"Pay Pilots more than Cab drivers" Article says...

Should be re-titled pay first officers more than cab drivers. For all the public knows(thanks to CNN's wonderful coverage of the US air crash) "The Pilot" refers to the Captain because that other guy is just "the help". Ticket prices won't change. They don't need to change. Money is already there.I have no doubt in my mind the regionals can start every new hire at 2nd yr pay without going into the red.
 
My favorite comment:

mlamarca... Those flights were were fine and safe because why?? You didn't crash? The skill of a pilot isn't tested during everyday flight. It's when they are presented with a problem skill and experience are needed to overcome the problem. Case in point- the USAir flight and the Calgon flight. I don't want the FO one my flight to be a trainee, that's what cargo planes and flight instructing is for.
:)
 
Ticket prices won't change. They don't need to change. Money is already there.I have no doubt in my mind the regionals can start every new hire at 2nd yr pay without going into the red.


Depends. Remember, the REGIONALS don't set the ticket prices. They just set the fees they'll contract the flights for. If they decide to raise those fees, I'd expect to see ticket prices launch up a whopping $2-5 each way. I mean, look at all those people that stopped flying when they tossed in that 9/11 security fee. :sarcasm:
 
The economics don't exist in the industry to support higher wages at the regional level. Nor does the public support higher wages. Not with their wallets, anyway. Orbits.com -> cheapest fare!

Why else do you think people go IAD-DEN through LNK (for example.)

Do you really think (insert your regional) would still be doing 'express' or 'connection' work for the big boys, if your price tag was higher than everybody else?
 
Should be re-titled pay first officers more than cab drivers. For all the public knows(thanks to CNN's wonderful coverage of the US air crash) "The Pilot" refers to the Captain because that other guy is just "the help". Ticket prices won't change. They don't need to change. Money is already there.I have no doubt in my mind the regionals can start every new hire at 2nd yr pay without going into the red.

As we will find out real soon, since the hiring wave ended right about this time last year.
 
The economics don't exist in the industry to support higher wages at the regional level. Nor does the public support higher wages. Not with their wallets, anyway. Orbits.com -> cheapest fare!

Why else do you think people go IAD-DEN through LNK (for example.)

Do you really think (insert your regional) would still be doing 'express' or 'connection' work for the big boys, if your price tag was higher than everybody else?

Believe me, the economics will exist for higher pay as soon as the applicant pool starts running dry and regionals start poaching other regionals pilots just to complete there flights. If Mesa could afford to pay $5000 bucks sign on bonuses a couple years ago I'm sure there will be $8,000 to $10,000 offers from other companies. Wasn't PNCL cancelling flights everyday due to lack of pilots a couple years ago?
 
Sure was, and they didn't care as it was cheaper to pay the penalties to NWA than to hire more pilots.

According to Kellwolf the penalties they paid would have settled the differences on the new pilot contract. Apparently, PNCL management's ego has priority over financial sense...
 
The money isn't there?

This article isn't super current but from what I can tell not much has changed. Although tilton only got paid a Salary of $850k and no bonus in 2008.

http://www.portfolio.com/business-t.../Excessive-Pay-for-Airline-CEOs?page=1#page=1

Bonus paid to underperforming airline CEO=8Million (as an example from what the Delta guy got for whatever it is that he did with the merger)

8,000,000/3000 pilots (give or take 1000)=pay raise of $2666 fo every pilot. or double that if you only want to count FOs.

Granted the math is very general since I tried to make an average model for all airlines including legacy.
 
According to Kellwolf the penalties they paid would have settled the differences on the new pilot contract. Apparently, PNCL management's ego has priority over financial sense...

Yep. Like Todd said, they paid more in penalties than they would have by hiring pilots or settling a contract. Problem was, no one wanted to come here. Seriously, if you're looking to move somewhere or commute and places like XJT, Skywest and Republic are hiring, why go to Pinnacle? That's why they started offering the bonuses, which was contractually illegal since it artificially changes the pay rate for a small group of people to fix their problem. Thing is, people were coming, staying 6 months for the bonus and saying "See ya!" as they left for the other, better paying regionals WITH the bonus $$$.

Problem wasn't really the FOs, it was more on the CA side back then. You could count on at LEAST 2 or 3 CA slots on the latest vacancy going unfilled b/c not enough people bid for it. If anyone cares, they're still offering LOAs and crying overstaffed in June. Yet, quick look at the MEM CA side in June shows a LOT of line holders with 90+ hour lines and 1200 hours of open time for CAs and FOs system wide.
 
Problem wasn't really the FOs, it was more on the CA side back then. You could count on at LEAST 2 or 3 CA slots on the latest vacancy going unfilled b/c not enough people bid for it. If anyone cares, they're still offering LOAs and crying overstaffed in June. Yet, quick look at the MEM CA side in June shows a LOT of line holders with 90+ hour lines and 1200 hours of open time for CAs and FOs system wide.


Yet another regional airline quirk. Why hire more people when you can just break the back of those you already have?
 
Yet another regional airline quirk. Why hire more people when you can just break the back of those you already have?

Better yet, ASA is trying out a new staffing model for June. . .and it's laughable.

One line holding FO is encountering three different captains over a 12 leg 3 day.

Captain A - Legs 1,2,4,5,8,9
Captain B- Leg 3
Captain C - Legs 6,7,10,11,12

This isn't an isolated case either.

Yeah, nice staffing model company. . .:rolleyes:

There are some other nonsense regarding passenger boarding with only FAs on board as well.

But the statement remains true. Might as well break the backs of those you still have rather than hire more people. Damn retarded.
 
Better yet, ASA is trying out a new staffing model for June. . .and it's laughable.

One line holding FO is encountering three different captains over a 10 or 11 leg 3 day.
This isn't an isolated case either.
Yeah, nice staffing model company. . .:rolleyes:
There are some other nonsense regarding passenger boarding with only FAs on board as well.
But the statement remains true. Might as well break the backs of those you still have then hire more people. Damn retarded.

That staffing model seems similar to Eagle. Granted, in our case, the reason staffing pans out like that is because of swap/drop provisions in scheduling along with reserve assignments.

It works okay, most of the time. Makes it harder to tell how effective staffing really is, though, I imagine.
 
Get it while you can. Here there is hardly any open time what so ever. I always personally liked the slightly under staffed to over staffed model.
 
Get it while you can. Here there is hardly any open time what so ever. I always personally liked the slightly under staffed to over staffed model.

Couldn't get any of the open time if I wanted it. We've still got guys that were displaced to FO, so I'm not a big fan of picking up open time until those guys are back. I'm on reserve, and reserves can't pick up open time. We can pick up another reserve day, though! Oh gee, please? 9 hours of airport ready reserve? Can I?

Odds are good that open time will be going to reserves anyway. It's not like the line holders with 90 hours can pick any of it up. Then when guys start timing out or calling in sick, they'll cancel flights or extend/JM guys. Oh wait. They can't really do that since those people might go over 100 for the month.
 
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