The Evolution of the Pilot Profession
06-27-2011, 05:20 PM
#31
New Hire
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Apr 2011
Posts: 2
The Evolution of the Pilot Profession #2
The first ‘thread’ I posted on the Airline Pilots Forum, APF, “The Evolution of our Profession”, was sent to the CEO of American Airlines with a minor modification. I also sent a copy to the Chief Pilot and the President of APA. I briefly spoke with the Chief Pilot the following day, and they were interested. The first thread described what our air transportation system could be like if you can answer two simple questions. This second thread is about the substantial salary increase that is available.
In that light, here is number two. Since I received such an eclectic response on APF, I will post both of these threads on “Challenge and Response” on the APA web site. I will follow this with a series of threads on why we should evolve. As we proceed we will transition to how we will evolve the pilot profession.
Almost all the pilots I have flown with for the past several years already know this whole process. They are just as experienced as you and are the same ‘type A problem solver’ as you. They all played ‘devils advocate’, like you will. All of their questions were answered. In the end they all wanted to proceed. The only difference between them and you is, I was speaking to them directly. A physical presentation of this process is way more efficient then a static one, so please be patient.
There are three things we need to know in order to determine what the market will allow concerning our salaries. First, we need to know how many professional pilots there are in the U.S. Second, how many passengers/packages fly on a daily basis. Third, the success rate of the airline industry as a whole in raising the average fee to fly on a daily basis due to external costs.
Let’s start with how many pilots. To determine this we could contact the FAA , ALPA, CAPA... etc, and get some kind of list. We don’t really need that much detail. Instead we need to play a little game of pretend to get us in the right mind set. Let’s pretend we are living in the year 1970. You and I are two very senior Captains. One of us is the president of ALPA National and the other, for simplicity, is the representative for every other professional pilot in the country. Since this is all crazy talk, let’s pretend ‘we’ have a combined vision for the future of commercial aviation in the U.S . ‘We’ see the future from the hindsight of today. ‘We’ see that in eight years the Civil Aeronautics Board, CAB, will go away and be eliminated by 1985. ‘We’ see the ‘across the board erosion’ of the commercial aviation industry. In addition, ‘We’ see the present and future plan of the FAA called “NextGen”. ‘We’ see this continuing to erode our profession, passenger service, and safety. Costing Billions in wasted dollars for the airlines, the passengers, the U.S. government. I will explain NextGen in another thread, or you could read ahead if you “Google”, “NextGen Concept of Operations”.
‘We’ decide to solve this problem. Our first step is to start a “New Hire only” national seniority list. ‘We’ know we will be gone when the new hire list actually takes effect. A “new hire only” national seniority list created in 1970 would never effect us, so why care about starting one. As the ‘two pilots’ serving as the professional representatives for aviators in the U.S., ‘we’ pick the parameters for such a list. The first one is, when you were paid to fly high performance aircraft. ‘We’ decide somewhere between flying a Cessna 172 and a Boeing 747 or an F16 you took a check ride on and then started receiving a pay check. For example, when a civilian pilot began to fly a business jet, turbo prop, or helicopter. For a military pilot, it would be when you graduated pilot training. This is just a first hack at the national list. Don’t get caught up in the minutia of where any individual will fit on a nonexistent national list; Remember, I want to know how many professional pilots we would have today, it is only a number. It does not matter what our predecessors would have picked back then, because every “new hire”, you and me, would only care that we are on the ‘New Hire only’ list. If our predecessors had started a ‘new hire only national seniority list’ back in 1970, it would have been a paper work nightmare for them, but not today.
So here we are today, 2011. Our predecessors would all be gone and we would all accept and be on the national seniority list. Now, I know the list would not be operational today because of the wasteful way we train. We will cover training in another thread. So, back to the ‘number’, how many commercial professional pilots would that be then? Well, ALPA has approximately 55,000 professional pilots, CAPA has another 25,000, so, hmmm... let us round up to 100,000 pilots just to keep it simple. I will explain later why it will not make any difference if there were twice that many. The point is, we have conservative estimation and rounded up.
The second question, how many revenue passengers/package enplanements are there on the average day in the U.S.? Specifically, how many people and how many packages fly in the U.S. on a daily basis? These are the people paying the bills, right? I am going to ignore the revenue that comes from cargo. After all every passenger pilot knows there is no profit in cargo...right? But let’s include the cargo pilots in our original total pilot figure.
