No, I'm not kidding.

Yes, I am familair with the pay scales at both Eagle and Mainline.

Are you familair with the number of seats in an MD80 vs. the number of seats in an RJ? Are you familair with the number of airport-to-airport miles flown per block hour in an MD80 vs. in an RJ? These are the factors that effect per unit cost.

The RJs have only 50 seats. For each mile (airport to aiport) those seats generate 50 available seat miles. The MD80 has 150 (?) seats so for every mile it generates 150 ASMs. So far, the MD80 crew is three times are productive for each hour that they are being paid.

The RJ flies a shorter average stage length than does the MD80. The taxi, takeoff, departure, climb and arrivial, approach, landing, taxi phases of flight are the least productive as the crew is still being paid at the same hourly rate but the airplane is moving slower and is not moving in a straight line between the departure and destination. The result is that the flights which spend a larger percentage of their block time in level cruise flight produce more ASMs per hour of flight crew pay. The RJ averages shorter legs so the RJ spends a higher percentage of it's time in the inefficient portions of flight so the average number of ASMs produced is even lower producing a greater than 3:1 efficency advantage to the MD80.

On a per unit cost basis, the RJ crew is OVERPAID in relation to the MD80 crew.