New pay scheme idea
For the purpose of this thread, let’s treat Troutbait as if he is mgmt. Explain to him/her why we deserve more money. If our union contract negotiators treated mgmt like previous posters treated Troutbait, saying in summary “Give us more money cause it’s a bigger plane,” without giving a valid reason, I understand why we can’t get better wages in new contracts. Now, if each of us was at the table talking face to face with mgmt, what would you say directly to them about why we should get paid more for operating a larger version of the plane we already currently fly? My answer is: more seats = potential for more revenue, and if you’re making more, why shouldn’t we?
By no means do I have a complete answer or solution to the problem, myself. In fact I haven’t given too much thought to it recently, but it started to make me think outside the box. What if we had a pay system similar to commission for pay? We wouldn’t directly recruit pax, but we would get paid more for flying more pax. For my example I’ll work with 1st year FO pay on a Dash 8. Start out with a base pay, $20/hr. Then for each passenger we got paid a certain amount, say $.50/hr. A -100 filled with 10 pax = $25/hr, 35 seats would net $37.50/hr. A full -300 = $45. Company is making more off increased ticket sales, so it’s similar to an immediate profit sharing program. If the flight is relative empty, then the company didn’t make as much and we in turn would make closer to the base pay. We wouldn’t get paid for taking non-revs. Company doesn’t make any money off them, so we don’t either. This holds true even if there are only 15 paying pax and 20 non revs.
More variables would be thrown in too when ops aren’t normal. If the flight gets cancelled, pay = (scheduled block) x (base pay). Once again, no money for company, means no money for us. The company would be paying the pilots on later flights or the next day to take the revenues pax from our flight. So in reality, some pilot is getting paid to transport them. Ferry flights would be based on base pay as well. This would give crews the incentive to run flights late with a good attitude, rather than hope for cancellations so they can finish on time. More pay for a late flight with pax than the base pay for a cancellation/ferry. Also, crews wouldn’t mind waiting a few minutes for 10 pax coming off late inbound flight, because they would equal an extra $5/hr once they are onboard.
What if a flight pushes back and sits for 1 or 2+ hours before takeoff? We know this isn’t uncommon in large airports. It’s not managements direct fault that weather is moving through, ATC is on a slowdown, etc. Company is only making X number of dollars, they would rather have an immediate takeoff and destination arrival too rather than burn gas on the ramp. Why should we get paid $45/hr to watch the APU run? What if the base pay ($20) was only applied from pushback to takeoff and landing to chock in, while the $45 was applied from takeoff to touchdown? We’re getting more money for times when much more can go wrong.
As longevity increases, the base pay would increase. Reason being, the increase in knowledge and experience deserves more money, increasing the pay for senior pilots. Other variations in the same idea could be looked at. The base pay could be $25 at all times, but this would include up to 10 revenue pax. We would only get $.50/pax/hr for each head over 10. It would increase base pay slightly for legs that aren’t as full, cancellations, and ferry flights and provide slightly more stability.
Pay may not be as stable over the course of a year. High times of summer and xmas would pay more while lulls around spring/fall pay would decline slightly. The company profits go through the same cycle. Our current block hours for the airline as a whole go through the same cycle too. We would still have a guaranteed pay, it could just be in the form of a dollar amount rather than monthly hours, say $1800 in my example.
The biggest obstacle to overcome would be figuring out the total pay you deserve and filing pay discrepancies. A good system of knowing how many revenue pax are on the plane and checking times would have to be put in place to ensure the plan worked, but it is something a well programmed computer program would definitely be able to handle.
As I just thought of most of this as I sit here and type, I realize the plan has many more flaws. It is just a starting point for a whole new system of pay based on the idea of getting paid more for flying more people around. The dollar amounts above are just an example, may be a bit high/low and all variables would change for different aircraft/companies, but it is after all just an example of how the pay would work.
In the end, it’s still a company responsibility to fill the aircraft to capacity and get pax. They want full airplanes. Full airplanes = higher profits. If they are making more money, they should share a small percentage with those skilled individuals safely providing the service they are selling. When they don’t sell as many seats, they don’t make as much profit and in turn don’t pay as much, but they still make money.
Now rip it apart if you feel it would suck or productively add on/change it for the better. This thread could be a great discussion and inform new and old pilots alike to why we deserve more money for larger airplanes rather than acting like it is a God given right and just demanding it from mgmt.
