors settle in the low 80s. This was normal in the mid to late 1990s. In fact, I remember being at a management town hall when the CEO at the time said that when load factors exceeded 80%, they would either add another section or change to a larger fleet type.

Not arguing for lower pay… but there are a lot more costs than block for pilots on a flight.

Pilots have to be trained and vacationed and deadheaded and held in reserve. There’s some non-trivial multiplier between wages per pilot per hour and average airline pilot spending per hour flown

Right. I thought I read all last year how airlines raised ticket prices 40% and passengers didn't even flinch. They were all bragging about record revenues.

Travel bloggers as rule hate airline workers.
Pilots are overpaid button pushers, and I won’t even get into what they think of FAs.

We have the gaul to fly standby at get upgrades now and again is a major issue for them.

Another take:

Try analyzing the cost of hiring a "pilot" without experience from zero. This is what is coming when the well runs dry.

The airlines know what they are doing here. Securing pilots now, and getting them seniority, is like hedging fuel. They know the cost to bring in pilots (and the ongoing costs of hiring pilots without experience) will be going up exponentially, and the carriers slow to act will not have a seat when the music stops.

This is likely about 10 years from now, not about today.

bwthdik

The author may have been able to make a compelling argument about sustainability if they looked at pilot labor costs at the regionals. However, the dollar figures aren't nearly as big and there wouldn't be the same name recognition, so throwing together a doom & gloom piece about legacies gets more attention.

As others said, yes.

The incremental cost of these raises isn't that large a slice of the pie. Statistically any time you raise ticket prices by even $1 you will see a drop in bookings and at some point it's a big drop. But I don't think we're anywhere near the point where it becomes significant. Travel demand is way up post-covid, and that may well linger for a good while... a lot of folks now appreciate freedoms they used to take for granted.

Also we have some new-found efficiencies in airline systems... all the flex and remote -workers can now combine business with pleasure trips and travel on days which used to be dead. Keeping more jets moving and full on Tuesdays and Saturdays is nice fringe benefit for efficiency.

Nailed it.

Frequent fliers, credit card clickbait bloggers, and the airliners.net wannabe armchair CEO crowd all absolutely despise labor.

Maybe these moves will make ticket prices go back into the realm of when only the wealthy could afford air travel. Them airlines can make profits again running their aircraft at 50% capacity. Would keep all the riff raff grounded and leave lots of available seats to non rev. One can dream.

Higher ticket prices may go a long way to decreasing the number of unruly pax incidents...