Lewbronski

Assuming DL's new TA passes, a DL pilot's career earnings over 30 years will exceed a SWA's pilot career earnings by more than $4.4M using shortest current upgrade times. That is based on their new TA's phased-in pay scales over the next three years (using 2023's pay table for this year, 2024's pay table for 2024, etc). It also assumes a DL pilot upgrades to 767-300/200 CA at six months, then upgrades to A-350 CA at 25 years and a SWA pilot upgrades at 7.5 years. It also assumes crediting 996 hrs/yr at DL and 1144 TFP/yr at SWA.

A SWA pilot will earn $7.397M over 30 years and a DL pilot will earn $11.832M using the above parameters. That's 60% more than a SWA pilot's 30-year career earnings. A 60% pay raise on our existing 12-year captain TFP rate would equal $393/TFP.

A SWA pilot on our existing contract's rates, if they upgraded at 7.5 years, could equal a DL pilot's career earnings under their new TA rates by flying an average of 152 TFP every month for 30 years.

Meanwhile, company-contributed retirement funding for a DL pilot (not including profit-sharing) would be worth $1.844M more than SWA's after 30 years, assuming an 8% ROI. The career path used for this calculation, to stay consistent with UA's 2017 contract comparison, assumes: at DL, 5yrs as a 737-800 FO, 5 years as a B-767-400ER FO, 5 years as a 737-800 CA, and then the rest of the career at 767-400ER CA. At SWA, it assumes 10 years as a 737 FO and the rest of the career as a 737 CA. Compensation over the current IRS limit of $330K isn't considered.

Finally, using current upgrade times and current contracts and the same 996 hrs/yr and 1144 TFP/yr described above, pilots at UA, AA, FedEx, and UPS will outearn pilots at SWA by anywhere from $1.5M to just under $2M over the course of a 30-year career. That means SWA pilots will need to attain a minimum 20% pay raise just to equal what UA, AA, FedEx, and UPS pilots have already achieved.

flyguy81

IF DL’s contract is ratified, we’d need around 23-25% just to match after the UAL/AA me too’s are settled.

WB doesn’t interest me or I’d have left long ago. Wonder what the numbers are if you do an apples to apples (NB vs NB) comparison?

WB numbers can’t really be compared since we don’t have any. It’s an option elsewhere, sure… it people aren’t leaving here in droves to go fly them…so I don’t think it’s much of a carrot.

I think if we are to compare ourselves to OAL’s it should be at the largest NB rate they fly (757), which would put us above all the other LCC’s. If and when we get WB’s (look at WestJet….could happen)…then we me-too the already established rates at the OAL’s.

Lewbronski

Regardless of whether WB's interest me or not, 60% more career earnings does interest me.

But that's an interesting discussion. On what basis do you come to the conclusion that if we compare ourselves to the OAL's, the comparison should be constrained to "the largest NB rate they fly"?

RJSAviator76

Career earnings should interest us all and that's how we should approach our own negotiations.

Brickfire

The reason a delta new hire can upgrade at 6 months is nobody wants it.

If you want an apples to apples comparison it’s a year of new hires tracked for a career. Some upgrade immediately and sit weekend reserve for 10 years. Most dont.

Lewbronski

1,000% agree.

There is zero basis under the RLA for an airline pilot union, and specifically SWAPA, to limit themselves to any sort of NB-only comparison to OAL's. Zero. That is something we have simply accepted as the way it has to be done. The RLA makes no such requirement and the decades of case law on the topic of reasonability and good faith bargaining also establish no such requirement.

If you'd like to learn more about why that is so, you can read the detailed thread I created on the topic, complete with extensive references.

Lewbronski

So, are those upgrades going unfilled? This article says there are, in fact, DL pilots filling those upgrade slots despite whatever downsides are associated with upgrading at the first opportunity: "There are Boeing 767 captains with 4.5 months seniority."

Just like here, not everyone upgrades at the first opportunity (there are guys here with >15 years on property who haven't upgraded yet). Yet there are plenty of people who do take the first available upgrade despite having to commute and despite having to sit AM reserve, etc. We've got a very active thread going on the topic of upgrades right here on APC, right now.

In your opinion, what upgrade timeframe should we use for DL to make the comparison?

