HR 5900 Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Administration Extension Act of 2010

[drunkenbeagle]

What would be preferable; a scope clause that allows 50% of domestic flying to be done by a regional carrier, or a scope clause that allows 10% of available seat miles to be outsourced at any size aircraft?

Airline wants to outsource a few 777's to the lowest bidder? Great, but they'll eat up all their seat miles on 30 pilots worth of scope.

Totally with you on that jtrain. Revenue per seat mile is the metric that everyone in the aviation biz looks at except for pilot groups.


What strikes me about aviation is the contrast between just about every other professional job. We certainly "outsource" a lot in the technology biz, but it is generally more expensive to do so. Contractors quickly figure out that if if a major employer is coming to them for assistance freelance, it is because they aren't sufficiently staffed and we price ourselves accordingly.

In most businesses, like mine, it is prudent to keep some operations going at loss for the economy of scale. Even losing money for delta, regional feed is incredibly valuable to the whole - as it would be uncompetitive otherwise.

Being willing to put an employer out of business in negotiations is the only threat you really have. The flying is still going to happen. If it means another regional else ends up doing the flying, at least the pay scales will be that much better and they will be hiring eventually.

 

[Stone Cold]

Totally with you on that jtrain. Revenue per seat mile is the metric that everyone in the aviation biz looks at except for pilot groups.


What strikes me about aviation is the contrast between just about every other professional job. We certainly "outsource" a lot in the technology biz, but it is generally more expensive to do so. Contractors quickly figure out that if if a major employer is coming to them for assistance freelance, it is because they aren't sufficiently staffed and we price ourselves accordingly.

In most businesses, like mine, it is prudent to keep some operations going at loss for the economy of scale. Even losing money for delta, regional feed is incredibly valuable to the whole - as it would be uncompetitive otherwise.

Being willing to put an employer out of business in negotiations is the only threat you really have. The flying is still going to happen. If it means another regional else ends up doing the flying, at least the pay scales will be that much better and they will be hiring eventually.

I will just point out the post jtrain is referring to, here was the gist of my argument...

I think your metric should be how many butts are in the seat vs. how many pilot are on property

ATN said seats don't matter, and I do not agree totally with that. If you have more or equal amounts of mainline pilots on property, but still outsource more and more flying, then it, as was rightfully pointed out in a previous thread, is a net loss. If you are cutting 50 seaters by 20%, but outsource more ASM's actually being flown, well, that is a loss in my book.

 

[drunkenbeagle]

The meaningful thing to negotiate would be how many mainline pilots / regional pilots as a percentage of all flying.

Guess what? It's about 50/50 now.

 

[Stone Cold]

The meaningful thing to negotiate would be how many mainline pilots / regional pilots as a percentage of all flying.

Guess what? It's about 50/50 now.

Is the 50% number based on departures or ASM, though? Either way, once again," I think your metric should be how many butts are in the seat vs. how many pilot are on property". If you are flying less of your own customers, but keeping the same amount of pilots, that is a net loss in my book.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

That is not entirely true. You are honestly telling us that if you reduce the number of airframes, all is good, even if those airframes are 737 size (or CRJ 1,000,000 or whatever the latest coming out of Brazil and Canada are)? I think your metric should be how many butts are in the seat vs. how many pilot are on property.

Scope is all about jobs. Seats or ASMs are absolutely meaningless when it comes to pilot jobs. Pilots don't move seats, they move airframes. Pilots don't produce ASMs, they produce block hours. That's why every airline bases their staffing model on pilots per block hour. It takes the same number of pilots to move a CRJ-200 from LGA to ATL that it does to move a 757 from LGA to ATL. The second airplane produces a lot more ASMs, but that doesn't matter to pilot jobs.

Remember, an airline wants the maximum number of daily departures between two cities. That's how they get a disproportionate share of the market. An airline with 50% of the daily departures will frequently have 65% of the market share. Reducing the number of daily departures by increasing the size of the airplane to keep a steady number of ASMs is bad for business. The airlines aren't interested in that. They want to match the right airplane for the right market. Because of that, block hours are the key metric that affect pilot jobs. The block hours won't change. What matters is who is flying those same block hours.

 

[derg]

Sweet monkey bananas.
My private school tuition 8 years ago cost less than that.
That is ridiculous.

I think Riddle was 1300/semester when I started in 1988.

I have NO FLIPPING CLUE how we expect to compete with developing nations (and DEVELOPED nations) where tuition costs little or nothing.

 

[drunkenbeagle]

ATN, totally disagree on the business side of things.

