I guess you're the expert then? Instead of thumping my chest like you, I'll just tell you about my minor and humble experience here at Jetblue. 12 years at ONE airline with NO furlough and NO givebacks... I'd say that's a rarity in this industry. Am I proud of it, NO. I consider myself extremely fortunate. How it makes me an expert like you make me out to be, I'm not sure I see the connection...
BTW, I was never LAPES qualified and they discontinued that aerial delivery method years ago. So, I'm not your God's gift to the airline industry and by your ignorance, you're certainly not God's gift to the military.
Thumping my chest? Whatever....
First, it was either you or your twin brother (note my original post...I did not implicate YOU) who told me he'd rather hire a C-130 driver with 1,500 hours rather than a 6,000 hour RJ driver who just "flies around with the autopilot on". You, or your brother, were implying that somehow the C-130 pilots are/were better than someone flying an RJ. This happened on a trip with me and left me in disbelief. This is the reason I used the "God's gift to the airline industry" tag.
Second, you quote never being furloughed from JB. OK...great...Southwest hasn't furloughed either. And neither has Virgin America. What does that have to do with my statement about our payscales being tied to what union pilots have fought for?
Third, you say that you haven't had any givebacks. As Splert has written: CSPP (used to get it at a 15% discount, now at 5%), stock options (although you probably cashed out since yours were actually worth something)(the vast majority of us will net a big fat goose egg from these), premium pay (70 to a 78 hour trigger), health care insurance (or do you not use our terrible insurance?), pairing productivity (remember when getting a 4-day 24:30 was easy...or remember 13:30's?).
Yes, we have had some betterments to our lives here. I know this. We have gone from a 3% match to a 5% match on our 401k. We get an additional 5% for "profit sharing", although this is not guaranteed in our PEA (our retirement is still FAR below that of our peer set...for instance...Alaska pilots got 22.5% put into their retirement account without having to put one dime of their own money in, whereas we had to put at least 5% of our own money in just to get to 15.02% for 2010). Pay has gone up over the years. But, honestly...where was it going to go? Starting captain pay when you got hired was what, $80/hr? Starting captain pay on the E190 back in 2005 was $70/hr. These couldn't have gone down since they were already rock bottom! Yes, our pay has gone up, but productivity has gone down quite a bit since I started in '04. Many pilots here, even considering their pay bump, are now working more days to get the same amount of monthly pay. I'd consider that a paycut. But, since you've been here 12 years you probably don't know or care that this happens to anyone junior to you.
GP
