CanoePilot

Didn't say that they should be banned. I know it's business, but that doesn't mean I have to wish the best for the part of the industry chipping away at me.

Airline seats are a commodity just like any other, the more you add the cheaper it becomes.

My only complaint with spirit and swa are their management practices with industry pricing. Their pilot groups at least are well compensated and have industry standard or obove rules. It's JetBlue and the rest of the non union groups who openly collaborat with their managements to pull down the industry.

JoeyMeatballs

I hear ya...........

pilotpayne

Well it's good to know you have no idea what you are talking about.
Ask any jetBlue pilot about our collaboration with management and how we'll it's going.
Btw our pay rates are better than Spirits and yours in some cases just an FYI.
Good thing Airways was never one of the lowest paid because it allows you to look down on the rest of us, oh wait you were.
Good thing that merger was approved.

gloopy

Yes it is.


Except…

Now, finally, the legacies can afford to fight back and agressively seat dump onto the "established" LCC routes. The legacies can afford to bleed big time your entire route structure and yet still make huge profits over all. And they don't even have to get into "predatory pricing" (funny isn't it that LCC's can gut established fares offering pennies on the dollar but if a legacy tries the same to them they squeal to the government for protection) but there's nothing to stop predatory capacity. What's your cheapest bucket? We'll match it on twice the seats per day you have. Bring it.

You love that capitalism…right up until it works the other way.

JoeyMeatballs

I'll believe it when I see it, or when I'm out of a job..............


Btw, any airline that chooses to "bleed" another LCC route structure until they are gone would be right back where They were 10 years ago, bankrupt. SWA, JetBlue, Virgin, Frontier & Spirit make up a lot of city pairings , but go ahead and lose money on all overlapping routes, should work out nicely for you

gloopy

This point is worthy of discussion because it comes up constantly, not only with LCC's but regionals and everyone else really.

First off lets look at regionals. They hired and upgraded thousands while their corresponding legacy networks furloughed thousands. Obviously anyone that cares about this career/profession would like to see those outsourced jobs return. Not for revenge or hubris, but to see more good paying jobs and fewer lower paying jobs. Ditto for the LCC's.

Its the same thing WRT LCC's. The more they grow, the fewer better paying jobs there are at the legacies. Your points about USAir's pathetic wages are duley noted and I have been critical of that myself, but it finally looks like those days are behind them.

If there are X number of narrow body pilots jobs available in the US, would you rather, from a profession standpoint, those jobs go to a legacy or to JB? Obviously if JB is where you are at you personally want growth by almost any means necessary, but for the profession as a whole which is better? That's all I'm saying. There is only so much flying to go around and the legacies have spent the vast majority of the last 15 years culling themselves so the phenom LCC young bucks can grow as fast as they wanted.

Every time you open a new "Blue City" where do you think the hundreds of thousands of additional seats a year are going to come from? Obviously, you are hoping your company can win them in the market from existing capacity. That's fine, but when pilots on the other side of that equation see their airlines face massive cost and revenue issues from your expansion, it becomes very clear that every airline can't grow like you are growing. Someone has to shrink to accommodate that growth in a relatively flat market. JB's formula since its inception has been to storm marketshare by gutting yields while remaining untouchable with ultra low CASM. Legacy airlines are finally poised to fight back. That's not a value judgment and has nothing to do with the moral superiority of any perticular seniority list. Its just business.

Put it this way…JB expanded like crazy while legacy airlines experienced gut wrenching contraction followed by stagnation lasting half a career. JB pilots benefitted from that in a huge way, and were more than happy about it. Again, that's fine. Nothing wrong with that from an individual standpoint. If the cycle were reversed, however, would the legacy pilots be imoral for enjoying their airlines finally winning for a change?

Packrat

I wouldn't worry too much about the rhetoric from the "900 lb. gorillas" on the site.

Just ask them how their A-plan is doing.

gloopy

So how is your A-plan doing?

And in case you haven't noticed, the fate of "A-plans" isn't just a legacy competence issue. They are collapsing anywhere and everywhere. Even sacred cow ones are being looked at now.

Oh so speaking of A-plans, how is your B-plan doing? Let me guess…a lower percentage of a lower wage, yet you were attempting to use that to win some sort of arguement about something?

Packrat

Paying off nicely every month, thanks for asking. The $1.5M from the B plan is doing fine as well.

Just pointing out that it wasn't too very long ago, DAL was in Chapter 11 and the hubristic crowing around here was a bit more muted.

But, you boys enjoy being on top of the world...for now.

I remember when Pan Am pilots were there. And when United pilots were there. And when everyone wanted to work for Continental. And when American was the airline of choice.

But when you're on the top of the pyramid, you're surrounded by slippery slopes that only lead in one direction.

A little modesty here on Delta Pilot Central may be in order.

gloopy

That's pretty much what I'm saying. For a decade and a half the darling LCC's were upgrading in less than half the time legacy pilots were on furlough. If either group is guilty of Pan Am top of the world arrogance, its the wundergrowth LCC's that are finally cresting the peak. The legacies, which have only now even begun to hire the slightest trickle to provide relief to their bottom reserve FO's who have been clinging by their fingernails for well over a decade, are hardly the arrogant ones. LCC's act like they are entitled to unquestioned infinite growth even if it comes from existing capacity and when anyone challenges that they accuse them of being arrogant and mean.