I could care less about the number of pilots. Having the revenue per seat to pay them is what matters in the end.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

ATN, totally disagree on the business side of things.

I could care less about the number of pilots. Having the revenue per seat to pay them is what matters in the end.

drunken, you're missing the point. You won't have the revenue per seat to pay them if you don't have the frequency, because market share is acquired in this business based on frequency. That's just how the airline business works. Always has.

 

[drunkenbeagle]

drunken, you're missing the point. You won't have the revenue per seat to pay them if you don't have the frequency, because market share is acquired in this business based on frequency. That's just how the airline business works. Always has.

Market share means crap when you lose money doing it.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Market share means crap when you lose money doing it.

Certainly true, which is why airlines want to be able to match the appropriate sized airplane to the market. That means they'd rather have ten CRJ-200s than have three 757s. Same number of seats, but greater frequency, which leads to more market share, the ability to command a higher price, and more profit.

None of which changes the basic point: pilot jobs are all about block hours, not ASMs.

 

[drunkenbeagle]

I probably blow 50-60k a year on airline seats, that money goes to what leaves at 6AM or what comes back around 6 PM. It is almost always mainline.

Biz travelers like me care about schedule, but a mid day RJ is where you will rarely see us.

And honestly, someone is blowing smoke up your ass about frequency mattering. It matters for regional feed making connections to some extent, but that's it:

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

And honestly, someone is blowing smoke up your ass about frequency mattering. It matters for regional feed making connections to some extent, but that's it:

Sorry, but these are established facts in the airline business. Have been for decades now.

 

[drunkenbeagle]

Sorry, but these are established facts in the airline business. Have been for decades now.

What are facts?

 

[pete2800]

Do you really not understand the risk management takes on a new hire? Do you think the company invest the same amount of money and encounters the same level of risk on a new hire vs. a PC or an upgrade? Like I said to you before, I was just trying to explain the way it is. I didn't come up with this idea nor do I promote it but I do understand the logic. I will play devil's advocate and remind you that most good jobs out of college that start you off at $50k don't require the company to also spend $35k or more for additional training with no guarantee that you will even get through IOE.

I'm not trying to argue with you or step on any toes... and I apologize that my previous response to you was born of a generalization of new hires. Thanks for not responding in kind. However, this is the only portion of your post I have an issue with. Most new jobs out of college that start at 50k also do not have training contracts. The training contract is the way for management to recoup lost revenue for training, not low first-year pay. One, or the other. That is their risk-mitigation. Training is the cost of doing business, and it's not my responsibility as the employee to foot the bill. They could just as easily source the money for training from somewhere else, but pilots have allowed low first-year pay to become the norm. If they want to cut down on training costs, they should pull a Southwest and hire people that are already type-rated on their airplane.

Low first-year pay, or "probationary" pay BS to begin with. I'm just as much a required crewmember my first year as I am my second. The company gets the same product my first year, and my second. I'd accept the notion of "probationary" pay if it was a true probation environment. For that to occur, there would have to be a qualified pilot on board to take my position at any time if my performance was sub-standard.

This is a symptom of a greater problem, though. The problem that we have is the payscales. Not simply the fact that the numbers aren't what most of us would like them to be, but the excessively long progression that they have. 12 years? 18 years? In some cases even more? The only thing this serves to do is to absolutely destroy a pilot's ability to make a lateral move if their current position becomes untenable. In what other industry does your experience mean less than nothing when it comes time to negotiate your pay at a new job? Honestly, a payscale should be no longer than about 5 years, with cost-of-living adjustments along the way, and continuously once maxed out. If I were an engineer, and my firm began making decisions that resulted in an unstable financial environment in which the future of my company was in doubt, I'd leave. If I was a middle-manager, and my career advancement at my company stagnated, I'd leave. If I was a regional director of sales, and I was unhappy with my pay, I'd leave. In each of these cases, I would have a chance to begin my employment at a new company or firm at a comparable salary. That is how the rest of the world works. In aviation, we become trapped once we reach a level of income necessary to support living in this country. I know for a fact that it's completely impossible to buy a house in my region of the country on first year pay. The math doesn't work. What flexibility does that leave me once I do buy a house? I certainly can't start over at another company...

I would imagine that management would think twice about screwing over their employee groups if the employees had the financial opportunity to take their ball and go home. Something that most other workers in this country have the ability to do.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

What are facts?

Fact 1: The carrier with the greatest number of flights between any two cities achieves a disproportionately high market share

Fact 2: The carrier with the most market share is able to generate the highest yields

 

[Roger Roger]

I think Riddle was 1300/semester when I started in 1988.

