Consultant Sees Scope Relaxation Coming for US Airlines

cmill said:
What does pay have to do with the price of a hotel room in new jersey?
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I think your point to me is that my question is meaningless.

I imagine him desperately seeking to answer the questions with a quick google search. Since he'll find little in the way of compensation numbers except for those which the media have written on and archived online, the source for most (that I've seen) of the current airline pilot wages are from the RAA and that leads me to conclude Cohen's numbers will quickly come up. Assuming he's in a rush to make his poorly conceived, original premise, he'll quote those. So I'm laying odds, that this O&M will hastily quote an often sited statistic that is quite meaningless.

I hope I've answered your question, although I have to wonder at your desire to express befuddlement in such a strange choice of words. Does using an overused cliche offend your taste and that's why you choose to change the verbage around? It simply appears, to me, that quickly dressing up your rebuke makes you look lazy and glib. Maybe Jersey is home?
 
jynxyjoe said:
I think your point to me is that my question is meaningless.

I imagine him desperately seeking to answer the questions with a quick google search. Since he'll find little in the way of compensation numbers except for those which the media have written on and archived online, the source for most (that I've seen) of the current airline pilot wages are from the RAA and that leads me to conclude Cohen's numbers will quickly come up. Assuming he's in a rush to make his poorly conceived, original premise, he'll quote those. So I'm laying odds, that this O&M will hastily quote an often sited statistic that is quite meaningless.

I hope I've answered your question, although I have to wonder at your desire to express befuddlement in such a strange choice of words. Does using an overused cliche offend your taste and that's why you choose to change the verbage around? It simply appears, to me, that quickly dressing up your rebuke makes you look lazy and glib. Maybe Jersey is home?
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Nah, just an unclear remark about how regional pilots supposedly make plenty of money, and how easy it is to find a "good" hotel room in new jersey for $40 a night.

Fail on my part.

Calm down, im the last person on here thats going to argue against stricter scope and higher wages.

Another thought though, it seems extremely short sighted for mainline crews to relax scope for higher wages. All the money in the world wont mean anything when all the pax have been farmed out to the regionals.

Edit: Even if i was from jersey id never admit it.
 
cmill said:
Nah, just an unclear remark about how regional pilots supposedly make plenty of money, and how easy it is to find a "good" hotel room in new jersey for $40 a night.

Fail on my part.

Calm down, im the last person on here thats going to argue against stricter scope and higher wages.

Another thought though, it seems extremely short sighted for mainline crews to relax scope for higher wages. All the money in the world wont mean anything when all the pax have been farmed out to the regionals.

Edit: Even if i was from jersey id never admit it.
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Are you talking about that gem of a Cohen quote about finding a hotel room in Newark? If so, very funny, completely went over my head.
 
jtrain609 said:
It's already gone, guys.

The sooner we realize this, the faster WE can get in front of management.

If we continue to put our heads in the sand over this issue, we'll lose.
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I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. We haven't lost 100-seat airplanes by any stretch of the imagination. One airline in the country is permitted to outsource 86-seat airplanes. Everyone else is limited to outsourcing 70-76 airplanes, with limits on how many. If we draw the line in the sand now, then we'll still be ok. If we let the seat creep continue, then we'll truly be finished as a profession.

Personally, I'm not too worried. I see all MECs digging in their heels on scope issues. Managements will find it very difficult to get any MEC to give one more seat on scope.

FlyChicaga said:
Do people here seriously believe we should be making $500K+? Look, I want to see improvements in the airline industry, and pilots in general, but we can't get ridiculous.
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Do I think that you and I should? No, because we're flying 50 and 117 seat airplanes. But the DAL 747 Captain? Yep, I think it's perfectly reasonable for him to be able to make $500k.
 
O&M said:
Mr. Taylor, you make a good point. I guess I didn't do a very good job of making mine. My point was that most people earn less than the typical airline pilot, and yet they own homes, have families, and live a decent life. If non-pilots can do it, why not pilots?
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I have endured higher than average personal sacrifices that I've made, I have higher responsibility than average, must maintain a broader skillset than average and I have an far FAR above average intolerance for failure in my professional than average.

An average income is wholly insufficient for my above-average professional responsibilities, expectations, sacrifices and skillset.

I don't care if someone who dumps the trash is living phat. If he has a bad day at work, he probably tipped over someone's container. If I have a bad day at work, it's going to be on Fox, CNN and MSNBC.
 
Doug Taylor said:
I have endured higher than average personal sacrifices that I've made, I have higher responsibility than average, must maintain a broader skillset than average and I have an far FAR above average intolerance for failure in my professional than average.

An average income is wholly insufficient for my above-average professional responsibilities, expectations, sacrifices and skillset.

I don't care if someone who dumps the trash is living phat. If he has a bad day at work, he probably tipped over someone's container. If I have a bad day at work, it's going to be on Fox, CNN and MSNBC.
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:yeahthat:
 
I hope we spend significantly more effort in raising the pay of our least compensated pilots than trying to get "500k/yr for a 747 capt."
 
ATN_Pilot said:
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. We haven't lost 100-seat airplanes by any stretch of the imagination. One airline in the country is permitted to outsource 86-seat airplanes. Everyone else is limited to outsourcing 70-76 airplanes, with limits on how many. If we draw the line in the sand now, then we'll still be ok. If we let the seat creep continue, then we'll truly be finished as a profession.

Personally, I'm not too worried. I see all MECs digging in their heels on scope issues. Managements will find it very difficult to get any MEC to give one more seat on scope.
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And this is where I disagree. The business model is fundamentally changing under our feet right now, and we're not taking notice. We believe that we'll be able to save our jobs through scope, but we won't. Another bankruptcy will happen, and a bankruptcy judge will blow scope wide open while the pilot group has no say in the issue, and that's IF pilots don't give it away themselves.

