Looks Like 1500 Hours May Become the New Hiring Minimum Among Other Things:

[ualdriver]

I really have no dog in this fight. But I continue to post there will be unintended consequences of any action to change the status quo. I think I see a belief amongst the posters here that pay raises will go to everyone in the name of safety, stability, or whatever other reason is given to raise pay. Then it seems this is coupled with the belief that everything else will stay the same as it is now. That all pilots will do the same jobs they are doing right now except make more money with the same days off. I just do not believe the industry can absorb any additional costs and still sell tickets at the current prices. If tickets prices go up then passengers go down. Any change will good for a few senior guys and not so good for everyone else. Do whatever you guys want to do, it your industry just watch out what you ask for.

1) 250 hr. pilots have no business being in the right seat of an airliner. If you argument is that we need to overlook this indiscretion in order to keep butts in seats- I don't care.

2) Pilots costs are an EXTREMELY low cost item as a percentage of an airline's total costs, around 2% of total costs for my airline according to the BTS website which compiles that sort of data. If the FAA raises minimum standards, we're talking about raising that small 2% by a small percentage. Seriously, how much do you really think this small, incremental cost is going to cost the consumer compared to, for example, today's increase in crude oil futures, up 3% today alone? I don't disagree that every time you increase costs by one penny, X amount less people fly, but that's a "risk," a small risk, I'm willing to take.

3) I think it will be good not just for senior pilots, but for junior pilots who are going to have an opportunity to earn a livable wage AND society as a whole because hopefully we'll see better qualified pilots flying jets around.

 

[Trash8Mofo]

It seems that everyone is ignoring the consumer, except management who understand that keeping seats filled is the only things that creates and sustains pilot jobs. In the end the consumer will spend less dollars on airline tickets as the price goes up. The marginal propensity to consume is a powerful factor in the market place. Raising wages and resultant costs will be good for a few senior pilots and not so good for everyone else.

More B.S.

1) Its not the pilots' job to advocate how to sell tickets, that's the management's job. The pilots don't need to fight our own fights and do your job too.

2)If a company can not pay it's employees and it's professional a respectable and reasonable wages and at the same time be profitable, then there is something wrong with it's business model.

As it is, airlines profit margins is so low that any hiccups would send the balance sheets into red figures, there is something wrong with that business model. That goes to show most airlines management inept.

 

[AC560]

As it is, airlines profit margins is so low that any hiccups would send the balance sheets into red figures, there is something wrong with that business model.

Correct and what needs to happen is that a couple airlines need to liquidate as we have more supply then demand can support in the market. What YIP is advocating keeps your job, what your advocating helps stock prices. I never really understood myself why the debt holders at many of the airlines just don't cash in or lock the unions out and hire lower paid scabs.

Where you go wrong though is "The pilots don't need to fight our own fights and do your job too.". If the airline liquidates you get to look forward to joining the bottom of a seniority list someplace else (maybe) with a tremendous cut in pay. If the airline merges you probably get forward to looking at the same. Management on the other hand will merely go work in another or the same industry (an accountant is an accountant) for the same or probably more pay. This gets back though to the fact that pilots have fundamentally screwed themselves as the means to their compensation (seniority versus contribution or skill) at most airlines.

My situation going from Tigers to the freight forwarding side isn't a great example as FedEx took pretty good care of everyone. We picked up a lot of office (supervisors/management/executives) people in the Eastern/Pan Am debacles though, most of them ended up doing the same or better then previous. The pilots didn't fair so well in either of those two situations.

Bottom line is pilots have no leverage of any kind today, everyone knows it. All a strike at UA for example would do is get management parachutes and put all the pilots on the street. What the unions need to be doing is figuring out how they can work more with management and create opportunities which strengthen the company through work rule changes (not necessarily salary changes) that also compensate the worker for greater efficiencies and profits. This isn't the 1960's and either the unions adapt to modern reality or they go away.

But the bottom line is pilots and management are in it together. Anyone who thinks otherwise is nuts.

 

[pilotyip]

BS Number

1) 2) Pilots costs are an EXTREMELY low cost item as a percentage of an airline's total costs, around 2% of total costs for my airline according to the BTS website which compiles that sort of data. If the FAA raises minimum standards, we're talking about raising that small 2% by a small percentage. Seriously, how much do you really think this small, incremental cost is going to cost the consumer compared to, for example, today's increase in crude oil futures, up 3% today alone? I don't disagree that every time you increase costs by one penny, X amount less people fly, but that's a "risk," a small risk, I'm willing to take.
.

From ATW, total airline employee compensation 26% to 45% of gross profit, depending upon the airline. Pilot make up the largest single segmentof total payrol. did not have the numbers, but it is most likely in the 15% to 20% of gross profit. If the pilot get a raise do all the other employees go without rasies. If all employees get raises, what happens to profits?

 

[pilotyip]

Nice dose of reality

But the bottom line is pilots and management are in it together. Anyone who thinks otherwise is nuts.

Nice to see some are figuring it out

 

[Lear70]

From ATW, total airline employee compensation 26% to 45% of gross profit, depending upon the airline. Pilot make up the largest single segmentof total payrol. did not have the numbers, but it is most likely in the 15% to 20% of gross profit. If the pilot get a raise do all the other employees go without rasies. If all employees get raises, what happens to profits?

This just goes to show that you really don't understand how the PASSENGER airline cost structure works.

Pilots are not anywhere CLOSE to 15-20% of an airlines GROSS profit. Try about 10% of THAT number, between 1.5-2.0% of an airlines' COST per available seat mile. If a company is charging, on average, 5-7% above cost overall throughout the system, i.e. turning a profit, which only a few airlines are doing right now, you could double a pilot's TOTAL COMPENSATION package, including insurance, retirement, etc, and the airline would still make a profit with those margins.