I have NO FLIPPING CLUE how we expect to compete with developing nations (and DEVELOPED nations) where tuition costs little or nothing.

Perversely, I think easy access to government cheese via student loans is partly what has fueled the bloated costs of tuition.

 

[z987k]

I'm not trying to argue with you or step on any toes... and I apologize that my previous response to you was born of a generalization of new hires. Thanks for not responding in kind. However, this is the only portion of your post I have an issue with. Most new jobs out of college that start at 50k also do not have training contracts. The training contract is the way for management to recoup lost revenue for training, not low first-year pay. One, or the other. That is their risk-mitigation. Training is the cost of doing business, and it's not my responsibility as the employee to foot the bill. They could just as easily source the money for training from somewhere else, but pilots have allowed low first-year pay to become the norm. If they want to cut down on training costs, they should pull a Southwest and hire people that are already type-rated on their airplane.

Low first-year pay, or "probationary" pay BS to begin with. I'm just as much a required crewmember my first year as I am my second. The company gets the same product my first year, and my second. I'd accept the notion of "probationary" pay if it was a true probation environment. For that to occur, there would have to be a qualified pilot on board to take my position at any time if my performance was sub-standard.

This is a symptom of a greater problem, though. The problem that we have is the payscales. Not simply the fact that the numbers aren't what most of us would like them to be, but the excessively long progression that they have. 12 years? 18 years? In some cases even more? The only thing this serves to do is to absolutely destroy a pilot's ability to make a lateral move if their current position becomes untenable. In what other industry does your experience mean less than nothing when it comes time to negotiate your pay at a new job? Honestly, a payscale should be no longer than about 5 years, with cost-of-living adjustments along the way, and continuously once maxed out. If I were an engineer, and my firm began making decisions that resulted in an unstable financial environment in which the future of my company was in doubt, I'd leave. If I was a middle-manager, and my career advancement at my company stagnated, I'd leave. If I was a regional director of sales, and I was unhappy with my pay, I'd leave. In each of these cases, I would have a chance to begin my employment at a new company or firm at a comparable salary. That is how the rest of the world works. In aviation, we become trapped once we reach a level of income necessary to support living in this country. I know for a fact that it's completely impossible to buy a house in my region of the country on first year pay. The math doesn't work. What flexibility does that leave me once I do buy a house? I certainly can't start over at another company...

I would imagine that management would think twice about screwing over their employee groups if the employees had the financial opportunity to take their ball and go home. Something that most other workers in this country have the ability to do.

That's mostly only true of the 121 world. 91 and the better areas of 135 very much value more experience. It's why I can't go be an FO of a Jet that is significantly smaller than a crj200 right now. If you've got a couple type ratings in something relevant and a bunch of experience, you can take your ball and go home when the current job is no longer working.

 

[Stone Cold]

Scope is all about jobs. Seats or ASMs are absolutely meaningless when it comes to pilot jobs. Pilots don't move seats, they move airframes. Pilots don't produce ASMs, they produce block hours. That's why every airline bases their staffing model on pilots per block hour. It takes the same number of pilots to move a CRJ-200 from LGA to ATL that it does to move a 757 from LGA to ATL. The second airplane produces a lot more ASMs, but that doesn't matter to pilot jobs...

How does that not affect pilot jobs? If you are outsourcing more and more flying to CRJ's, then there are less 757's for mainline to fly. You can keep the same block hours at mainline, and still have block hours added to the RJ flying, and it is a net loss. Same thing I was saying...either way, the mainline pilots lose out on flying.

...Remember, an airline wants the maximum number of daily departures between two cities. That's how they get a disproportionate share of the market. An airline with 50% of the daily departures will frequently have 65% of the market share. Reducing the number of daily departures by increasing the size of the airplane to keep a steady number of ASMs is bad for business. The airlines aren't interested in that. They want to match the right airplane for the right market. Because of that, block hours are the key metric that affect pilot jobs. The block hours won't change. What matters is who is flying those same block hours.

If you increase frequency with smaller jets to an outsourced company, then block hours will increase...for the outsourced jobs. You can say frequency is key all you want. It sounds just like the argument management used years ago when introducing those CRJ-200's. Now, where are those 200's? Aren't most airlines trying to park them for bigger airplanes with those same outsourced jobs? That is scope, and that is what is happening with the outsourcing. Using bigger planes, with a little less frequency because fuel is now the biggest expense.

