Quick look at the numbers here on APC (admittedly not official but probably close) reveals the following:

Delta: Top rate - $270 at year 12. Currently 4% of the aircraft in their fleet qualify for this rate.

United: Top rate - $262 at year 12. Currently 18% of the aircraft in their fleet qualify for this rate.

American: Top rate $299 at year 12. Currently 0% of the aircraft in their fleet qualify for this rate (no A380 or B747). Top rate for aircraft they operate - $285 at year 12 (B777). Currently 12% of the aircraft they operate qualify for that rate.

UPS: Top rate $263 at year 15. All airplanes qualify for this rate due to their awesome pay structure.

FedEx TA rates for Nov 2015: Top rate $286.67 at year 15 ($278.94 at year 12). Looking at the most recent fleet updates on PFC (or VIPS I'm not sure but Tony will correct me if I'm wrong ) Approximately 71% of the airplanes here qualify for that rate.

I'm not anal enough to read all the updates for each airline concerning future aircraft deliveries, but I think it's not a stretch to assume that the percentages of the pax carriers won't change dramatically. Our percentage will probably go down as 757's replace some A310 and 300 routes. But certainly not down to the levels of the Legacy carriers. There's many valid reasons to argue against this TA, but I think it's a bit of a reach to say our NC is being misleading about industry leading pay. I'd love it to be higher, but collectively it seems our group is compensated much higher than other pilot groups (UPS will stay close to us I'm guessing).

I think it is difficult to do accurate comparisons with other carriers.

For example, a Delta guy pointed out that we are comparing our widebody rate with only their 777 rates. The 777 at Delta is the highest paid airplane (same as 747, to my knowledge), and they don't even have that many of them. We are comparing a large percentage of our crew force, with the top percentage of theirs, if we are to be honest. Not that I don't want more, of course.

Edit to add, I see that Bill just expanded upon what I said, before I said it. Impressive....

What does that have to do with anything? Are you saying because there are more of us making WB pay we shouldn't get as much??

Most carriers rates are based on revenue generation. If you are going to compare us to them then we are woefully underpaid!

Um, I think he's saying that 70% of us are in the highest paying seat in our fleet vs. a very much smaller percentage of guys at other carriers. Hence, more of our guys are getting more. More as in more money than most guys of equal seniority at other carriers. Not "as much as" but "more". Nobody has argued that we should make less than other carriers.

We have wide-body Captains because The Company bought wide-body airplanes. If they could do the job better with B-737s, I'm sure we'd have more of them. We have no control over what airplanes they buy, so we needn't feel guilty that we have more of one type of seat than someone else, nor should we be inclined to accept less compensation because there are more of us.


"More money than most guys of equal seniority at other carriers ..." The Negotiating Committee used 4 slides to compare our pay rates with the industry, but only 3 of them made comparisons with "guys of equal seniority", and we fall short on all 3 of them. The fourth, actually the first one they show, displays "Top of the scale" pay rates, not "guys of equal seniority." Care to guess how that comparison works out when you compare their "top of the scale" (12 years) with our "guys of equal seniority" (12 years)?






.

Most of our 12 year guys have a higher hourly rate under the T/A than 12 year guys at AA/UA/DL. Very few pilots (maybe none) at those carriers are widebody Capts at 12 years. You can criticize many areas of this T/A but I don't think rates of pay is one of them.

What longevity is the junior WB Capt here?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's always been in accordance with Federal Law (USERRA). If the company tried to infringe on it, it was our job to correct them.

Irrelevant.

I agree CS. When I read that I was disheartened, and to be honest, angry.

P.S.- sorry I haven't figured out how to multi quote.

It absolutely has not been in accordance with Federal Law. I've tried to fight it, admittedly short of actually filing a format USERRA complaint. That's on me... but it did seem no one was interested in taking up the cause. No bag on SM, he's done some great things, but coming off long term military leave (over 30 days) we don't comply with the intent of USERRA as far as bidding a monthly schedule.