Instead, putting the money and power in the regionals is the way forward; give them mainline level work rules, and mainline level pay for the number of seats they transport. If you make it so that there is no financial incentive to outsource the work, then the company won't outsource the work.

There is ALWAYS a way to abrogate a contract. It might be through bankruptcy court, it might be through some other means. But I assure you, if the continued focus is on scope and scope alone, pilots will continue to falter.

Make sure if the jobs go elsewhere that they pay as well and have the same work rules and benefits and the companies will stop trying to outsource.

I know this isn't the party line, and I know ALPA doesn't agree, but I believe it is the only way forward.
 
jtrain609 said:
And this is where I disagree. The business model is fundamentally changing under our feet right now, and we're not taking notice. We believe that we'll be able to save our jobs through scope, but we won't. Another bankruptcy will happen, and a bankruptcy judge will blow scope wide open while the pilot group has no say in the issue, and that's IF pilots don't give it away themselves.

Instead, putting the money and power in the regionals is the way forward; give them mainline level work rules, and mainline level pay for the number of seats they transport. If you make it so that there is no financial incentive to outsource the work, then the company won't outsource the work.

There is ALWAYS a way to abrogate a contract. It might be through bankruptcy court, it might be through some other means. But I assure you, if the continued focus is on scope and scope alone, pilots will continue to falter.

Make sure if the jobs go elsewhere that they pay as well and have the same work rules and benefits and the companies will stop trying to outsource.

I know this isn't the party line, and I know ALPA doesn't agree, but I believe it is the only way forward.
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Curious, this way of thinking goes down the path that regionals are no longer a stepping stone, and are now accepted as a career? I ask because I've long thought that the direction, stepping stone or career, needs to be defined; as only one fork in that road can be taken, not both. Once committed to one, all effort must go to support that path solely. Just my 2 cents, but this point seems to be one of the hangups that keep the rest (pay, QOL, work rules, etc) from progressing in one direction or the other.
 
MikeD said:
Curious, this way of thinking goes down the path that regionals are no longer a stepping stone, and are now accepted as a career? I ask because I've long thought that the direction, stepping stone or career, needs to be defined; as only one fork in that road can be taken, not both. Once committed to one, all effort must go to support that path solely. Just my 2 cents, but this point seems to be one of the hangups that keep the rest (pay, QOL, work rules, etc) from progressing in one direction or the other.
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I think that flying airplanes for a living should be accepted as a career.

Every job should be treated as if it will be your last, and we should look towards quality of life, work rule and pay increases across the board.

Or I guess said more simply, if they can't screw with us, then we'll win. If we let them divide us (regional vs. mainline), we lose.

Me? I want to win.
 
jtrain609 said:
And this is where I disagree. The business model is fundamentally changing under our feet right now, and we're not taking notice. We believe that we'll be able to save our jobs through scope, but we won't. Another bankruptcy will happen, and a bankruptcy judge will blow scope wide open while the pilot group has no say in the issue, and that's IF pilots don't give it away themselves.
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I think this is a bit of a stretch, to say the least. A bankruptcy judge is unlikely to tinker with job security, especially if there isn't any other carrier out there that is allowing outsourcing of bigger airplanes that the bankrupt carrier has to compete against. We had problems in bankruptcy this last cycle because of LCCs and start-ups that had work rules and pay rates significantly below the bankrupt legacy carriers. That's a recipe for disaster, since a judge is likely to base his ruling on competitive position for the bankrupt carrier. If the other carriers don't allow 100-seat outsourcing, then a judge isn't going to impose it on the bankrupt carrier's pilot group. In addition, we have a decent chance of fixing the bankruptcy laws before the next down cycle.

Instead, putting the money and power in the regionals is the way forward; give them mainline level work rules, and mainline level pay for the number of seats they transport. If you make it so that there is no financial incentive to outsource the work, then the company won't outsource the work.
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Impossible. The NMB simply won't allow it. Not even the Obama NMB. You can't come to the table with positions completely out of line with industry standards and expect the NMB to release you, and companies will never agree to such huge increases without the threat of a release hanging over their heads. Your strategy would lock regional carriers into never-ending Section 6 processes that just allow wages to further degrade as cost of living increases. Bargaining to bring the regionals up to mainline standards in a realistic manner would require a couple of decades (at least) of pattern bargaining.
 
I can see Jtrain's point, and I agree except for one problem: if regionals are flying outsourced flights under the same model we are now, there's still no job security. That's my biggest fear right now. I'm pretty darn sure Pinnacle is likely to cease operations when 2017 rolls around. Where will the flying go? HOPEFULLY it'll go to Delta. More likely, you'll see ASA/Mesaba/Comair or another regional that's survived the apocalypse grow.

I think we've also got too many guys that are happy to be here to ever get mainline pay and work rules at the regionals. One or two regionals? Yes, but then they have the bullseye on their backs when cost cutting time rolls around unless they own their own flying.
 
kellwolf said:
I can see Jtrain's point, and I agree except for one problem: if regionals are flying outsourced flights under the same model we are now, there's still no job security. That's my biggest fear right now. I'm pretty darn sure Pinnacle is likely to cease operations when 2017 rolls around. Where will the flying go? HOPEFULLY it'll go to Delta. More likely, you'll see ASA/Mesaba/Comair or another regional that's survived the apocalypse grow.

I think we've also got too many guys that are happy to be here to ever get mainline pay and work rules at the regionals. One or two regionals? Yes, but then they have the bullseye on their backs when cost cutting time rolls around unless they own their own flying.
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Solution: portable longevity.

We can out fox management, or we can continue to follow their lead.

Currently we're following their lead.
 
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