Well, according to ‘RITA’, the Research and Innovative Technology Administration Bureau of Transportation Statistics states “Passengers All Carriers - All Airports, the U.S. is averaging over 2.1 million, M revenue passenger enplanements a day”. Sounds like a big number. Let’s round down to 2M passengers a day. By the way, the average growth rate in the last 40 years for passengers is around 3 to 4% per year, and cargo is around 7 to 8% per year. This average growth rate has not changed, no matter what is happening including every recession and every historical aviation event. Now, we have two of the three numbers, 100,000 pilots and the 2M passengers per day.
Lastly, we need to know the success rate of the commercial aviation industry to increase the average fare on a daily basis. In other words, let’s say one airline raises their average fare today by $5 today, and by the end of the day, every U.S. air carrier has matched that fare increase. That would mean tomorrow, for example, all 2m passengers who buy a ticket will pay, on average, another $5 for their ticket.
How many of these successful fare increases have there been in the last four years? In 2007, there were over 17 successful fare increases by the industry as a whole, and almost twice that number in 2008. Remember, ‘fuel surcharges’ in the news papers, which are an external cost. In 2009, a downed economy, there were over 15 successful fare increases. This year, 2011, the industry is already exceeding ten successful increases.
Even in a down economy, the industry can get a fare increase when the increase is driven by external costs they can’t control and pursued by the whole industry. External costs, for the most part, are pursued by the airline industry as a whole with profit in mind. All external costs that are required to operate the airline are, therefore, a non-competitive issue: tires, fuel, fees...etc..
Of the dozens and dozens of successful fare increases by the industry as a whole in the last five years, let’s look at two. In November of 2007 SWA raised the average fare $5 and two weeks later AA raised it again another $20. In less than as many days, the average fare went up $25 from external costs i.e. “Fuel Surcharges”, and yet more people and packages flew.
Let’s look at what a “$25” industry wide fare increase used to improve pilots salary means to you. Here comes some ‘math in public’... $25 times 2M passengers per day, divided by 100,000 pilots, times 365 days a year, equals... over $180,000 per pilot in addition to what you make today. This simply shows the money is there to improve our salary, but not under our present process. In the present process, our unions are using arcane procedures to improve our contracts. It is as if CAB still exists. Simply, we never adjusted to the end of the CAB. Think about it, we are the only profession that determines salary based on a ’date’ rather than experience. This leftover from the days of the CAB will be covered later in another thread.
The above example means you only have to answer two simple questions to change the process. The first question is: How much seniority are you willing to give up to double your salary? The Second question is really a variation on the first, and is based in Title 45 U.S. code, the Railroad Labor Act: If nothing changes for you how much do you need to quit? Sounds like more crazy talk again, I know, but you will see it makes complete sense in the end. Since I began this with some crazy talk, I will stop right there. Until there can be only one, Angus
In that light, here is number two. Since I received such an eclectic response on APF, I will post both of these threads on “Challenge and Response” on the APA web site. I will follow this with a series of threads on why we should evolve. As we proceed we will transition to how we will evolve the pilot profession.
Almost all the pilots I have flown with for the past several years already know this whole process. They are just as experienced as you and are the same ‘type A problem solver’ as you. They all played ‘devils advocate’, like you will. All of their questions were answered. In the end they all wanted to proceed. The only difference between them and you is, I was speaking to them directly. A physical presentation of this process is way more efficient then a static one, so please be patient.
There are three things we need to know in order to determine what the market will allow concerning our salaries. First, we need to know how many professional pilots there are in the U.S. Second, how many passengers/packages fly on a daily basis. Third, the success rate of the airline industry as a whole in raising the average fee to fly on a daily basis due to external costs.
Let’s start with how many pilots. To determine this we could contact the FAA , ALPA, CAPA... etc, and get some kind of list. We don’t really need that much detail. Instead we need to play a little game of pretend to get us in the right mind set. Let’s pretend we are living in the year 1970. You and I are two very senior Captains. One of us is the president of ALPA National and the other, for simplicity, is the representative for every other professional pilot in the country. Since this is all crazy talk, let’s pretend ‘we’ have a combined vision for the future of commercial aviation in the U.S . ‘We’ see the future from the hindsight of today. ‘We’ see that in eight years the Civil Aeronautics Board, CAB, will go away and be eliminated by 1985. ‘We’ see the ‘across the board erosion’ of the commercial aviation industry. In addition, ‘We’ see the present and future plan of the FAA called “NextGen”. ‘We’ see this continuing to erode our profession, passenger service, and safety. Costing Billions in wasted dollars for the airlines, the passengers, the U.S. government. I will explain NextGen in another thread, or you could read ahead if you “Google”, “NextGen Concept of Operations”.
