[QUOTE=Oprah;2025977]
Well let's all call our reps and hear directly from them that the rates the propose are not slanted heavily toward the senior while leaving the hr way behind ia.

I'm sure I won't be surprised by the answer

 

Buddy over at United is a IAH 737 guy. I believe he has been there for 4 years? He flew 550hrs this year and will make $140,000. That is not counting the DC 16%. Id say he has a pretty good QOL. He did get hired at the very beginning of the wave after the merger.

If I remember correctly, I feel like him (and a few of my other Ual buddies who have been there 3-4 years, based on facebook ) usually are working the holidays. It may be by choice I have no idea.

my QOL has been very good since ive been here, havent missed a holiday or life event etc. (getting worse in ACY because of no F/Os), however I have had to BUST MY ASS to make over $100k. I blocked 750 hrs this year and have to bid conflicts and pick up day trips on weekends etc. 4 days off is great but not when you have to pick up trips in between to subsidize our horrendous pay.

I completely burned myself out and cant do it anymore, its exhausting . Ill continue to bid conflicts and enjoy the days off until I can upgrade and fly 72hrs.

Anyway, this fairytale that we have such a high QOL is only true if you live in Ohio where the cost of living is low or you bid in the top 10% Have you guys seen the lines for January? Does anyone really expect to live in the NorthEast comfortably at 72hrs? That should be the goal, not worrying about JA,s or "premium pay" for open time etc. The Goal should be to live well on 72hrs, and not because you are a cheap son of a -----. (I flew with a CA who had the nerve to ask me for a $1.00 because he bought me coffee at McDonalds)

 

Absolutely true. Our vaunted QOL isn't really any better than other carriers and in some cases much worse. Yeah we have 4 days off between trips, but we also work 5 or 6 days between these days off a good portion of the time. The pairings are awful, so much so that most 4 day trips are worth 18-20 hours and aren't commutable on both ends. There are no 2 day back to backs. Purity and cadence are absolutely unheard of. And whether you are junior or senior you still get to enjoy the same crap! Because every line is essentially the same garbage.
But yeah, we should be paid 30-50% less to secure our great QOL...

And where's our profit sharing? ***...

 

Thanks Chimp, tired of hearing people try and justify or brag about some amazing QOL that no other airline has. This is exactly what I have been saying all along, I have friends at each of the other places too, guess what, they make more than me and get as many days off a month, they are FO's!! I am a 9 year captain. Ugh!

 

Put this post in the "Chimpy" hall of fame.

The $140k number is real, I have a friend doing exactly the same on the 737 over there, plus he got the holidays off this year.

I live in the middle of the country and commute. The "fairy tale QOL" isn't really possible where I live either. Commuting + working the system=burnout in one month for me. I've worked a 2-3 100+ hour credit months, but after each month like that, I take every day off for my family, because we need the time to recover.

I will fly over 700 hours this year. My pay for the year is well below my peers that work here. I'm fine with those that work hard to make lots of money...more power to you. But that's no reason to have the base (72 hour) pay for the month lacking.

 

That's kind of the feeling I have as well. Guys think we have something in quality of life that in reality we don't. They say it almost as a way to justify us being paid so much less. I worked 153 days with 83 overnights blocked about 600 hours on 2 and 3 year pay at about 40% seniority in base and make around 90k. I also had a nonstandard 2 months which would have changed things substantially. I had one month that I worked 6 days and another in which I only worked 3 days due to vacation and transition conflict, but that is not the norm. One of those was a company goof.

 

Whatever. Everyone of my friends st aa, dal, ual makes over 120k/ year as fo's without working hard.

Here you gotta do g dm CBA gymnastics to break 100 as an FO. Pathetic

 

A few points I'd like to share:

As pilots, we compare ourselves to other pilots at the same seniority level at other carriers. If I make A320 industry average as a 4, 5, or 8 year captain here I personally would be OK. But if I'm nowhere close and won't be for 8 years, while others are, I think it's very divisive.

Yes from a cost perspective it would cost more to get everyone up to parity with industry average instead of the most senior. So what? That just means we are seriously underpaid! Other companies have had and continue to have short upgrade times. This company is the most profitable in the U.S., so now would be the time to get a good contract.

This isn't my first rodeo. I have been at three other 121 carriers and have been furloughed in two massive layoffs. You need to get the income now, not years down the road when you may never get it. Don't be fooled into thinking that the big payday will come in a few years so you can be underpaid now. I wouldn't count on the same rate of upgrades either. At both companies where I was laid off, things looked great at some point.

Since FO pay is based on a percentage of Captain pay (usually around 2/3), not only do the Jr Captains get a bad deal, so do all of the FOs, since their pay scale stops at 10 years.

Many of us won't be at the top pay scale for long or at all, since we were older when we got here. They really lose out with the distorted pay scales.

I've said this before, I can't find a single other carrier with as skewed a pay scale as ours. This needs to be fixed, not continued. The legacies and everyone else have it right. To skew the pay scale for a select few is wrong.

Of course I want the senior pilots to get a good raise. We need a pay scale that is good for all of us, from Junior to Senior. I want to fly with pilots who are unified and happy to have a career here, not some waiting years to maybe get industry average pay.

 

So if there are so few senior capts, percentage wise, that would be making that 'heavily slanted' high end, would you suggest it's better to drop that high end rate $25 in order to add $3 an hour to the rest? I agree that all levels should be industry standard at DOS, but instead of talking about dragging down the high end, perhaps the anger should be toward rejecting a TA that doesn't raise middling seniorities to industry standard.

Looking to replace the NC over that high end pay rate, if it is in fact a small percentage of the pile of cash extracted from the company, is like replacing the NC over $.05 in per diem. Really?

Respond to the new survey, call your rep and beotch, but castigating them for rates that are too high is the wrong way to go imo.

 

I agree except I'm fairly sure this is ok w them. Maybe not to this extent but this general pay structure