Certainly true, which is why airlines want to be able to match the appropriate sized airplane to the market. That means they'd rather have ten CRJ-200s than have three 757s. Same number of seats, but greater frequency, which leads to more market share, the ability to command a higher price, and more profit.

None of which changes the basic point: pilot jobs are all about block hours, not ASMs.

You can say all you want about it not being about ASM's and all about block hours, but right now, YOU are arguing management's position for them. If all you care about is keeping what hours you have while more and more seats are being flown by outsourced labor, your pilot group is not going to increase, and you are losing out on your flying.

Please tell me the flaw in my logic, because all I see is you arguing management's point that I have heard for decades about why scope should be relaxed (we need more frequency). Then, once the 50 seaters are past their usefulness, well, we now need bigger planes for the regionals to fly. Don't worry, we'll keep you at the same block hours, while the outsourced jobs and ASM's keep going to the "smaller-ish" planes.

 

[Jet]

I'm not trying to argue with you or step on any toes... and I apologize that my previous response to you was born of a generalization of new hires. Thanks for not responding in kind. However, this is the only portion of your post I have an issue with. Most new jobs out of college that start at 50k also do not have training contracts. The training contract is the way for management to recoup lost revenue for training, not low first-year pay. One, or the other. That is their risk-mitigation. Training is the cost of doing business, and it's not my responsibility as the employee to foot the bill. They could just as easily source the money for training from somewhere else, but pilots have allowed low first-year pay to become the norm. If they want to cut down on training costs, they should pull a Southwest and hire people that are already type-rated on their airplane.

Low first-year pay, or "probationary" pay BS to begin with. I'm just as much a required crewmember my first year as I am my second. The company gets the same product my first year, and my second. I'd accept the notion of "probationary" pay if it was a true probation environment. For that to occur, there would have to be a qualified pilot on board to take my position at any time if my performance was sub-standard.

This is a symptom of a greater problem, though. The problem that we have is the payscales. Not simply the fact that the numbers aren't what most of us would like them to be, but the excessively long progression that they have. 12 years? 18 years? In some cases even more? The only thing this serves to do is to absolutely destroy a pilot's ability to make a lateral move if their current position becomes untenable. In what other industry does your experience mean less than nothing when it comes time to negotiate your pay at a new job? Honestly, a payscale should be no longer than about 5 years, with cost-of-living adjustments along the way, and continuously once maxed out. If I were an engineer, and my firm began making decisions that resulted in an unstable financial environment in which the future of my company was in doubt, I'd leave. If I was a middle-manager, and my career advancement at my company stagnated, I'd leave. If I was a regional director of sales, and I was unhappy with my pay, I'd leave. In each of these cases, I would have a chance to begin my employment at a new company or firm at a comparable salary. That is how the rest of the world works. In aviation, we become trapped once we reach a level of income necessary to support living in this country. I know for a fact that it's completely impossible to buy a house in my region of the country on first year pay. The math doesn't work. What flexibility does that leave me once I do buy a house? I certainly can't start over at another company...

I would imagine that management would think twice about screwing over their employee groups if the employees had the financial opportunity to take their ball and go home. Something that most other workers in this country have the ability to do.

You're preaching to the choir here. I've always told people that ask what is the one worst negative aspect of the job is, that it's having to start from the bottom when you move laterally even when not by choice. I've lived this as a kid and during my own experience already. When I was growing up I got to see the aftermath of my father lose close to 20 years of seniority working for the largest airline in the free world which no longer exist today. I myself should be on second year pay but because of a furlough, I had to move laterally and start from scratch.

Now back to playing devil's advocate. Most airlines do not have training contracts and when I say most airlines this is not just regionals. Most majors give a 40% to 90% pay raise for year two, while the average regional pay raise is around 33% making it obvious that almost all airlines under pay first year pilots. Training contracts rarely hold up in court and I've only seen a few judges go through with them. The last one being a broke GLA pilot who will be hard to collect from and even with wage garnishment, it will take almost half a decade to recoup assuming there is even income to garnish. I haven't done the math but I'd take a guess and say that less than 20% of 121 airlines have a training contract. Another fact to consider are the sim or ioe wash outs. The company is still billed in full a lot of the time and although I don't agree with this, they will pass this cost on by pulling it out of your first year pay. Again, not my ideas, just telling it how management views it.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Sweet monkey bananas.
My private school tuition 8 years ago cost less than that.
That is ridiculous.

Take another tax cut and call me in the morning. It'll fix ALL our problems.

OMG life at a regional is the worst thing ever! NOTHING could be worse!!

Negative, I can think of at least one job I've had that has a worse lifestyle than a regional. Maybe even two.