ayoh

Here's an interesting article from last Sunday's Fort Worth Telegram on the labor situation at Southwest - the most unionized airline in the air - and potential upcoming negotiations.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/14739514.htm

End of article shows pilots' pay scale with WN the highest and US the lowest. The source is AA's pilots union.

Management does make a difference. Herb Kelleher in his prime would show up on major holidays and take BPs and throw baggage around. Lakewood was MIA at the great PHL 2004 holiday meltdown. Maybe Parker can go to PHL and throw around suitcases full of his stock options to build morale.

USFlyerUS

Not likely, as the union would complain that he's doing union-covered work. Don't laugh, it's happened before! Management has some responsibility, but so do the unions -- it's a two way street.

ContinentalFan

Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again: they need to train many, many more pilots: the salaries have never made much sense to me. They seem to me to be really high.

pibrahim

No idea if they'd actually pay less than US, but Northwest aren't listed in the results...

skylady

Pilots applying for jobs at any carrier have already been "trained", and require a minimum amount of hours aloft before even being considered. Who is the "they" that need to train more pilots? And for which job openings? I am sure that the many furloughed pilots from all carriers are much more eligible than those that need training.

1winglet

It'll never happen. I am told he is completely disconnected from reality and customers. A complete changed man inside of 6 months.

asicguy

Not sure about you guys, but if I'm going to be traveling 5 miles above the earth at 500MPH in a metal tube, I want pilots that are happy and well adjusted individuals. Pay them whatever they want, just get me home safely!

robertlew

I don't want to complain about someone who works for a living but I do not see that $125 an hour pay is exactly chump change. I understand that there are other airlines that make more, but this is not a bad wage. I know that people will say that the pilots have control of the lives of hundreds of people; I don't want to be sitting in a plane with a minimum wage pilot at the controls... but as my old boss would tell me " No one forces you to do this job. This is the profession that we have chosen." Besides, McDonalds is always hiring.

murphy

Who told you that? Welcome to FlyerTalk. There's lots of good information to be had on this board. You can help to make it better by restricting posts to facts, as opposed to unsourced rumor and innuendo.

BNAChairman

He's very approachable when flying on US or in the club. I had a short chat with him a few months ago in the CLT C club. He certainly kept the conversation brief, though, and didn't ask me any questions about my experience on the new US.

ContinentalFan

I went and got more information by talking to a pilot He disabuse me of some of my assumptions. It turns out that pilots don't work an eight-hour day (I should have known that) and he listed a bunch of other things that they have to pay for. Another thing, which I hadn't really paid much attention to, is no one is stopping anyone from becoming a pilot! You can go out and get a license, pay your dues, climb up the corporate ladder; it takes a lot of time to get to the top-tier of the pay scale, but anyone is free to try it. Pilots don’t get paid a lot when they're on the bottom few rungs of the ladder. Here's another issue that he brought up, there's a built-in survivor bias in the salary numbers for senior pilots: airlines fail and when a pilot moves on, he or she starts at the bottom of the ladder again with the new carrier. So there are quite a few pilots with lots of experience but not much seniority. I guess I have seen older gentlemen in airports with only three stripes! Also, there are physical requirements which reduce the supply of potential pilots. That could push up the salary too.

ClueByFour

The problem with pilot compensation is that the curve needs to flatten.

There is no reason why somebody flying a 777 over the ocean should make $300k.

There is also no reason why the guy in the right seat of a CRJ should make $18k and have to apply for foodstamps.

Hey--they are both 500mph+ twinjets with glass, a modern FMS, etc. It's a similar skillset that does not justify a 10fold difference in compensation.

But it's the seniority system, the inherent bias that brings, coupled with a union not known for it's pragmatic nature (ALPA) and the willingness of airline executives to whipsaw senior pilots against junior pilots that have brought the profession to where it is in the US today (excluding the cargo guys).

There is also SJS (shiny jet syndrome) and the fact that operators like Mesa, Transstates, and so forth find no shortage of willing supplicants to actually accept $18k/year to sit in the right seat of a shiny jet.

martin33

Compensation isn't based mainly on skillsets; in the marketplace it's based on marginal revenue product. Widebody transoceanic pilots are "producing" bucketloads of low-cost ASM's, and thus mountains of marginal revenue for the company. RJ pilots drive tiny amounts of high cost ASM's that bring in near-peanuts. Paying them anywhere near the same would be a severe disequilibrium.

That said, perhaps numbers like $300k are unwarranted due to being the result of seniority, cartels, etc. Likewise, numbers like $18K are unwarrantedly low due to SJS, etc. Even so, the "natural" wage differential is and should be quite large.

FWAAA

I agree. Paying older 747 pilots 10-15 times the wage of the young 19-seater or 34-seater pilots has some basis in productivity and provides limited justification for the huge disparity between the two. Still, the spread between the two is probably larger than the productivity improvement.

One can argue that the $250 million airplane with 400 lives partially justifies the wage differential for the greater experience (and assumed competence that experience brings). The 19 or 34 seat turboprop might not cost $10 million new and a disaster due to flight deck inexperience (youth) is, of course, not as costly.

Compare the Flight Attendant situation: The FAA requires one FA per 50 pax (or part thereof), preventing any FAs from becoming more productive as time goes by. The older FAs on the 747 make several times the pay of the brand-new 19 year old on the 34 seater - and the only difference is that one is older. No matter how experienced the FA, they never become more productive.

DashPilot

I'll break it down for you.

I make about $30 an hour, and get paid around 90 hrs a month. Comes out to $32,400 a year. That's on third year pay at Piedmont. I spend about 300 hours a month away from base, even more away from home since the CLT base was closed forcing most of us into a 2 leg commute.

When you factor in the amount of time spent from home, roughly 480 hours a month, my pay breaks down to about $5.63 an hour. 37 cents less than McDonalds starts their part time employees.

Add in the 6 to 10 nights that I spend in hotels on my own dime, and it almost costs me money to have this job.

After being in the industry for only a few years, I really can't understand why anyone would want this job. I'm not the only one who feels that way as the more experienced pilots in the industry are leaving. Personally, when my family is in the back of an airplane, I want the crustiest old SOB on the seniority list hauling them around. Not a 1500 hour wet behind the ears wondercaptain.

Come sit through a sim session some time. After seeing what we go through, you'll find that three things keep you safe in an abnormal situation. A well built and maintained airplane, a well trained crew, and an experienced crew. Without the reward for staying in the industry through good pay and quality of life, one of those three has the potential of going away.