Below is an example of how much higher our rates need to be to simply match DL's current 10-yr career compensation based on their earliest available upgrade. As of April 2023, upgrades are being awarded at less than one year at DL to the 7ER in both ATL and NYC. From what I understand, upgrade via the lance program was awarded at 6 yrs, 10 months on the latest vacancy bid at SWA.

The point of showing the below chart is that our rates need to come up dramatically in order to even match Delta's current 10-year career compensation. If Delta's rates get me-too'ed when UA and AA get their new contracts, then our rates would need to come up even more than shown to achieve parity. Of course, if we only match Delta's rates, we are still flying 30% more block hours than Delta pilots on average, so there would be no reward for SWA pilots relative to Delta for the extra liability and risk we shoulder. And note that even with these dramatically higher rates, SWA is still behind a DL pilot from the end of year 1 through year 9.

The current SWA 12-year captain rate is $245.64/TFP. So, in this scenario, achieving $350/TFP at DOS would require a 42.5% initial increase. Then, getting to $471/TFP by DOS + 3 years would require subsequent raises of 11.5%, 10.3%, and 9.4% each year (an increase of $40.33/TFP for 12-yr CA rate each year) for a 91.7% total raise by DOS + 3 years.

And finally, this chart only addresses rates. Rates are an important part of a contract, but hardly the only important variable that needs to be addressed. We are currently lagging the industry in many other very important contractual areas like retirement, work rules, and disability. It all needs to get fixed. There will very likely not be another opportunity like we have right now to fix the contract for the next several decades.

 

Very interesting information indeed.

I think your starting point is bit low, but I like the rest of the chart. I’m glad you’re putting this out for the sake of expectations and education. Many in the ranks have no idea about these potential numbers. I had a conversation with a pilot that thought raises in the 15-25% range is what we were aiming for. He would not be opposed to more, only surprised because he doesn’t know the compensation potential that our competitors enjoy. Neither do I, if I’m being honest!

There is simply not enough educational material to compare our expectations to. So good on you for doing this.

 

Delta achieved a huge increase in work rule compensation that doesn’t show up in the pay rates. Premium pay for Holidays (I’m pretty sure Delta has more than the 3 Swa has), increases to daily rig, increased vacation pay, to name a few, and more.

Their effective compensation increased significantly more than the just the yearly pay rate increases would show.

 

You're absolutely right. This is a very conservative estimate of a Delta pilot's first ten years if they were to take the first available upgrade.

However, as you likely know, we have many within our pilot group who are often quick to opine that the scenario I used in the chart I posted on this thread is invalid because I used DL's earliest available upgrade. It's not accurate or somehow not fair, they'll complain, to do that because upgrading in NYC or ATL "sucks," or "is junior for a reason," as if there aren't compelling reasons why bidding first available captain upgrade at SWA doesn't also "suck," and is if there aren't also people bypassing CA upgrade at SWA for quality of life reasons.

They'll eagerly highlight how a SWA pilot can easily bag more than 95 TFP per month, month after month, like clockwork. Yet, they'll blatantly disregard the fact that DL pilots can also pull in over a 95-TFP-equivalent 83 credit hours monthly. Instead, they'll cherry-pick anecdotes about their "buddy" at DL who's stuck making a measly 65 hours per month. And oh, they'll conveniently 'forget' to mention the insane number of block hours they're logging compared to their pals at Delta.

 

For the pilots who think a 25% initial raise will get us close to Delta in terms of career compensation, here's a chart on how that would look if we "achieved" a 25% DOS raise followed by the exact same subsequent yearly raises as Delta's new contract: 5/4/4. The final 12-yr CA rate at the DOS + 3 year point for a SWA pilot would by $349.22.

DL's current highest hourly final rate is $474.20 at DOS + 3 years. And they can upgrade much more quickly than a SWA pilot (<1 year). And they fly many fewer block hours than SWA pilots do.

A 25/5/4/4 rate scheme in the new contract would put SWA pilots ~$850K behind DL pilots at 10 years and $1.6M behind at 30 years. On rates alone, that's a lot of psychic wage to accept in lieu of actual cold, hard cash. These figures also don't include how far behind SWA pilots are in terms of retirement, disability, and work rules (soft pay and QOL).

 

Great work!

 

Thanks.

Just for "fun," I modeled what kind of rates it would take given the current ratio structure of our pay table to achieve a 30% career compensation premium at the 10-year point vs Delta (since we fly 30% more block hours than Delta pilots). The numbers are pretty eye-watering. I'm posting this just to give us an idea of how far behind we are in career compensation and how "unrealistic" the rates would have to be in order to compensate us for the additional risk and liability we incur as a result of flying 30% more block hours than Delta pilots do.

Another way to skin this cat if we were going to try to achieve this would be to increase the FO to CA pay ratios.

The pay scale displayed is the DOS + 3 yr pay table. There are three series of data displayed: the orange is SWA's current contract and upgrade, the blue is Delta's current contract and not quite earliest upgrade, and the green is the hypothetical SWA numbers with our current upgrade to achieve a 30% premium at 10 years.

 

Question for you. Do you think what you're proposing ($550/tfp) is anywhere near the realm of possibility of what SWAPA is even trying to attach? Do you think it would be productive to go to the company and say, "we want to keep all of the parts of our contract that are better than OALs, match them on all the parts that are worse, and we want you to pay us enough to make more than the couple top earning pilots in Delta history, assuming that all of their flying is on the 76 from the start and not the 75 (which is the actual case), despite that they are flying much larger planes that generate more revenue."

 

Hi Mr Harrison, can I call you Ford?

Those numbers posted for DL are totally realistic. Your post is not. First of all the 75 and 76 are the same band. The only exception to that is the 767-400. Also, as far as QOL goes, DLs contract is not below DL. And it isn't just the a couple of pilots that get WB captains pay. Lew's analysis only had pilots at WB captain pay for a few years. I'm neither DL or WN, but at least I am not a lawyer.

 

Well, I'm at WN. Feel free to mind your own business if you don't know what you're talking about.

WN has many things in our contract that are better QOL wise than anyone else, DL included. Second, Lews analysis has pilots at 76 captain rates or greater every year after the first. Only a few Delta pilots have just recently been able to achieve that. Mathematically, it will never be a large number, unless they're doing CA/CA flights there and nobody told me.

My questions were for Lew, but thanks for chiming in.