So..the pilot shortage is coming?

[pilotyip]

I would rephrase your statement to be:
"...with a marketplace that would not support profitable airline ticket prices at the level of volume that the airlines were seeking..."

rephrase accepted, but we have to admit that the ticket buying plays a role in airline operations and can not be ignored by management or labour.

 

[livin'thesim]

Yes. My belief is that the majors were attempting to push their competition into an unsustainable position.

Airline service is a mature product, without a substantially different passenger experience. There are few avenues other than price to grow an airline.

Technology? Apple sells more tablets because they are perceived to have a cooler, more capable product. Hard to differentiate since all airlines have the same basic aircraft. You could always do free wifi, or something, but this will only affect market share at the margin.

Service? People do care about service, but it is very easy to copy a successful competitor's service methods, leaving most airlines relatively similar in this regard. People won't pay much extra for a friendlier gate agent.

On-time arrivals? Again, there are more similarities than differences between airlines. No airline has a real edge here, and unless you have passengers being substantially late, they will only pay so more more to save a few minutes.

Safety? Most airlines are about the same. The safety-improvement process has fully matured and any improvements will likely be implemented at all airlines.


This leaves price. Selling air travel is more like gasoline or new mufflers than it is selling iPads or new furniture.


An absurd but interesting thought exercise that proves this is to imagine for a second that there was such a thing as Star Trek style teleporting. Assuming for the sake of argument that it was cheap and safe, airline travel would be decimated.

People do not buy tickets because they like flying, they buy tickets because they want to get somewhere else.

People may LOVE driving their car, but they do not like buying gasoline. Most people will buy the cheapest product that will not ruin their car. Remember when we were kids and gas companies used to tout their superior fuels on TV ads? They still do, but not like before. Now they make their money selling you a Coke and chips when you gas up. Most people could care less about whose fuel blend is better for their injectors.

Pilots need to make a realistic assessment about this factor when they discuss pilot pay and benefits. We are only paid to the extent we are needed.

 

[kf4amu]

Safety? Most airlines are about the same. The safety-improvement process has fully matured and any improvements will likely be implemented at all airlines.

Not if it costs money. I disagree, there are airlines that are much safer than others. Safety improvement is not limited to programs and policies, culture is a much larger driver of safety than these defined boxes of safety management systems

 

[livin'thesim]

Not if it costs money. I disagree, there are airlines that are much safer than others. Safety improvement is not limited to programs and policies, culture is a much larger driver of safety than these defined boxes of safety management systems

As an industry insider, yes. But we are talking about factors that drive public perception and ticket buying.

To the uneducated public jet=safe, prop=less safe. More engines=safer. Bigger jet=safer.

You could have a first-rate prop operator and a dirtbag jet operator, and the public will assume the jet is safer. Because they are ignorant and emotional in their decision making.

Also, please remember that I was talking legacy carriers ONLY, in the above post. The safety levels there are more similar than different.

So my original point still stands: Safety, service, on-time are all elements people care about, but it is not possible to grow an airline by SELLING those factors to the customer.

Is a more safe airline probably more profitable because of fewer incidents? YES!! But that is COST-control, not profitability through better marketing.


I will estimate that 80% or more of the public's ticket-buying decision comes down to cost, provided similar departure time and number of connecting flights.

The industry has mostly matured, and it is a game of inches and cost-control, and hoping your competition screws up and loses money.

There is little room for innovation, and even if you innovate, your method is easily copied, eliminating the advantage.

 

[pilotyip]

Pilots need to make a realistic assessment about this factor when they discuss pilot pay and benefits. We are only paid to the extent we are needed.

The reality of a pilots job, you can only be paid what an airline can afford without going to BK.

 

[livin'thesim]

Supply and demand. A beautiful, dispassionate teller of economic truth.

 

[clippyrip]

Claiming someone is regurgitating Fox news is the equivalent of regurgitating whatever someone else says without 'doing the research'. A bit ironic if you ask me.

 

[waveflyer]

The reality of a pilots job, you can only be paid what an airline can afford without going to BK.

Then why don't FedEx pilots make $2M a year, when their companies are 20 times as profitable as airlines. Think there might be more to it than affordability?

Seniority compromises the free hand of labor-
We do not get paid a market wage, we get paid a negotiated, highly political wage artificially skewed by the constraints of the RLA & NMB

That has given us inflated wages before, and it has given us pay well below market in the post 9/11 world.

 

[pilotyip]

Then why don't FedEx pilots make $2M a year, when their companies are 20 times as profitable as airlines. Think there might be more to it than affordability?

Seniority compromises the free hand of labor-
We do not get paid a market wage, we get paid a negotiated, highly political wage artificially skewed by the constraints of the RLA & NMB

That has given us inflated wages before, and it has given us pay well below market in the post 9/11 world.

FedEx is a profitable company they can pay top wages and still have money to invest in the airline's future without borrowing. Trying force FedEx wages at Omni, Kitty Hawk, or DHL would result in BK. Whoops a couple of those have already gone belly up.

 

[waveflyer]

That wasn't the question-

 

[pilotyip]

That wasn't the question-

what was it then?

 

[waveflyer]

Why doesn't FedEx pay more if it's all about what they can afford?

