SkyWest Pay Proposal Out

jtrain609 said:
That's exactly right. The money IS there, it's just a matter of how it's going to be spread out. Among the already rich, or amoung the people that make the money for the airlines.
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So true. Look at this way.

I went to delta's website and checked out a fare for a route that I know skywest flies. $227 from SLC to LAX on a Skywest CRJ700.

Figure an average load, so we'll say %70 so that's 49 people. This $227 was a round trip fare and the lowest I could find for the random dates that were already in there. Its a 2 hour flight so round trip a first year f/o (current rates) would make $76 for the round trip. Divide that 76 by the number of people on the airplane and for the entire round trip, each person is paying you $1.55 out of that $227. That's what, 0.0068% of the fare? I think you could get more by going around the cabin asking for tips!

Its not enough to say "well at least we're better than ___" because they suck too! But at least they have the ability to go "yeah...that's not really gonna work for us."

Disclaimer: I really suck at math, so if I screwed something up in the above calculation, please let me know so I can fix it and look stupid to the least amount of people possible.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
So true. Look at this way.

I went to delta's website and checked out a fare for a route that I know skywest flies. $227 from SLC to LAX on a Skywest CRJ700.

Figure an average load, so we'll say %70 so that's 49 people. This $227 was a round trip fare and the lowest I could find for the random dates that were already in there. Its a 2 hour flight so round trip a first year f/o (current rates) would make $76 for the round trip. Divide that 76 by the number of people on the airplane and for the entire round trip, each person is paying you $1.55 out of that $227. That's what, 0.0068% of the fare? I think you could get more by going around the cabin asking for tips!
Its not enough to say "well at least we're better than ___" because they suck too! But at least they have the ability to go "yeah...that's not really gonna work for us."

Disclaimer: I really suck at math, so if I screwed something up in the above calculation, please let me know so I can fix it and look stupid to the least amount of people possible.
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The whole problem with that thinking is that while you found one fare for $227, not every seat could be or would be sold for that amount. If you had 49 tickets sold you would have 10, or maybe even more different fares.
 
JEP said:
The whole problem with that thinking is that while you found one fare for $227, not every seat could be or would be sold for that amount. If you had 49 tickets sold you would have 10, or maybe even more different fares.
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That's true, but the overall point that pilot wages make up a small fraction of company expenses and are easily covered is still valid. ALPA E & FA did an analysis at Pinnacle and found that if every single pilot and FA received a 100% pay raise immediately, then the company's seat mile costs would increase by less than half a penny. That's for doubling pay, folks.
 
Yup. pilot602 crunched some numbers based on the earnings reported in one quarter at Skywest and said that they could give every pilot a $10,000 A MONTH raise and only cut profits by one quarter. That's every single pilot on property, making an ADDITIONAL $10,000 A MONTH, and the company would still have profits of OVER $100 million for the quarter.

The money's there boys, it's just a matter of whether you want a piece of it, or whether you want to continue to get used to do a service for less than the company can afford to pay.
 
JEP said:
The whole problem with that thinking is that while you found one fare for $227, not every seat could be or would be sold for that amount. If you had 49 tickets sold you would have 10, or maybe even more different fares.
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yeah, but that was by far the cheapest one I could find (granted I didn't look particularly hard). So really except for frequent flyers, etc everybody else other than those 10 people would probably be paying more.
 
To give an example from another airline, this is what I heard from the negotiating committee. The lost revenue from the 15 planes that got pulled and went to Mesaba was more than the $$$ difference we were apart on the contract. So, if management had given us EVERYTHING we wanted and kept the planes, they would have come out ahead moneywise. In addition, the penalities paid to NWA for the cancelled flights last year thanks to our staffing issues was also more than the $$$ we were apart. So, that's two opportunities management had to a) settle the contract and b) spend less money/make money. Simply put, they let their egos get in the way. They didn't want to be seen as a management group that "folded" in front of ALPA.
 
This is a long one... sorry.

Pilots need to get paid more. No doubt about it.

And not to start up a flame war again, but how does having ALPA on property help you get paid more or increase your quality of life?

In the SkyWest example of giving each pilot $10000/month and still being profitable. That would be great to have. So great that I'm sure ExpressJet and ASA (both ALPA carriers) would love to see a deal similar to that.

Both ASA and Jetlink are profitable companies, both offer good products... yet they still get paid on par with the other regionals. I'm not going to nit-pick two bucks an hour, because pretty much every regional is paid within a $4/hr range of each other. But the question is, if ALPA is such a good thing to have on property, why do ASA and ExpressJet not have the $10000/month raise that should be given to the SkyWest pilots in the example.

...and don't start with the "its because SkyWest pilots aren't members of ALPA so we can't negotiate a $10000/month raise." Because that argument just proves the regional airline business model of CONTRACT winning and how ALPA is not an affective answer at this level. The majors... sure, they are getting warmer. But I don't see ALPA making anybody's pilot group or MEC in the regional side of things this happy.

Try to answer the question honestly thinking of how your own MEC could get an amazing deal like that. Being profitable and sharing the wealth is a different game when you sell your own tickets (ExpressJet is starting to swing that way), but a regional is profitable BECAUSE of its cost structure and ability to bid and win contracts. It is tougher to share the wealth when "the wealth" and the job security of the people to share it with are a result of being as low cost as possible. Up the cost of doing business to far and you lose the business entirely. There has to be a way... but the line is fuzzier than rich is as rich does.

So far the argument for justifying ALPA is to fight with management and stop them from taking things from a pilot group. Or just the typical JOIN OR DIE rhetoric, but most educated arguments focus on not losing current (yet industry wide crappy) pay and QOL. After looking at the last few years, I'm not convinced ALPA can even do that.

