hoover

plan 1200 tfp/yr at going rates. I do 1200-1250/yr and I dont pick up much and try to maximize days off.
living in base you'll be able to do better if you desire.
at least with 7 yrs left you wint have to make the decision to upgrade or not

Long Haul

Thanks so much. I haven’t seen the TFP rates anywhere, just the hourly rates on profile page of this website. To get the TFP rate do I take the hourly rate and divide by 1.1?

flyguy81

1 - 75.77
2 - 109.56
3 - 121.98
4 - 134.66
5 - 147.50
6 - 153.93

Those rates will change and go up a lot with a new cba.

Long Haul

Thanks for the trouble, you all deserve a big pay raise, and I hope that you get it!

Lewbronski

Crediting 1144 TFP/yr at SWA, 996 hr/yr at Delta. You'd be shorting yourself about $400K over seven years even if you never upgraded at Delta vs SWA. If you upgraded at Delta at 1.5 yrs onto the NB, you'd be shorting yourself about $1.1M over seven years. You'd be shorting yourself even more if you took the "not-true-WB" upgrade that's available right now at six months at Delta on their 767-300/200 fleet.

Maybe money isn't that much of a factor for you. But in case it is, if you didn't know, now you know.

7 Years JPG.jpg

Lewbronski

That's a topic that is debated. But the default conversion that SWAPA uses is 1.149 TFP/hr.

Long Haul

That is one awesome graph, and exactly the type of data people need. I can see why a lot of young pilots would see WN as a fourth choice these days, which is sad because I remember when it was where everyone wanted to be. In my case money is not the prime consideration, living in base is, which would preclude Delta; but, if I do decide to punch out early from my current job, I’ll be applying to UA and AA, too.

Thanks again to the community for answering.

Lewbronski

Here you go. Same assumptions as the last graph. This time for UA and DL both staying as a FO for 7 yrs and also upgrading as is available right now at each place. Don't know where you live, so I don't know the upgrade situation in whatever particular city you're talking about.

7 Years JPG.jpg

Proximity

I have a very high level of contract knowledge and use every bidding strategy possible to work as little as I can, and I was 10% over that 1144 TFP number last year. A "bid a line and fly it pilot" would have made even more because I flew less duty periods than awarded.

Please explain how to only work 1144 TFP per year.

Lewbronski

I should have said 1,140 TFP because it’s based on 95 TFP/month average. My bad.

I used 83 credit hours/month for the OAL’s, which totals 996 hrs/yr. 83 credit hours times 1.149 (SWAPA’s conversion factor) equals 95.3 TFP. The program I use only allows me to enter integers. So, I rounded to the nearest integer.

Next month’s bid package averages just about 91.5 TFP per line for all the bases. Not all of our pilots “have a very high level of contract knowledge and use every bidding strategy possible to work as little as [they] can,” like you do. Someone who just flies their line and doesn’t have the exceptional contract knowledge that you have are the people who might earn 95 TFP or less in a month.

It’s the exact same metric UA used in 2017 when they published their contract comparison - 1,000 credit hours per year. What I used is modified only to the extent that I rounded to the nearest integer per month that would allow me to make an apples to apples to comparison using UA’s same methodology with SWAPA’s approved conversion factor.

If you want to argue, like SWAPA 1.0 did in the past that we should use what you apparently consider, and they once considered, a more realistic, higher number like 108 TFP/month, then go ahead.

But why?

Lots of people, and I agree with them, argue that doing so is shooting ourselves in the foot in a way similar to that of the people who say we can “just simply pick up an extra two- or three-day” to make up for our lagging contract.

It also ignores the fact that there might come a time at SWA when we’re significantly overmanned and can’t pick up premium or even extra straight flying. They might have enough people to actually start awarding reroutes and JA’s to reserves. Or maybe there’s another global pandemic and we’re all getting guarantee and nothing more. Who knows?

But why anyone would want to make an argument, especially during negotiations and mediation and with a SAV approaching, that attempts to undercut the pilot group’s and SWAPA’s rationale for higher rates is beyond me.

Ya, I know some SWA pilots love to brag to their OAL buddies and others about the “massive” pay check they got flying at SWA and how they’re “tripping over money” every time they come to work but fail to mention or gravel-mouth over the part about the additional effort (computer time, extra days or hours, sacrificed vacation, etc) required to achieve it.

Save the counter-productive chest-beating for the bar or locker room or for when you’re running game at the club or coffee shop. Tell it to yourself in your morning affirmations. But please don’t work against what we’re all (hopefully) trying to accomplish: an industry-leading contract.