‘We’ decide to solve this problem. Our first step is to start a “New Hire only” national seniority list. ‘We’ know we will be gone when the new hire list actually takes effect. A “new hire only” national seniority list created in 1970 would never effect us, so why care about starting one. As the ‘two pilots’ serving as the professional representatives for aviators in the U.S., ‘we’ pick the parameters for such a list. The first one is, when you were paid to fly high performance aircraft. ‘We’ decide somewhere between flying a Cessna 172 and a Boeing 747 or an F16 you took a check ride on and then started receiving a pay check. For example, when a civilian pilot began to fly a business jet, turbo prop, or helicopter. For a military pilot, it would be when you graduated pilot training. This is just a first hack at the national list. Don’t get caught up in the minutia of where any individual will fit on a nonexistent national list; Remember, I want to know how many professional pilots we would have today, it is only a number. It does not matter what our predecessors would have picked back then, because every “new hire”, you and me, would only care that we are on the ‘New Hire only’ list. If our predecessors had started a ‘new hire only national seniority list’ back in 1970, it would have been a paper work nightmare for them, but not today.
So here we are today, 2011. Our predecessors would all be gone and we would all accept and be on the national seniority list. Now, I know the list would not be operational today because of the wasteful way we train. We will cover training in another thread. So, back to the ‘number’, how many commercial professional pilots would that be then? Well, ALPA has approximately 55,000 professional pilots, CAPA has another 25,000, so, hmmm... let us round up to 100,000 pilots just to keep it simple. I will explain later why it will not make any difference if there were twice that many. The point is, we have conservative estimation and rounded up.
The second question, how many revenue passengers/package enplanements are there on the average day in the U.S.? Specifically, how many people and how many packages fly in the U.S. on a daily basis? These are the people paying the bills, right? I am going to ignore the revenue that comes from cargo. After all every passenger pilot knows there is no profit in cargo...right? But let’s include the cargo pilots in our original total pilot figure.
Well, according to ‘RITA’, the Research and Innovative Technology Administration Bureau of Transportation Statistics states “Passengers All Carriers - All Airports, the U.S. is averaging over 2.1 million, M revenue passenger enplanements a day”. Sounds like a big number. Let’s round down to 2M passengers a day. By the way, the average growth rate in the last 40 years for passengers is around 3 to 4% per year, and cargo is around 7 to 8% per year. This average growth rate has not changed, no matter what is happening including every recession and every historical aviation event. Now, we have two of the three numbers, 100,000 pilots and the 2M passengers per day.
Lastly, we need to know the success rate of the commercial aviation industry to increase the average fare on a daily basis. In other words, let’s say one airline raises their average fare today by $5 today, and by the end of the day, every U.S. air carrier has matched that fare increase. That would mean tomorrow, for example, all 2m passengers who buy a ticket will pay, on average, another $5 for their ticket.
How many of these successful fare increases have there been in the last four years? In 2007, there were over 17 successful fare increases by the industry as a whole, and almost twice that number in 2008. Remember, ‘fuel surcharges’ in the news papers, which are an external cost. In 2009, a downed economy, there were over 15 successful fare increases. This year, 2011, the industry is already exceeding ten successful increases.
Even in a down economy, the industry can get a fare increase when the increase is driven by external costs they can’t control and pursued by the whole industry. External costs, for the most part, are pursued by the airline industry as a whole with profit in mind. All external costs that are required to operate the airline are, therefore, a non-competitive issue: tires, fuel, fees...etc..
Of the dozens and dozens of successful fare increases by the industry as a whole in the last five years, let’s look at two. In November of 2007 SWA raised the average fare $5 and two weeks later AA raised it again another $20. In less than as many days, the average fare went up $25 from external costs i.e. “Fuel Surcharges”, and yet more people and packages flew.
