80ktsClamp

Everyone tops out after 12 years and most are hired anticipating 30+ year carreers. Your logic doesn't follow.

newKnow

If you have a deep PA voice, they extend the pay scale to 20 years though.

80ktsClamp

That's the Richard Anderson's favorite PA boys club. ....Ladies.

Jack Bauer

And not more than 1 in 10 of all words in your PA is "jargon".

Will

My logic I think is pretty simple. A pilot hired at age 30 will top out at age 42, giving them 23 years at the top of the pay scale. Hire a 45 year old pilot, that pilot only rides the top of the pay scale for 8 years. A much cheaper employee to employ for the length of there career. Not only in pay, but vacation, sick time, etc. I agree Delta does not have to look for a replacement pilot for 35 years compared to 23. But at this current time replacement pilots are not hard to find. Longevity is what makes a pilot group expensive. If Delta hires all guys in there 30's pay roll is going to be expensive for a long time.

newKnow

Replacement pilots might not be hard to find, but they are expensive to interview, do background checks on, & train. Plus, every new hire exposes the company to increased liability. If I were a betting man, I'd bet above all else, Delta Air Lines wants good people, regardless of what their age is.

Jack Bauer

Will, I still don't think you are getting it. All Captains at Delta have been at Delta for 12 years so they are all top of the pay scale for any given equipment. A percentage of the pilot group will always fill the top paying seats whether they are 35 years old or 60 years old. In theory Delta would actually save money if a young guy got to his top airplane and camped there for many years as opposed to costing the company multiple training events as goes retire and new guys switch seats.

Columbia

Assuming 12,000 pilots, there are 6,000 maxed out CAs and 6,000 FOs. It matters not if those 6,000 maxed out CAs have been there 12 years or 35. Once one CA retires, another replaces him. Every CA will be 12 years.

80ktsClamp

Your logic is simple, but simple doesn't mean correct. Currently more than 88% of the DL pilot group is topped out on longevity. This isn't Pinnacle where longevity is considered a cost to be mitigated.

As newK said, they are looking for good pilots that will be long term assets and not liabilities.

At peaks of advancement cycles there have been a handful 7-8 year captains, but that is typically around when the music stops. Junior captain now is over 13 years. Only about 1100-1200 out of 11800 pilots are not on 12 year scale.

RockyBoy

Age doesn't come into play with pilot costs unless guys are upgrading in less years than the top pay scale. So at Delta it doesn't matter because nobody is upgrading in less than 12 years.

I follow your logic, but when a Delta guy retires they are replaced by another who gets paid just the same although eventually a newhire at the bottom of the payscale will be reqired. There is some cost savings in that, but it really only becomes significant enough to outweigh the costs of recruiting and training if the retiring guy is replaced with a lower paid guy.

There are guys who look at this and it can be significant in the regional world. They call it the juniority effect and it does save lots of money at places that have fast upgrades. If you can retire a guy who is on 8 year captain pay and replace them with someone on 2 year captain pay then it's huge. This is one reason why stagnation at regionals has caused pilot costs to rise to a point that alot of the cost savings at regionals is no longer there.