dasleben
That's just, like, your opinion, man
I wish I had a million bucks. Welcome to reality.
Virgin America pilot payraise
- Thread starter Cherokee_Cruiser
- Start date
I wish I had a million bucks. Welcome to reality.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Oh, I'm planted firmly in reality. And here in reality, your bargaining leverage is influenced heavily by what the pilots at VX accept as their terms of employment. Maybe you're ok with people undercutting you. But I'm not.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
To take your point to its logical conclusion means that you'd prefer the bottom airline at all times to go out of business, even if they're a union airline that's simply the last to negotiate a contract in a given cycle.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
Says the guy who took a job at Airtran while under the odl NPA pilot contract? Pot meet kettle..........
Cessnaflyer
Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
That didn't help my airline when bargaining for a new contract.So the pay rates are still $10-20 behind what they should be? Joy.
Get a union already.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Aren't 50% of the airlines "below average" at any given time by definition?
skyw82
Well-Known Member
Based on what?
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Sorry, my mistake. I meant "industry standard."
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
You think that's the "logical conclusion?" Funny.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Your ignorance is showing again. AirTran was paying better than most of the legacies. Even under the NPA contract.
dasleben
That's just, like, your opinion, man
Give them time. They're moving in the correct direction. This is a very difficult industry at the moment, and guys who've been stuck in the right seat at the regionals getting a chance to move on is a great thing. Personally, if I were still at XJT, I'd be a 7th year F/O about halfway to upgrade. I can't fault anyone for getting out of the regionals at the moment, even to companies that aren't the industry leaders.
And who am I to trash talk these guys? I went to Omni. It was the proper move considering the industry as it stands, however.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
No comparison. Omni is firmly in the industry standard range for ACMI.
And as far as VX moving in the right direction, they aren't moving anywhere until they have a union.
And as far as VX moving in the right direction, they aren't moving anywhere until they have a union.
jhugz
Guppy gear swinger
You said the same about JetBlue.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Yes, and I was correct. They've started working towards a union, and they will probably have one within the next 12 months. They'll finally be on the way to making this profession better.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
Well, yeah.
Tell you what, let's drop some science on this and you can see just what the average is.
I went and grabbed pay rates for third year FO (an arbitrary longevity) on the A320 for every passenger airline I could find that operates the A320. The pay rates are:
94, 114, 109, 62, 78, 73, 85, 73, 80
That's American, Delta, United, Airways, Allegiant, Frontier, Jetblue, Spirit and Virgin America (new numbers, if I have the Virgin America numbers correct).
Using the handy standard deviation calculator:
http://easycalculation.com/statistics/standard-deviation.php
We find that the mean pay rate is $85 an hour with a standard deviation of 17. Now, you said that you'd prefer for any airline below the industry average to go out of business, but that's probably a little harsh. How about we say anybody that falls below one standard deviation below the mean goes out of business for your purposes.
The only airline that falls under that is US Airways prior to the American merger.
Otherwise nobody is outside of one standard deviation.
Now, I'm not very good at stats. Heck, math ain't my forte. But a standard deviation is a pretty universal way of calculating whether you're below average.
So yes, the logical conclusion is that you'd want to shut down a union carrier, where Virgin America almost hits the mean.
Does that mean Virgin America W2's are higher than Spirit? No. But if we go by objective standards, simple pay rates at simple longevity locations, they're not really outside the mean by that much, and in fact the only airlines ABOVE it are Delta and United, with JetBlue being AT industry average.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
Train, as I said, I meant "standard," not average. My mistake, but there is a very big different between the two. Right now, an industry-standard pay rate for an Airbus FO on 3rd year pay is in the $105-$115/hr range. Standard is dictated by the bargaining pattern, not by a math formula.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
But a paycheck uses a math formula.
I know, I just wanted an excuse to type "SCIENCE!" very loudly.
You just couldn't hear it through the intertubes.
Autothrust Blue
"Well, on the Brasilia..."
*puts on mathematics hat*
More specifically, standard deviation is a measure of dispersion from the mean value of a data set. It might be more useful in this instance to compare median absolute deviation, and to consider the number of pilots in each category at each carrier, instead of standard deviation, but that's computationally involved, requires lots of research, and I refuse to do anything more complicated than division by three (or pilot math, in other words) before noon. (My rationale on this is that nobody ever talks about mean income when it comes to demographics as it is a useless number unless you're a Republican, and arguing that the average American is quite wealthy. Median income is a far more useful tool, statistically, than a mean, because it more accurately captures what the so called average Joe is making.)
It might also be more useful to compare monthly guarantee times the hourly rate, but this is a largely academic exercise.
Incidentally, doing the same thing for CRJ 700 drivers (or "All turbofan FO" pay for those carriers so situated such as American Eagle and the Reverend's House of Fun) yields:
37, 41, 36, 35, 32, 37
Eagle, SkyWest, Republic Airways Holdings, PinnaColaba (imported), Mesa, and GeauxJets, respectively. Data from Airline Pilot Central. SkyWest CR7 pay is a ratio-based BHO of the CR2 pay, but I don't have the block hour numbers in front of me and so weaseled out and used what was on APC.
Conclusion: Things are a LOT tighter down at the regional level (the carriers sampled had a mean pay of $36.30 and a standard deviation of $2.94). We also arrive at the conclusion that the FlightInfo people reached:
-shuffles back to the kids' table to let the adults finish arguing-