Let’s look at what a “$25” industry wide fare increase used to improve pilots salary means to you. Here comes some ‘math in public’... $25 times 2M passengers per day, divided by 100,000 pilots, times 365 days a year, equals... over $180,000 per pilot in addition to what you make today. This simply shows the money is there to improve our salary, but not under our present process. In the present process, our unions are using arcane procedures to improve our contracts. It is as if CAB still exists. Simply, we never adjusted to the end of the CAB. Think about it, we are the only profession that determines salary based on a ’date’ rather than experience. This leftover from the days of the CAB will be covered later in another thread.
The above example means you only have to answer two simple questions to change the process. The first question is: How much seniority are you willing to give up to double your salary? The Second question is really a variation on the first, and is based in Title 45 U.S. code, the Railroad Labor Act: If nothing changes for you how much do you need to quit? Sounds like more crazy talk again, I know, but you will see it makes complete sense in the end. Since I began this with some crazy talk, I will stop right there. Until there can be only one, Angus
06-27-2011, 06:37 PM
#33
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2006
Position: A320
Posts: 1,347
Fare hikes are all well and good, but fares drop too. The government isn't too fond of collusion... just ask Crandall. So now everyone takes a $180,000 pay cut when fares go down?
I'm much more in favor of semi-regulation to allow a fixed minimum price per seat mile. This would stop any and all undercutting whereby a customer is won via the company losing money initially. (Or in simpler terms no airline could charge less than it costs them to fly there.)
I'm much more in favor of semi-regulation to allow a fixed minimum price per seat mile. This would stop any and all undercutting whereby a customer is won via the company losing money initially. (Or in simpler terms no airline could charge less than it costs them to fly there.)
06-27-2011, 06:45 PM
#34
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2006
Position: A320
Posts: 1,347
While typing my above comment I had to google American Airlines and president to remember Crandall's name. My mind is fading... but I digress.
I don't know if this is old news to any of you or not, but I wound up finding the following Op-Ed piece by him and it was very well thought out.
If you are interested it's a quick 2 minute read.
Charge More, Merge Less, Fly Better - New York Times
I don't know if this is old news to any of you or not, but I wound up finding the following Op-Ed piece by him and it was very well thought out.
If you are interested it's a quick 2 minute read.
Charge More, Merge Less, Fly Better - New York Times
06-27-2011, 07:02 PM
#35
Da Hudge
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: Poodle Whisperer
Posts: 17,473
While typing my above comment I had to google American Airlines and president to remember Crandall's name. My mind is fading... but I digress.
I don't know if this is old news to any of you or not, but I wound up finding the following Op-Ed piece by him and it was very well thought out.
If you are interested it's a quick 2 minute read.
Charge More, Merge Less, Fly Better - New York Times
I don't know if this is old news to any of you or not, but I wound up finding the following Op-Ed piece by him and it was very well thought out.
If you are interested it's a quick 2 minute read.
Charge More, Merge Less, Fly Better - New York Times
But "lower airline fares" is the "better school lunches!!" of the modern career politician.
It's the ultimate, easy running platform.
06-27-2011, 07:22 PM
#36
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2006
Position: A320
Posts: 1,347
Understood, but Crandall dodges that by suggesting a cut in the taxes paid per ticket rather than the current broken model of attacking airlines for short term gains.
06-28-2011, 01:09 PM
#38
With The Resistance
Joined APC: Jan 2006
Position: Burning the Agitprop of the Apparat
Posts: 6,191
"Extortion, outwresting, and/or exaction is a criminal offence which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either money, property or services from a person(s), entity, or institution, through coercion. Refraining from doing harm is sometimes euphemistically called protection. Extortion is commonly practiced by organized crime groups. The actual obtainment of money or property is not required to commit the offense. Making a threat of violence which refers to a requirement of a payment of money or property to halt future violence is sufficient to commit the offense. Exaction refers not only to extortion or the unlawful demanding and obtaining of something through force, but additionally, in its formal definition, means the infliction of something such as pain and suffering or making somebody endure something unpleasant.
In the United States, extortion may also be committed as a federal crime across a computer system, phone, by mail or in using any instrument of "interstate commerce". Extortion requires that the individual sent the message "willingly" and "knowingly" as elements of the crime. The message only has to be sent (but does not have to reach the intended recipient) to commit the crime of extortion."
In the United States, extortion may also be committed as a federal crime across a computer system, phone, by mail or in using any instrument of "interstate commerce". Extortion requires that the individual sent the message "willingly" and "knowingly" as elements of the crime. The message only has to be sent (but does not have to reach the intended recipient) to commit the crime of extortion."
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