I work here and I do like it. It is probably the easiest job I've ever had. That being said this whole thread is just silly. We should not be comparing ourselves to UAL in any way. UALdriver does make some good points with total compensation. I did a calculation with retirement ours vs UAL. Here is what I came up with.
I used 2 pilots starting today at both carriers. For the AAY pilot, I upgraded him at 2 years. For the UAL pilot I upgraded him only at year ten, and kept him on the 737 the whole time. I also used a 70 hour guarantee for AAY and a 65 hour guarantee for UAL.
After 10 years, here is what their retirement looks like assuming no appreciation.
UAL - $97,590 AAY - $23,282
Note - The AAY pilot would have to contribute $46,564 of his own money to achieve that amount vs. the UAL pilot's contribution of 0.
I used current pay rates only. So if you add in our future raises (don't know UAL's) maybe you can add 5g's at most to our 401k. Still nowhere near equal. They also double our per diem rates. We also brag about being home every night and accept lower pay in light of that. While that is nice, in the long run it costs the company less to bring us home every night, so we should be making more from it not less. Also whoever included our profit sharing at $8 an hour is giving disinformation. While that was the case last year, that was anomoly. We will be lucky to see $2 an hour going forward if any at all.
I don't think we should be bragging about our rates at all. It is true that we seem to be working on them and that is what we should continue to focus our efforts on, not bragging on this board. This is after UAL took almost 50% pay cuts 5 years ago.
As far as a union here, I think that may eventually come, but we need much more participation for that to happen. Our current participation is about 10 guys that are burned out and with good reason. I think the negotiating power of a union would certainly help around here. At least then you have some teeth when you negotiate. But then again we need much more participation for that to work. I know it should not be ALPA. That union is broken, I think UALdriver would also admit to that. Too many internal problems.
We have a good thing going at Allegiant. I really enjoy this place. But we should focus our efforts internally to help organize this place better and not argue with pilots at other carriers. We should be using thier knowledge and experience (both mistakes and successes) to further our own compensation and thus every other pilot groups compensation. We are all tied together in this.
Sioux, good post and you make some valid points. You'll forgive me however if I take issue with your repeated use of the term '
bragging' when referring to the AAY posts. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your thread, but you appear to be chastising the AAY guys that are merely defending our company (and yours?) against false and inaccurate accusations.
Not sure how much you've read, but you may want to take another look at the thread from the beginning. I say this because you appear to believe the AAY pilots started this confrontation. Not true: We're not bragging about our rates, we're setting the record straight. Look through the posts, you'll notice a series of accusations and unprovoked attacks levied against AAY (non-union, undercutters, etc). One went so far as to use his jump seat as a threat against non-union carriers (Quote:
you'd better move to LAS because more and more Union pilots are refusing to give jumpseat rides to people who are stabbing us in the back.).
You're right, we do have it good here at AAY. But that didn't come without a lot of effort and sacrifice from our pilot group. A lot of guys that came before you have put forth a great deal of effort to gain the new rates that you now enjoy. We HAVE been "
using our knowledge and experience to further our own compensation", it's been going on for 3 years and we have made remarkable improvements. As a pilot group, we are proud of our accomplishments and some on this board feel we should set the record straight. Again,
not bragging.
Too many have worked too hard to take this garbage lying down. As you'll see in my post count, I seldom post on this board, but sometimes you have to take a stand.
As I'd mentioned in the previous post, my heart goes out to the good folks at UAL, they've lost a lot and deserve much better. But I disagree with the accusation that we are the culprits and are responsible for their loss. As you've seen on this thread, that line of reasoning can become a very slippery slope...
D1