Cujo665

Meanwhile your soon to be brothers at B6 are rumored to be going back and forth with management between 17% raise (MGT) and 20% raise (union).... a raise for all, not just newbies.

Just propose taking the B6 A320 rates with a snap-up to whatever they end up with in this negotiation as your way of helping the company merger go more smoothly.

Bluedriver

So management is setting a trap for themselves and just don't know they are screwing themselves?

Lakeaffect

The leverage is attrition. We wouldn’t have nearly the attrition we do now if we raised first year pay, which is exactly why management only wants to raise 1st year. They aren’t thrilled about saving money on the rotation of cheap first year pilots.

Its been 1month of negotiations, not 4years. It’s gonna take a little time.

CincoDeMayo

Haha. Exactly. Cargo has it all figured out.

And to CargoDog, yes the plan is working. 4 years ago we didn’t have the attrition because guys like you were still trying to come over here and fly the Airbus for $50/hr

Thankfully the ExCargoDogs willing to work for $50/hr are drying up. And because we didn’t raise first year pay 4 years ago, attrition is the reason and only reason why management is at the table.

Thankfully the number of guys like you, wanting to work for so cheap, is ending, and rates will have to come up.

dualinput

It wasn’t a critical issue over the last 4 years. Remember CovID?

Classes are not full. There are quite a few no shows each class. That’s facts.

Things also were not at critical mass yet in the timeline. We have been constantly increasing training capacity to handle attrition. Remember doing anything but giving the pilots raises is managements goal so that’s what they have been trying to accomplish. They are currently maxed on training. Now have no shows in class. Now have less applications bc of massive pay increases at regionals. Most importantly combined with all of that, deliveries that were delayed during covid are arriving quickly.

Management may be covering attrition and even a little growth but they are covering it with vastly lower experience which carries its own set of other issues. They however are not covering the amount of growth for the increased rate of deliveries. Lower attrition would allow that training capacity to be used for growth which is what they need. If they solve that problem alone they don’t have any more problems and can stall until a JCBA and they are cashing their golden parachutes.

Ask yourself how much flying we do today compared to pre CovID and ask yourself how many airplanes we currently are operating compared to pre CovID. Ask yourself if what we have today for utilization is what management wants and why higher aircraft utilization is not happening. Also ask yourself how much utilization factors into spirits ability to become and stay profitable.

You haven’t got a clue if you think simply replacing pilots leaving with low cost new hires is something management is ok with and also happy with. Go get a clue.

Excargodog

The leverage IS attrition, but what demographic is doing the attrition.

The attrition in the senior CA group is negligible. Management knows these guys aren’t going to go over to a legacy and restart at the bottom for 92 an hour on reserve. The attrition that counts is FOs and to a lesser extent junior CAs. And with legacies hiring, these people are leaving, but as long as management can replace them with cheap help, they don’t care. They have no real incentive to raise pay generally. Not when they can replace those leaving at $50 k a year.

They’ll be quite happy to never raise CA pay and backfill their FO losses with guys who work for $50k a year. It’s like a “B” scale. It allows current FO jobs to be replaced by more and more less experienced people. And those people will keep coming as the regional model cracks and breaks, because a type rating in a full sized airliner eventually gives them a step up the ladder to someplace else. And as long as management can replace them with another $50k guy, that’s fine with management.

And it’s been four plus years that Cinquo (and a few others) have been saying that screwing over the newbies was giving us leverage and nothing has changed yet.

Excargodog

Not a bad idea, especially with a JCBA to follow closely. And the mediator can’t say it’s unreasonable.

Cujo665

bingo.............

The company can't say it's unreasonable either.

Excargodog

NK has increased their flying more than the legacy airlines have and the legacies aren’t losing pilots to NK much. What you are touting as evidence of success are general issues throughout the industry. Everybody has training constraints, but not everybody has created their own “B” scale by allowing management to onboard labor at a huge discount to industry standard. The only way that attrition can be stopped is higher pay for those not attriting. Triple newbie pay and the cost of attrition will triple. That’ll get managements attention.

CincoDeMayo

Sure, let’s take JBLU rates as Alaska just TA’d rates well above the JBLU rates and JBLU is working on higher rates too.

Yeah, let’s agree to rates lower than the new standard of what pilots are worth with the hope of a catch up to JetBlue. No way. Alaska rates reset the bar, JBLU is working on those rates now for their negotiations, and so should we. And IF the merger fails, we will go back to our own section 6, taking a few years at least, trying for higher rates. No f'in way

Any talk of JBLU rates left the room as soon as the Alaska TA came out.

Swing and a miss, again Cargo

I’ll use your words, “why are you willing to screw over your pilots with low pay?”