NineGturn

When I was first starting out in aviation and was flight instructing in a light twin. I flew with a guy who was a B767 Captain at American. He walked my application in for me (despite my low time) but he told me the best advice he could give me was to find a nice corporate job. It turns out he really wasn't happy and wanted to let me know it wasn't all the glamour and fun I thought it was back then. I did fly corporate for a while and loved it...the job disintegrated as they often do. One of my colleagues then now flies for a great company, flies high performance jets all over the world (as I once did) and his job is hands down better than any airline job I've ever heard of.

I've seen plenty of guys voluntarily walk off careers at a major airline, giving up their seniority for good, to fly for a private company.

I will reiterate also that I am not in favor of a national seniority system...it's as ridiculous a notion as a company seniority system in my opinion.

I agree that seniority systems have benefited many pilots, but it's also served to damage the profession on a much larger scale. It's the basis for entitlements and head in the sand attitudes that work against the forces of supply and demand that would otherwise have made pilot compensation far greater than it is today. You only think you have a great salary at your major airline...I suspect it could have been driven much higher by free market forces...except that you would have been forced to "climb the corporate ladder" and actually keep a positive attitude on the way up...something corporate pilots understand.

Captain Tony

FWIW, it's not the seniority system that makes pilots start over, it's management. Even if all the unions voted to abolish seniority, management still isn't going to compensate you based on your longevity at your previous company. as said many, many times, pilots are all selfish pricks who will sell each other out to get what they want. That's what the seniority system was designed to stop.

BoilerUP

I don't think such a 756 pilot "thinks" he's a "better pilot" than a RJ captain.

But let's be real, if you went from the left seat of a RJ at Carrier A to the left seat of a 757 at Carrier B, you just got a career windfall of epidemic proportions.

Accordingly, if you were a 10 year RJ captain at Carrier C and a 17 year 737 FO at now-shut down Airline D came in above you, is that not also a windfall for the guy who just lost his job?

People who advocate this are doing so out of their own self-interest (as GooglesPiano mentions) seemingly without consideration of the downside. And if this industry has taught people in it anything...there is ALWAYS some sort of downside.

NineGturn

It's not about compensating you based on your longevity at your previous company...

It's about hiring a qualified professional into a position that you are suited for based on your experience (which was gained from your previous company) and their requirements. They would pay you market rates which would most likely be something that would encourage you to leave your previous company (equal or higher pay). It would totally break the ridiculous training cycles we have today and greatly reduce training costs. If airlines acquired new airplanes and needed a captain they could just hire someone directly into the left seat who is qualified. It would be much cheaper than upgrading an FO from a different type which means the airline must not only train the upgraded FO but replace the FO as well.

I can almost see your faces cringing as you say "What the F...?"

There are several aspects of a free market economy that apply to pretty much any other civilian profession that pilots need to appreciate and understand.

First, you are not entitled to an upgrade simply because you got hired before the other guy. You are entitled based on your ability to compete for said job (upgrade) against a large pool of qualified candidates both from inside and outside the company. As you rise to the top of that pool with work experience and recognition you become more qualified and more competitive until one day you are either upgraded or you walk to company B that offers you that upgrade.

Second, once you become a captain it's very unlikely you would ever go back to being a first officer in such an environment, except for extreme industry wide recession and downsizing which has never really happened long term. Even if your company goes belly up, the industry as a whole would absorb you because someone has to carry all those passengers.

Third, pilots need to get over this pipe dream of someday getting that cushy schedule where they can fly four scheduled days a month and get paid $300K a year. You will work a normal and reasonable schedule from the day you start your career to the day you finish. Because companies that abuse pilots will have a tough time keeping them and they are sill limited by FARs. That's actually better than other entry level professionals who may be forced to work 24 hour shifts because there's no regulations to protect them.

Last...you are not entitled to anything!! You must earn your pay and you will be rewarded based on market supply and demand which would certainly be higher than what it is today. Some people call it ass kissing but it's also known as a professional attitude.

Maybe the seniority system was designed to stop this but it didn't really work did it?

I understand that it's exceedingly difficult to change the current system and unlikely to happen. I just want pilots to be able to see past the limitations of the system and understand what is really going on.

Captain Tony

The only reason those are windfalls is because the compensation at the regionals is kept artificially low. It is the modern day B/C scales.

Is it because we fly smaller planes and are therefore inferior? Of course it is. Surely the guy who flies 5 legs a month is better than the pilot who flies 5 legs a day.

fosters

People who are for a national list (almost all commuters) wish to do so because they are unwilling to take the temporary QOL hit going to a major will entail. They are unwilling to take the $50k-$60k pay cut and go back on reserve, most likely commuting to it.

They want to jump the line. End of story.