Trust me... If management at the biggest non-ALPA regional SkyWest, failed to at least keep up with (crappy as it may be) industry standard, or starting randomly taking away duty rules, pay, block-or-better stuff, quarterly bonus checks, etc... you better believe ALPA would have a heck of a recruitment opportunity, and a union would be on property fast. That just isn't happening yet.

But until then, I'll just use the same argument that the ALPA guys are using. The SkyWest and Colgan pilots can't get paid fairly because the ALPA organized pilot groups are under cutting the industry by not getting paid what their worth. I know, the argument sounds stupid coming from this angle too!

Why pay for "representation" at the pay talk table when that representation doesn't do much. Using: SKYWEST COULD PAY $10000/month MORE PER PILOT AND STILL MAKE A PROFIT is not a valid argument, the cost structure makes the profit available.

For the record, ExpressJet is winning contracts left and right lately, so is Republic. Are they undercutting everybody else or just being good regionals to work for? Where is the flaming when they win a contract like there is when SkyWest wins the same contract? Double standard me thinks??

Sorry to be long winded again...
 
Re: This is a long one... sorry.

CAVOK, you have a lot to learn. You should just look back at a bunch of the threads on this board about ALPA and unions in general. You could learn a lot about how things really are. I simply don't have the patience or the time to explain it to you all over again.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
So true. Look at this way.

I went to delta's website and checked out a fare for a route that I know skywest flies. $227 from SLC to LAX on a Skywest CRJ700.

Figure an average load, so we'll say %70 so that's 49 people. This $227 was a round trip fare and the lowest I could find for the random dates that were already in there. Its a 2 hour flight so round trip a first year f/o (current rates) would make $76 for the round trip. Divide that 76 by the number of people on the airplane and for the entire round trip, each person is paying you $1.55 out of that $227. That's what, 0.0068% of the fare? I think you could get more by going around the cabin asking for tips!

Its not enough to say "well at least we're better than ___" because they suck too! But at least they have the ability to go "yeah...that's not really gonna work for us."
Click to expand...

SkyWest doesn't have any say in filling up the airplanes, they get paid whether the airplane is at %70 capacity or empty. So profit doesn't come from a marketing billboard, or vacation deal... it comes from cost structure. Pilots need more of the profit of ANY airline for sure, but saying that SkyWest pilots should get paid more becuase the passengers only pay X percent of thier ticket price toward pilot salary is false... If the airplane is empty SkyWest makes the same money.

If SkyWest sold the tickets and were making a killing that argument would be a good one. It just doesn't stand up in a regional.
 
CAVOK said:
SkyWest doesn't have any say in filling up the airplanes, they get paid whether the airplane is at %70 capacity or empty. So profit doesn't come from a marketing billboard, or vacation deal... it comes from cost structure. Pilots need more of the profit of ANY airline for sure, but saying that SkyWest pilots should get paid more becuase the passengers only pay X percent of thier ticket price toward pilot salary is false... If the airplane is empty SkyWest makes the same money.
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So, let's take what Skywest makes per departure and go with that. It still works at the regional level, just on a per departure basis instead of a per ticket basis. I know Pinnacle is making $$$ hand over fist on their ASAs with NWA and Delta. If that weren't the case, upper management wouldn't have cashed in stock options last year worth about what a 5 year CA makes.....each.
 
Then go get that money. Lets see ALPA do what it claims to be able to do. Negotiate... rally... flex the union muscle. You seem to not be happy with your airline or your pay kell, is ALPA making you happy? Send some letters, show the iron fist... do whatever ALPA says they can do. Prove to us non-unionites the value of having ALPA. Rather than just taking PCL's position of "not explaining it to me."

By the way PCL. Everything you could say, or me re-reading every post on unions will leave me with the same impression. ALPA guys are all talk and whine and blame, no action. With the exception of Comair awhile back, when has a regional ALPA MEC put their frustrations where their mouths are? The airlines and their management are rolling in the dough and not giving it to the pilots... positive balance sheets mean that there are no excuses for them to say no right? ALPA gave it all up when things were bad, now lets see them go get it when things are good! Until that happens ALPA has more negatives than positives and will continue to be worthless. Don't get mad because there are those who judge based on action and are giving ALPA every opportunity to show what they claim... to no avail.

With airlines finally moving into the black this is a great time for ALPA to show that they are more than just lip service. With some great payscales and work rules better than a non-union carrier you could stop saying things like "go read PAST posts". Show me something new.

Go do it ALPA! Convince the regionals of your worth. I honestly want things to get better for those starting out in the industry... if ALPA can prove to be the vehicle, I'm on board. But ALPA has to PROVE it.
 
ALPA's been proving it for 77 years. You're just too dense to see it. But if you want to see a pilot group "put their frustration where their mouth is," as you put it, then watch the Pinnacle pilots over the coming months. My sources at Pinnacle's corporate offices tell me that they had a huge mess on their hands today in the MEM hub with the winter weather. Apparently the company was trying to call every pilot on the list to get them to come out and fly on their days off, and a ton of them responded with "I'll consider helping the company on my days off when Phil gives me a new contract. CLICK!" The Pinnacle pilots are ready to show you what trade unionism is all about. Watch and learn, kid.
 
<deleted> Who said anything about ALL skyw pilots making $10,000/month? You have a lot to learn. I can think of 5 posters off the top of my head that sounded just like you when they first came to these boards. You, like them, will learn over time, just as I did.
 
Wow, from an outsiders prospective....that is one sorry pilot group you have over there????? :confused: Similar, but worse than what we've got going on over here.
 
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