Look, until we can change companies and not have to start completely over, the free market isn't free for us- I understand that we can't make whatever we want- but what we make is much more about the strength of unions, solidarity, and which NMB we're dealing with than free market pressures- the negotiating system in place interferes too much

 

[pilotyip]

Why doesn't FedEx pay more if it's all about what they can afford?

Because they don't have to?

 

[152SIC]

Because they don't have to?

Supply & Demand.

Doesn't get any easier than that.

 

[waveflyer]

Like having a conversation with a wall

 

[NEDude]

I think we need to stop thinking of the "shortage" just in terms of the United States pilot market. There is most definitely a growing "shortage" on a global scale. Contract jobs are increasing in numbers and bettering their pay and benefits. A few years ago I interviewed for and was offered a contract job in China. In just three years that same contract has increased pay 50%, from $12,000 per month to now $18,000 per month (plus additional bonuses). There are contract jobs opening in Europe among the LCCs with Easyjet and Norwegian both offering contracts. That would have been unthinkable even two years ago.

While the U.S. majors may never see a true pilot shortage, the LCCs, national airlines, the ACMI cargo carriers and regionals will all feel the pinch, and in many parts of the world it is being fully felt. I have friends at some regionals who say they already are feeling it, with multiple no-shows for interview sessions and class dates.

 

[pilotyip]

Like having a conversation with a wall

my thoughts exactly

Supply & Demand. Doesn't get any easier than that.

A nice balance works at FedEx, did not work at UAL in 2000 to get the "Industry Leading Wages", nor did it work at Comair for the "Regional Industry Leading Wages" This is not only a supply and demand of pilots job, but also supply and demand of those consumers who purchase the product for sales.

 

[SWA Bubba]

Why doesn't FedEx pay more if it's all about what they can afford?

Look, until we can change companies and not have to start completely over, the free market isn't free for us- I understand that we can't make whatever we want- but what we make is much more about the strength of unions, solidarity, and which NMB we're dealing with than free market pressures- the negotiating system in place interferes too much

I'll take a stab at it--

It's because the real answer is it's a lot more complicated than any of you guys arguing make it out to be (not that I'm claiming all the answers). There's some truth in all of your arguments, but the sum has elements of each. Wave, to specifically answer your question, it IS supply and demand. FedEx doesn't have to pay $2M per year, because there are essentially infinite pilots willing to do that flying for less. Your idea of union solidarity forcing FedEx to pay more because "they can afford it" isn't really 'free market' pressure either (supply and demand), because you've eliminated the 'supply' aspect (of overall pilots) of the supply and demand dynamic. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that you would be 'controlling' the supply to manipulate the market.

And I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for "changing companies without starting over" to happen. It's not gonna. Not in this industry, nor many others with seniority-based unions. Especially when the workers in the industry are essentially interchangeable. In this type of work, you can't objectively say that pilot A is "better" than pilot B and more deserving of being the Captain (leaving out, of course, obvious things like accidents and violations). It's not like a sales company where you can say Bob consistently sells more widgets than Tom, so Bob gets the promotion. In this type of business, seniority is all you have to establish seat position and so on.

Now, I suspect you're thinking of keeping seniority, but making it trans-airline, so that 10 years 'here' is worth 10 years 'there.' Never gonna' happen either. There's absolutely no incentive for any company to want this, nor would it be fair to the current labor pool. The only real way to accomplish this would be by government fiat. I don't know if this is what you're after, but that obviously wouldn't be 'free market' either. Having one all-encompassing pilot union controlling pilot labor for any potential airline isn't any different than having all the managements getting together setting a single set of payscales. Either way is one side (management or labor) dictating all the terms, which eliminates the 'supply and demand' and 'free market' parts of the economy. Not to mention, it eliminates true competition. It seems like you bitch about management's tactics, but you want the power to do the same thing for yourself (labor, that is). In this situation, as in most 'real-life' situations, the reality is somewhere in the middle.

Bubba

 

[waveflyer]

All this MBA & business owner is saying is that our seniority system compromises the free hand- we're invested in this career and in our companies more than any other professional working with us-
The reality is that our wage is supply and demand plus a multitude of other factors and pressures- to discount any of it is to hold a simplistic and erred view-

That's my only point-

 

[Lear70]

All this MBA & business owner is saying is that our seniority system compromises the free hand- we're invested in this career and in our companies more than any other professional working with us-
The reality is that our wage is supply and demand plus a multitude of other factors and pressures- to discount any of it is to hold a simplistic and erred view-

That's my only point-

True statement.

Not that what Bubba said is incorrect at all, some good stuff in there too, but the fact is that MANY unionized workers in different fields, albeit what we would consider "blue collar" (electrical workers, etc) ARE nationally unionized and carry their seniority and longevity with them if they decide to move to another job across the country.

That would be the first real step towards fixing our system as pilots but I also agree that management would never go for it - Southwest is an excellent example, hiring when no one else was several years ago. If a national system had allowed pilots from a Legacy carrier on furlough to take those jobs, they would have come in at year 3, 4, 6 longevity, thus killing a large part of the financial advantage of hiring new-hires for management.

For that reason alone, managements at airlines would fight such a move tooth-and-nail, not to mention unions themselves fighting it with the risk of pilots coming in super-senior moving everyone down the list.

Just isn't going to happen, sad to say. I think the benefits would outweigh the risks for us as pilots, but you'd never get everyone on the same page long enough to get it done. In that respect, our Blue Collar unionized brothers are smarter than we are...

Sad, but true.