The regionals have very little negotiating capital. That is why you see F/O's making $35-$40/hr there and F/O's at the majors making $150/hr. If you owned your own brand, your slots, etc. you would have more pull at the table.

I can empathize with people who have been at the commuters for 15-20 years why they would want to stay there. I understand it. But it's their own fault they are there. They've missed at LEAST 3 huge hiring cycles at the majors and decided to stay put for whatever reason. At my commuter, if you look at the seniority list, you'd see years 1-8 or so then a gap to years 12-15 or so. All the mid level people punched out.

iahflyr

I totally agree that the seniority system is a major cause of problems in the pilot profession, but I would argue that the perfect world would involve no seniority system AND no unions.

Look at other highly skilled professions (doctors, lawyers, engineers). They are able to demand high wages because:
1. They can leave Company A for Company B if they are unhappy with the work, wages, benefits, lifestyle, etc...
2. Their wages are based on supply and demand and not artificially high (WB major captains) and artificially low (regional FO) depending on where the unions decide to allocate the money during contract negotiations.

In the union system, you have captains at major airlines making 200k+, and regional FO's making 30k. No other highly skilled profession has such a huge split for the average worker doing essentially the same job. This also creates a huge problem for us as pilots. It tells new pilots to the industry to just suck it up and endure the crappy wages and crappy QOL because in a few years life will be so much better. If the wage gap weren't so large, pilots would not put up with 30k to enter the profession (and low regional FO wages would need to come up).

In a perfect world, a regional FO would start at a much higher rate, and a major captain would make less money as well. If a company is having a hard time filling regional FO slots, they would raise the pay to attract more pilots. Your advancement would be based on experience, education, how well you fly in the sim, your safety track record, etc... The better pilots would be WB captains and the crappy pilots won't make it that far simply because they are older. This has many positive safety and efficiency gains. The guys who are flying your 300+ pax equipment will be much better pilots and not just the pilots who have been around the longest. The free market (i.e., not a union contract) will naturally take the industry this way if we let it. It has for all the other highly skilled professions.

NineGturn

Ha...the egos of some of my colleagues astounds me sometimes. What is it about a guy when he puts on a uniform and Ray Bans? And then...what's this fascination with fuselage size? (don't answer that) The highest performance jets I've ever flown are smaller than any airliner. Most fifty seaters require more skill to fly than a late model Boeing or Airbus...once you get past the systems.

Not necessarily. It depends on the RJ type...757s are old and obsolete. The RJ experience may be worth more these days on the free market. Besides, in a free market environment the 757 pay could be about the same as the RJ pay depending on the carrier. Airlines used to transition captains from DC-9s and MD-80s to 757s...why not an RJ? Unless it just comes down to fuselage size...then yes...it's a windfall of an ego boost and the pilot may need larger Ray Bans.

This is exactly why I'm advocating against any seniority system...national or company. Same crap, different menu. Honestly, if the above scenario seems so ridiculous when applied across two separate companies, why is it ok when applied across just one company? I'll reword it slightly....

...if you were a 10 year RJ captain at Carrier C and your airline goes under and you go to Carrier E as an FO in same type where a second year captain with one fifth your flight time remains above you forever....all because carrier E underbid your contract to code share with company D. Then the 17 year old 737 FO from company D is ****ed that he can't upgrade as his airline outsources all their flying to company C and E...but he can't go and work for them either because he's locked into a seniority list and would have to start over as an RJ FO.

Why do think the 10 year RJ captain from company C or even the 17 year 737 FO from company D is less entitled than the second year FO at the regional? Just because that's the way it is?

BoilerUP

So which major airline utilizing a seniority system for career advancement do you work for again?

Ford & Harrison, by chance?

NineGturn

While I agree with our overall sentiment (obviously since I started this thread ) I have to disagree with this one sentence.

In a perfect world I think senior pilots may actually make even more money...Much the way the Chinese are paying HUGE salaries for foreign pilots to come fly their planes. In a perfect world you wouldn't see the huge gap in salaries between large and smaller airliners. Some gap but not as pronounced.

FOs would still start out with low pay for the first year or so because as new pilots they would have no value to offer but then it would go up drastically as they would almost immediately be more marketable with the experience they receive in the first year alone. But...they would never have to repeat that low entry level wage again in their career even if they switched jobs. That's how the free market works.

The difference in a free market would be that as an FO it really wouldn't make much difference how large or small the airplane was...an FO is an FO. Obviously the size of the airplane would affect your ability to later compete for upgrade jobs into a larger airplane but you wouldn't see the progression from RJ Captain to Boeing/Airbus FO as you do now. It really doesn't make economic sense to waste experienced captains as FOs again in larger planes...better they work their way up as Captains. There is no technical reason why you need experience as a jet captain before you can be a first officer in a larger airplane...that's just a recent phenomenon born from the current seniority based airline jobs economy that is unique to the USA.