Lewbronski

Good for you! As Meister Eckhart said, "If you want the acorn you must break the shell." It sounds like you have broken open the shell and gotten to the acorn. Some people spend a lifetime never realizing complete freedom from ego. I can't say that I have.

You start off by saying, "Here's the issue," as if because you say it's an issue, it's an issue. Who's it an issue for? Who are you speaking for besides yourself? Wouldn't it be more accurate to begin by explaining, "Here's my issue ..."?

And then you go on to allege that the charts are "exaggerations" without providing any evidence for your allegation. Also wrapped up in your allegation is an insinuation, again without evidence, that I'm attempting to mislead people. I'm not.

You attempting to explain that my charts "turn reasonable and/or knowledgeable people off" is based on what? Is waterski less reasonable or knowledgeable than yourself or jetset? Excargodog? You state this claim as if it's a certainty. Is it a certainty? It doesn't seem like it is given the evidence available on this thread alone.

What would you consider "reasonable," "knowledgeable," and unexaggerated in a compensation comparison chart? If the charts depicted Delta pilots flying a less than equivalent number of credit units than SWA pilots? If the upgrades at Delta were depicted at, I don't know, ten years and the upgrades at SWA were shown at, say, four or five years?

Why am I having to guess at what you consider a "reasonable," "knowledgeable," and unexaggerated compensation comparison? Please lay out very specifically exactly what parameters you believe I should be using and please cite your sources for why you think your parameters are more "reasonable," "knowledgeable," and unexaggerated.

Do you have objective sources of evidence like the MIT Airline Data Project to support whatever you might contend is a "reasonable," "knowledgeable," and unexaggerated comparison beyond the anecdotal evidence of whatever stories you've heard and filtered through your mind from your sampling of buddies at OAL's and at SWA?

Please let me know what would satisfy you.

RJSAviator76

Lew, I appreciate everything you're doing. I'm not trying to be an a$$, but when you're putting in absolutes where the numbers are variable, I just don't see the benefit of it because the numbers will be wildly inaccurate. I do think these charts and graphs are much more usable when you extend it over the shorter time frame.

Sorry, why would I insult you... unless you consider disagreeing being insulting? In any case, it wasn't my intent.

Huh? Where?

Lewbronski

I guess I don’t know what you mean by “absolutes.” Can you please clarify?

C’mon brother! That’s sarcasm, right? Or did you not do so well on the Invisible Gorilla test?

RJSAviator76

Sorry, long day.... I think I've beaten this into the ground. You're using one set of numbers for too long for it to be meaningful to me. Some may find it useful, I suppose. I do think being more realistic as I've outlined before would serve us all better.

I only see a reference to a single DEN captain.... I'd hardly call it "Yessies being out in force." As I said before, I don't doubt we're gonna have a fantastic SAV vote. I am concerned that come voting time for any TA, this pilot group will vote to pass some garbage... but unlike you and MudhammedCJ, I'm not ready to throw this pilot group under the bus just yet or start calling people names when they haven't even had an opportunity to cast a vote for SAV yet.

PNWFlyer

Point of order! No one at Delta is sitting in the left seat at 6 months seniority. They we awarded the position at 6 months. It will be many more months before they are trained or paid for that seat. It’s closer to a year.

Excargodog

And here we may find some agreement, because you clearly express this as your opinion, which you are obviously as entitled to as any of the rest of us. It’s an extrapolation and the confidence intervals for the value of each dot on the line will expand with time (although they too are protected somewhat by the Central Limit Theorem) so more distant extrapolations tend to be more ‘iffy’ than closer ones, which doesn’t even account for ‘black swan’ events like Age 67, Single pilot plus AI or remote operator ops, huge fuel spikes, bankruptcy or pandemic. I mean who would have predicted - five years ago - that the Big Three woukd incentivize massive early retirements that would so ripple through their multi aircraft fleets that a 25 year old regional FO could not only get hired but be holding a narrow body upgrade in little more than a year. So Lord yes, anything can happen, and you are certainly entitled to your opinion that these extrapolations imply a mathematical certainty that can’t possibly exist.


The problem exists with ANY prediction. Not that the numbers of these extrapolations are perfect, but question is if any other extrapolations are going to be substantially better? One could make the case that long term extrapolations are in many cases better. I’ve done quite well over the years in the stock market with a ‘buy and hold’ strategy and seen friends lose (and yes, occasionally gain) fortunes by trying to time the market and in doing so ending up buying when the market is high and everyone is feeling good about it and selling when the market is low because everyone feels crappy about it. Buying high and selling low is scarcely a winning formula, but it sure corresponds to one’s feelings.

But the question remains - not so much for those who already have years of longevity and seniority invested, but for those at the start of their careers who are WANTING to look 30 years out. Is there a model that is BETTER than this one?

RJSAviator76

Excargodog, fair enough.

You're a Delta guy, right? If I'm mistaken and you're a Southwest guy, my apologies on the confusion and a bit of a longwinded explanation and what you already know, but here we go... We have a third-party product website called myseniority.com. The website is super helpful and informative about your seniority. You can manipulate certain parameters such as growth rates when it comes to figuring out your seniority at retirement or at certain percentage based on mandatory retirements, etc. The website also gives a snapshot of what you can hold, at what percentage. I know Delta has something similar. When I was hired on here, and I plugged in my numbers into myseniority, it said it would take me 16 years or so to upgrade. When I put 3% growth per year, the website said it would have taken me around 12 years to upgrade. That just didn't make any sense as it was showing a linear 3% annual growth of the seniority list, yet the number would somewhat make sense at the end of the line. Back in 2016, we were hiring big numbers again, so 3% wouldn't make sense. If you tried to make it real in the near term and using 10% growth numbers or higher, then the further along you went, the numbers didn't make sense long term because the numbers used would be linear, so at the end of the line, the numbers would be laughable - we'd have something like 30,000 pilots if you used the numbers that made sense over the shorter period over the course of one's whole career.

It's the same thing here, at least the way I see it. It is far too simplistic to make statements like that over a 30 year career... but just like myseniority and using more realistic numbers, this can be a much more accurate tool and present a much better point if used in shorter timeframe.

Cyio

Unless something has changed Excargo is with NK.

Excargodog

Yep. Just talking stats here, not brand loyalty…

Cyio

Oh I know, just answering for the above. Hope you’re doing well.