It’s a false comparison to say if “I’m healthy.” Actuaries just look at your age and risk factor and it all goes into a big algorithm based on the risks of all of the members to spit out a premium, of which the company pays 80% at the moment. The fact that you are paying 20% of the cost, tells you there is a rather big dollar figure for the average person. Don’t use it, but I know it’s expensive because I hear the complaining. So if you’re paying $800/month, that’s a total cost of $4k/month.

So you can say, reserve rules, don’t care I’m not a reserve. PS, don’t care, don’t commute. Healthcare, spouse gets free healthcare, don’t care. So then, we should only focus on pay rates, vacation and training, but then someone will want those other things.

 

I don’t think my wallet or 401k will last that long.

 

This is very wrong as far as revenue hit goes. How many flights go out with 100% load factor (excluding non-revs)? Not many. Usually at least a few non revs get on EVERY flight. Even the booked full ones. So all positive space really does is put commuters at the top of the non rev list. Pretty much a 0 to minimal cost to the company.

 

not quite. Anytime you book a PS ticket you remove a seat from inventory that could have been sold. How often get PS ticket holders left behind? practically never. How often get standbys left behind? All the time.

that is your answer. PS costs real money.

I am not saying it is a good or bad idea either way but saying that it has no / insignificant revenue impact is not correct.

 

Thank goodness you’re not on my negotiating team. Jesus…….🙄

 

How often do 0 standbys get on? Very, very rarely. This just puts commuters at the top of the list. And in some very rare cases takes a seat away from a potential revenue passenger.

 

To add to this, if they miss the first flight the company has to buy them a ticket(either own mettle or another carrier). So for non revs that seat will be gone no matter what. I think the company wants to protect the operation and PSC does that...either way they will pay

 

What might be more unsustainable this time around is the inability to attract or retain large numbers of qualified pilots. People bailing from one airline to another after a short stint has got to hit the bottom line. The remedy is bigger better contracts elsewhere which is pretty win-win. I don't think replacement RJ feed will save anyone's bacon this time around unlike last time. But that opinion is worth as much as you paid for it.

 

With Delta PS at least, it takes up a revenue ticket. When the bean counters decide how to price tickets, they take positive space commuters into account. They usually leave the last several seats very expensive - and they do that *after* positive space travelers are accounted for. So, assuming it would work the same way at UAL, positive space commuters wouldn’t really take up space from nonrevs at all. It’s just like as if all commuters bought medium-priced tickets - and that is why it costs the company money. If anything, it would help more people get on by having fewer standbys which take the seats of no shows. It would also cost the company a substantial sum of money, precisely because nonrevs take up revenue tickets in their calculations.

I don’t really think it hurts the seniority of pass riders in any way. At Delta/EDV, the only way it hurts seniority is that positive space upgrades clear before nonrev regardless of seniority. In terms of purely getting on the flight, it seems to help everyone though.

 

I would like to see PSC upgrades go after NR...(I'm a Delta guy but this at least somewhat protects the operation while somewhat preserving seniority)