Enough!

[aircombat]

I actually like the idea of national longevity list, instead of a national seniority list. That way, you don't bounce someone out of their seat or base, and start at the bottom of the list. However, you should be compensated for your past experience, as people are in just about every other profession. No reason a 20 year Aloha guy should have to start over at 44/hr at VX or 38.50/hr at NK.

Worse idea ever!! It's a good way to never get hired anywhere when Delta furloughs you. Why would another airline hire you at year 20 pay when they can hire someone right out of school at year 1?

What would be best is get rid of longevity pay all together. It's an antiquated system that has plagued senior airlines, has major financial downfalls for paying student loans and investment compound interest. If you do have to start over at least it wouldn't hurt so much.

Pilot shortage is legacy's carrot as a national seniority list is ALPA's carrot. neither is going to happen

 

[livin'thesim]

Agreed. Longevity pay, not seniority is the real culprit that keeps pilots trapped in bad companies.

Why should a guy who has loyally served your COMPETITOR for 20 years come over and get higher pay than you, when you have served your own company for ten years?

Stupid.

One wage per aircraft type, regardless of longevity. A captain is a captain is a captain. Seniority does not make a pilot more efficient or more safe.

A junior captain is just as likely to be a safer pilot than a senior one.

 

[big shacks]

Blame CANADair

 

[jetstream]

A captain is a captain is a captain. Seniority does not make a pilot more efficient or more safe.

A junior captain is just as likely to be a safer pilot than a senior one.

I disagree.
Have they both been trained to the same standard? Yes.

Do both have the same level of knowledge that can't be gained in training but only learned through experience? Absolutely not.

How do I know this? I routinely ride the jump seat conducting line checks and crew observations. Experience does make a difference.

 

[flyboyike]

Worse idea ever!! It's a good way to never get hired anywhere when Delta furloughs you. Why would another airline hire you at year 20 pay when they can hire someone right out of school at year 1?

Ostensibly the number of flight school kids is decreasing.

 

[titans10]

I disagree.
Have they both been trained to the same standard? Yes.

Do both have the same level of knowledge that can't be gained in training but only learned through experience? Absolutely not.

How do I know this? I routinely ride the jump seat conducting line checks and crew observations. Experience does make a difference.

How do you know the experience of a junior capt? That junior capt could be more experience then you. When I decide to upgrade I will be junior. Are you telling me. I will be inexperience even though I have been a captain on an F-27, dc-9 and dc-10. So, you have a lot more experience then I do.

 

[jetstream]

How do you know the experience of a junior capt? That junior capt could be more experience then you. When I decide to upgrade I will be junior. Are you telling me. I will be inexperience even though I have been a captain on an F-27, dc-9 and dc-10. So, you have a lot more experience then I do.

Nope. Don't mean that at all. Just mean that if two Captain's are one the same seniority list (one list is what we are talking about here) that the more senior one will usually have more experience.

Was just trying to respond to the guy who thinks a captain, is a captain, is a captain and that time as a captain is irrelevent. Not so in my opinion.

 

[livin'thesim]

Given the tumult in the industry, it is just as likely to find a highly experienced FO with a lower time captain.

When it comes to pay, a captain is a captain is a captain.

Experience in type does not automatically correlate to skill, nor diligence at the job, nor in knowledge.

"Experience" is a very crude yardstick.

How often do we see the complacent rule-bending senior captain juxtaposed against the much more diligent mid-seniority captain?

I've been in this game long enough to know that competence and professionalism is fairly evenly distributed throughout the seniority list at most airlines.

Therefore, when it comes to pay,

a captain,

is a captain,

is a captain.

Unless you are pulling a junior captain off a trip and calling up a senior one to take the flight in the interests of safety, there is no logical argument why the senior captain should be making far more than the junior one.

NOW:::::: if it is about rewarding years in service, or loyalty to the airline, then that is up to the individual parties to the CBA to decide that.

Let me explain something to you:

In law firms, medicine, engineering, and many other professions, larger and more complex jobs are often handed to the most experienced practitioners.

This implies that the more experienced person can tackle work that the newer guy should not yet take on.

When the snow is coming down and the runways are glare ice, do we send the junior captains home and call up all the senior guys?

Ummm, no.

Therefore, captains are interchangeable in terms of their overall economic utility to the airline.

You either CAN cut it, or you CAN'T.

I can see small annual increases to reward years in service, but to pretend that there is a true justification to base pay on years in service as a proxy for skill level is at best, an emotionally-derived position.

 

[ex j-41]

Given the tumult in the industry, it is just as likely to find a highly experienced FO with a lower time captain.

When it comes to pay, a captain is a captain is a captain.

Experience in type does not automatically correlate to skill, nor diligence at the job, nor in knowledge.

"Experience" is a very crude yardstick.

How often do we see the complacent rule-bending senior captain juxtaposed against the much more diligent mid-seniority captain?

I've been in this game long enough to know that competence and professionalism is fairly evenly distributed throughout the seniority list at most airlines.

Therefore, when it comes to pay,

a captain,

is a captain,

is a captain.

Unless you are pulling a junior captain off a trip and calling up a senior one to take the flight in the interests of safety, there is no logical argument why the senior captain should be making far more than the junior one.

NOW:::::: if it is about rewarding years in service, or loyalty to the airline, then that is up to the individual parties to the CBA to decide that.