So, since there are some guys waiting 8+ years past their first available upgrade date to upgrade here at SWA, should we adjust the upgrade date for SWA in the comparison out to, say, 12 or 13 years?

flyguy81

I’ve got friends hired in 2007-8 at Delta/United who are still FO’s by choice. Some are on the 767, 330. Some are on the 717/737/320. Would you give up being home every night and having 4 day weekends to commute across the country to sit rsv in a crashpad covering 3 airports? I wouldn’t…not a pile of money big enough.

Upgrade time being 6 mos is an anomaly because the people who “should” be bidding it want nothing to do with it. Similar to how 900 FO’s here aren’t bidding it. People have their own reasons for why they bid what they do. You can’t and shouldn’t count on it being an available option forever.

If I was going to commute anyway and my schedule was going to suck for awhile…some might as well bid to CA and make $. However, on the flip side…seniority progression on the NB is so fast you’re screwing your QOL by taking the quick upgrade since you’re locked on the plane for 2 years. A LOT can happen in 2 years on a NB FO list vs the bottom of a 767 CA list (hint…you’re never getting off rsv, working all holidays and weekends and you’re still not getting WB pay).

My thinking on 757 pay: typically the biggest plane in a fleet yields the most pay due to: cargo capacity, revenue generation due to more seats, etc. Y’all sold the farm on getting a -800 override for a bag of magic beans so unlike overrides ar NK, B6, UAL…we have a UPS type pay scale. Our all coach configuration holds as many people as a UAL/DL 757 and aircraft range is similar (especially with the Max). If we can negotiate 777 pay….I’ll take that check all the way to the bank and laugh while I’m doing it.

I think that’s a pipe dream though. I think realistic goals should be fixing contract language, fixing disability, retirement NEC %, etc and being the highest paid NB pilots. I won’t agree to any concessions, and I also don’t think we should neglect other things that need fixing in lieu of pay rates (ask a DL guy what they’d give up to have health insurance with $0 premiums and a $300 deductible).

Lewbronski

We've got guys here hired pre-2007, 2008 who are still FO's by choice. As a result of FO's bypassing CA upgrade here at SWA (the people, I guess, who "should" be bidding it), we also have some of the same sort of artificial seniority that you're describing at Delta. The fact is, at Delta, despite whatever drawbacks there are to it, and the fact that some Delta FO's that "should" be bidding it aren't, the six-month upgrades on the 767 are getting filled by pilots willing to do it. Same here.

Some of our bypassing FO's want nothing to do with CA upgrade if it means commuting or sitting reserve or flying four-days or flying three-days or whatever. CA upgrade at SWA isn't appealing enough for some of our FO's to compel them to make the leap. But it is compelling enough for some of our other FO's to make the leap as soon as they possibly can despite all of the downsides to doing so. Just like at Delta. Isn't it like that at pretty much every airline without a forced upgrade?

What upgrade time are you suggesting we use for DL and what upgrade time are you suggesting we should use for SWA besides the actual earliest available upgrade times to arrive at a comparison that you consider fair? And how are you arriving at those times?

And now, for the far more important issue. WHY do you think it's a pipe dream to achieve DL or better career compensation and industry-leading benefits and work rules? That's a critical question. It goes to the heart of why we have, overall, an industry-lagging contract.

What holds us back from achieving career pay and retirement better than DL's? What holds us back from achieving industry-leading work rules and benefits?

It's definitely not the RLA. The RLA does not, in any way, require us to limit ourselves to NB-only demands. Again, read this for a primer on why that is so. If you think I'm missing something on that issue, I'm all ears.

So, what is it that's holding us back? Is it the pilot group? Is it SWAPA? Is it that, strategically, for pattern bargaining's sake, we don't want the best career compensation, retirement, work rules, and benefits (I had a former "SWAPA 1.0" VP on my JS who made that claim)? Is it that we don't know how to achieve it? Is it that the company won't agree to it? Is it that we don't understand the economic power or "weapons" available to us? Is it that it's too hard or will take too long? Is it Bob Jordan or Carl Kuwitzky?

What exactly is standing in our way?

MudhammedCJ

Yessies. This is the most profitable (even in light of recent ineptitude) airline in the history of the world, and yet we have yessies rolling over and soiling their bellies, slobbering to vote yes on a turd. Then there's another decade of listening to them rationalize their shortsightedness in a million ridiculous cockpit conversations unless they do what so many others do - lie about how they voted. Ad nauseam. FTS.

When they realize the dazzle of upgrade and a couple more step raises is it for them, it will be too late.