Pineapple Guy

The problem is we are NOT a fixed expense. Because different pilot groups are willing to fly for dramatically different rates. And that will always be the case until we come up with a national pay scale. And THAT will never happen until we provide a safety net for those who demand the national rate, and their company liquidates...

But no one ever wants to go there...

Rogue24

Funny thing is that most of the pilots that fall in to the first group, want the pay back. I have not ran in to one 07-08 hire that says they are happy with making 80 something a year.

I will not argue the second.

Actually, many of the workrules we have have been surpassed by those of the Delta Connection counterparts. Our once saving grace is ALV, and the max pickup window. Get rid of that and go to just a random money assignment of block hrs and you would see a workrule section that many regionals easily beat.

Rogue24

Pineapple;

Partially true, but the with the industry consolidation you will see the Lion's share of pricing power among four carriers. All of which will look similar, except for the debt burden of LUV.

forgot to bid

I was just trying to answer 88s question on how much we cost and then how much do we cost per given passenger. And whether we can expand our costs substantially or not. That was my best guess.

acl65pilot

Training costs are a corporate cost. That number has been reduced greatly in the last five years.

Payroll taxes will go up as we pay more taxes, and I am sure that corporate will bring that to our attention.

sailingfun

A national pay scale is prohibited under the railway labor act. Every airline pilot needs to read the RLA and the court rulings that define how it is enforced. We are also forbidden from having a national union. That is why ALPA is structured as a association at the national level and each airline forms its own union.

sailingfun

We can only hope so. Their product and service is horrible. We have started calling AMS Atlanta East since it seems to be trying to be just like Atlanta. I have waited to be parked for extended periods of time. Waited for ground power, waited up to 45 minutes for wheelchairs and watched the staff abuse our passengers. The switch to KLM there has been a disaster. The only good thing is that management is well aware of it.

Pineapple Guy

sailingfun, not sure where you got this info but I can say it is absolutely not true. Send me a PM if you want the proof.

DAL 88 Driver

I don't really see that. Maybe we don't meet the strict definition of a "fixed expense", but pilot costs have historically been significantly less variable than what we have seen in the last decade. Pilot compensation at the major airline level has a long established precedent of a certain standard of living. That standard has now been basically cut in half.

There have always been pilot groups willing to fly for dramatically different rates. It never required 40%+ pay cuts for the majors before. I don't see anything different now, except that management took advantage of a unique opportunity with the post 9/11 environment. And they took it to us hard. And we let them.

So what do we do now? Are we going to just resign to the idea that our profession will never again provide the standard of living that it historically has? Do we really put that little value on what we do? Are we going to bury our heads in the sand and hope that... somehow... magically... while inflation continues to march on... small incremental increases are going to restore our profession?

I don't pretend to have all the answers. It's certainly not going to be easy. But I don't see how LM's strategy could come anywhere close to achieving restoration. Best I can tell... it doesn't even appear to be the objective.

Scoop

Originally Posted by forgot to bid
Give or take isn't it roughly $1.6-1.8B a year for all of us?

That's my bet. Anyone in the know what to tell me if that's close? You can divide that by the available seat miles and multiply it by a given distance. Just rough idea.

Use these numbers if anyone has a excel spreadsheet out:
http://www.airlinefinancials.com/upl...AL_Q2_2010.pdf

So, if we cost $1,800,000,000.00 and we have 194,000,000,000 available seat miles. If you divide that out its $0.0093/mile or on a 500 mile trip $4.84. That seems off though. I'm beat, sorry.


The number you come up with is for 1 seat. Assume a 737-800 and you need to mutliply by 160 which yields:

$744 for a 500 mile flight - which seems in the ballpark.

Scoop