Let me explain something to you:

In law firms, medicine, engineering, and many other professions, larger and more complex jobs are often handed to the most experienced practitioners.

This implies that the more experienced person can tackle work that the newer guy should not yet take on.

When the snow is coming down and the runways are glare ice, do we send the junior captains home and call up all the senior guys?

Ummm, no.

Therefore, captains are interchangeable in terms of their overall economic utility to the airline.

You either CAN cut it, or you CAN'T.

I can see small annual increases to reward years in service, but to pretend that there is a true justification to base pay on years in service as a proxy for skill level is at best, an emotionally-derived position.

+1

We wouldn't be in this mess if we just had a 5 year pay scale. The 20 year guy making $50k more than a junior Captain does nothing but make a regional airline too expensive.

 

[Twisted Mind]

Ok so what about first officers? What is the economic justification for paying a senior FO at Skywest 2.2 times a junior FO? Delta pays 2.6 more per hour. What does a FO do that make them twice as valuable to the company?

 

[aussieflyboy]

I actually like the idea of national longevity list, instead of a national seniority list. That way, you don't bounce someone out of their seat or base, and start at the bottom of the list. However, you should be compensated for your past experience, as people are in just about every other profession. No reason a 20 year Aloha guy should have to start over at 44/hr at VX or 38.50/hr at NK.

I agree that's nice in theory, but the problem we face is that as far as the airlines are concerned, every captain is identical, and every FO is identical. The whole system is set up so that they can get any two pilots from any base, put them together and the outcome is the same as any other crew 's performance.

This work is different from say am architect or an engineer or most other fields, because imagination and ingenuity are actively discouraged. There's no room for creativity at this job. The minute someone thinks they know a better way of doing something, your standardization (and therefore safety) goes out the window.

With that being said, why is the company going to want to hire a 20 year guy who costs a lot more when they can hire a brand new guy who'll do the exact same job and achieve the EXACT same outcome.

 

[drinksonme]

Ah...the old experience makes a more qualified/competent pilot. As a person who does like checks as well....I have found the SENIOR pilots are more often trouble. I guess because they are SENIOR, they have more hours....but I have learned...experience is relative and SENIORITY does not constitue professionalism, knowledge, or quality experience.

 

[jetstream]

On a day-in, day-out basis I will conceed that years of experience do not make much difference. But when things get bad and/or unusual stuff happens I believe it does.

Have seen plenty of examples where something strange/unusual happens and the junior captain is unsure of what to do and the senior captain has seen it before and knows how to handle it.

But you all have valid points.

 

[jetstream]

Now back to the original topic.......

 

[nondirectional]

The RLA needs to be amended to even make this idea more than a pipe dream. However ALPA won't bother since it would cost them money to fight this one in court with no return on their investment. Anyone know where I can get some orange tape?

 

[pilotyip]

Now back to the original topic.......

If experience makes no difference, why do we have high mins Capts, low time in type pairing restriction, IOE, and consolidation?

 

[jetstream]

If experience makes no difference, why do we have high mins Capts, low time in type pairing restriction, IOE, and consolidation?

Now why didn't I think of that?

 

[B727FA]

Oh but if I carried my SN with me...not gonna happen

 

[livin'thesim]

If experience makes no difference, why do we have high mins Capts, low time in type pairing restriction, IOE, and consolidation?

Please point out who said experience makes "no difference". This is a very girly way to debate, by the way. Do you straw man much?

One again, for the HARD OF HEARING, seniority is a poor proxy for experience, and an even poorer proxy for quality experience. It is also not a predictor of diligence in the non-flying portion of pilot duties, which are also important to a company's bottom line.

Now, in the 135-ish part of the 121 world, it may happen where a low-time captain is taken off a particularly challenging trip or for particularly bad weather, but in the real 121 world, once you are past high mins, you can and often will be sent on any available trip, without consideration of supposed "inexperience".

When the weather goes to crap on the East coast and the reserves start getting called out to fly for timed-out crews, stranded crews, and such, that reserve is probably junior, and may not have that many hours in their new ship. BUT, they are assigned and fly those trips anyways.

Bottom line is that in the REAL 121 world, the airline treats nearly all captains as interchangeable (some airlines have their "problem people" who are handled differently). Since they are considered to be interchangeable with regard to performance, there is little SAFETY OR AIRMANSHIP justification for a huge difference between the pay scales across the longevity scale.

If the airline is paying for loyalty, then fine, whatever.

I think it is the height of childishness, though, to imply that anyone on this board who is a professional would insinuate that experience makes "no difference".

Grow the F up, okay?

 

[livin'thesim]

The RLA needs to be amended to even make this idea more than a pipe dream. However ALPA won't bother since it would cost them money to fight this one in court with no return on their investment. Anyone know where I can get some orange tape?

I think that a single change to the RLA would fix the bulk of the problems:

Make all final contracts retroactive to the amendable date.

This would keep both sides on track.

If the industry is in a growth phase, there is no benefit to the company to drag out negotiations.

If the industry is in a concessionary phase, there is no incentive for pilots to drag out negotiations.

It would probably also prevent some potential strikes (which neither side wants), by eliminating the benefit to management of delaying a final contract.

The way the RLA works now, a four year contract is really a 4+X year contract, where X=whatever number of years the airline would like it to be, as long as they play their cards right.

If they seem too intransigent, there is always the possibility of the pilots being released to strike. But they can give the illusion of progress for a long time and keep the process going much longer than is sane.