Quote:
Originally Posted by likeitis
It's not bigger is better. It's the yield. Pilot pay is based on the profitability of the aircraft you are flying.
That's an erroneous/fallacious argument. Bean counters price city pairs in certain ways. If someone is flying on an e190 from BUF-JFK then a 320 JFK-MCO, there isn't really a good way to break up how much profit existed from one aircraft to another when a ticket was bought from BUF-MCO. The bean counters determine profitability per flight, but that isn't an exact science since two fares aren't purchased. More so at legacies with regional feed, but still applicable to some of our 2 leg connecting flights. Also, I've heard that lately the e190 has been more profitable per flight than the 320, but I don't have access to any of that data, and I'd be surprised if many people on these boards or people I fly with have access to that. And, by that logic (profitability of a fleet is tied to pay), if jetblue wasn't profitable and each flight lost money, which happens sometimes, we don't lose pay (minus profit sharing) accordingly. Profitability of routes, aircraft serving those routes, etc is a marketing and operations function, completely irrelevant to pilot pay. Especially when you throw in maintenance cost variations, landing fee variations, etc. So much of what goes into a flight's cost/revenue is not at all related to pilot labor...and to say that pilot labor rates are tied to revenue brought in or profit is questionable at best.
Pilots don't bring in money to JetBlue. Customers buying tickets brings money to JetBlue. We are a cog in the wheel. Whether you fly 150 people once or twice a day, or 100 people 3 or 4 times a day, doesn't bring in more or less money to the company. A New York gate agent who processes 900 people in one day makes the same per hour as a podunk gate agent who processes 150 or 200 people a day...right?
The fact that so many bluejet pilots are willing to sell out 1/4 of the pilot group with those arguments is sad, when 108-110 seat jets at our peer airlines are fetching 30-40% more than our 100 seat jets. I always get a chuckle when I have a someone tell me they don't think the 190 rates should go up bc we are at the top of the industry for 190 pay. I ask who else flies them and I get this dumbfounded look. 20 190s exist in the US outside of JetBlue, and they are getting parked. They were a b scale aircraft at airways that comprised a small fraction of their total fleet and could be bid off quickly. Why compare us to something that doesn't exist and say we are at the top? We can bump both aircrafts' rates, but unfortunately I think the sentiment across the board is not shared, especially since 190s are a minority. As a pilot, I'd rather bid the type of flying I want (perhaps the 190 schedules suit me better) and not feel compelled to chase the bigger plane for bigger pay.
Lastly, does a UPS 757 pilot bring in more or less revenue/profit than a UPS 747 pilot? That's weird, their pay rate is the same. Because it doesn't matter.