This data, by the way, comes directly from 3rd party outside financial consultants who are paid to give unbiased data.

This is what you don't understand in your preaching about pilots somehow risking a company's liquidity over a REASONABLE pay raise which is at LEAST 3% PER YEAR. Otherwise, I work for less and less every year, while the company still gets to raise prices to cover their OTHER costs, i.e. fuel, parts, leases, insurance. I'm sorry, but that just doesn't work, and if a company can't cover the increased pilot costs as well, then they don't deserve to be in business, goodbye, sayonara, arrivederci, ciao, hasta la vista, kaput. I am sick to DEATH of employers getting away with that crap. Management can kiss my A$$ if they don't like it, and more pilots need to think that way and grow a pair.

 

[Kalifornia]

Nice to see some are figuring it out

And your not one of them as you are a complete management tool with the full time task of trying to abolish expectations on here of any improvement in pilot compensation and work rules in the industry.

 

[pilotyip]

Don't figure

Lets look at SWA one of the few profitable airlines, 5900 pilots, average annual salary, (guessing low, since many F/O's make that much) , = $100,000, total pilot annual payroll before benefits, $590,000,000, now use an industry standard of 1.35% for benfits, ='s $769,500,000. Profit last year $178,000,000. What percent is $769M of $178M on an annual basis? 430%. Pilot compensation is four times the amount of profit. Pilot compensation is also about 7% of gross revenue at SWA
SWA 2008 Financial Statistics:

• 
  [*]Net income: $178 million
  [*]Net income, excluding special items: $294 million
  [*]Total passengers carried: 101.9 million
  [*]Total RPMs: 73.5 billion
  [*]Average passenger load factor: 71.2 percent
  [*]Total operating revenue: $11.0 billion
  

 

[Nevets]

My guess would be pilot error.

I guess I worded my question poorly. I meant, was the cause of accidents that were attributed to pilot error in Europe the same as those here.

I suspect that if one airline starts advertising that every one of their flights has two ATP certified pilots on board, other airlines will be falling all over themselves to follow suit.

This is EXACTLY what NetJets does. They advertise that both pilots have at least 2500 TT and type ratings. Seems to work for them.

Lets look at SWA one of the few profitable airlines, 5900 pilots, average annual salary, guessing low , = $100,000, total pilot annual payroll before benefits, $590,000,000, now use an industry standard of 1.35% for benfits, ='s $769,500,000. Profit last quarter $57,000,000. What percent is $769M of $57M on an annual basis? 337%. Pilot compensation is four times the amount of profit.

How do those numbers work out when you compare it to total expenses and total income/revenue?

 

[waveflyer]

pilotyip's argument is exactly what the ATA does all day long with expensive lawyers- and frankly our own lobbyists have not kept up.

Does his argument make sense-- with that logic- SWA pilots should take a 75% paycut to even out the profit to pay ratio-- ?? And that's just to break even! ( never mind that he compared annual salaries with one quarter. ) Sorry yip- but on a average southwest flight- a capt will make $250 and the Fo $175- That same flight will burn 6000#'s of gas which at $3/ gal is $3000 -how much is the time value of money on that $40+ million jet for that flight? Now on the flipside- how much revenue did that same flight take in? Let's say the average ticket was a $100- and we had 37 extra seats unsold- $10,000 in revenue from passengers alone- now Cargo? How about monster drinks and alcohol? Heavy bags? - how much of a percentage is pilot pay again?
Is it challenging to run an airline? Absolutely- but these slewed numbered arguments have been tired for a long time yip. We're just not falling for them anymore. How about we just set up our compensation like real estate agents and get 3% of the revenue? That's a simple number that would double pilot pay overnight and everyone would know that it wasn't OUR pay that sank the ship.

If you honestly think the ship sinks or swims based on pilot pay - even on the old contracts circa 2000- you're an idiot. Never even close. The numbers just don't back that up.

 

[waveflyer]

We should advertise the resumes of our pilots- that's one of the problems is that public doesn't know how experienced their pilots are. Almost every passenger i talk to makes huge assumptions as to the experience and qualifications of their pilots. They trust that the regulators have handled it- Those colgan passengers had no idea their captain came from the most corrupt pilot farm in the country. There's no mechanism in this outsourced world of domestic flying, to know whether or not your pilot has 3000 hours total between the two pilots or 30,000 hours total. Therefore- how can the customer make an informed decision?

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Nice to see some are figuring it out

Unfortunately, management, who controls the airlines, doesn't see it that way. Labor is their liability....

 

[ualdriver]

From ATW, total airline employee compensation 26% to 45% of gross profit, depending upon the airline. Pilot make up the largest single segmentof total payrol. did not have the numbers, but it is most likely in the 15% to 20% of gross profit. If the pilot get a raise do all the other employees go without rasies. If all employees get raises, what happens to profits?

Who cares yip? Every raise every employee working at every company on the planet eats into company profits. Should employees not expect raises because of that? What happens to profits if all employees get raises? Profits go down......or......a company can raise the price of their product to reflect those higher costs. How they choose to pass along their higher costs is what the CEO gets paid the big bucks for. Since it's going to be an industry wide cost increase if this legislation stands, I'm not terribly concerned.

I thought the point you were trying to make was that if we try to protect the general population from inexperienced regional airline pilots that less people will fly because costs will go up. I already told you I agree. I also believe that this cost will be so small that it will be negligible and is certainly an acceptable risk to me, and I'm working at a financially fragile airline. We're talking about a small percentage of a small percentage of an airline's total costs going up. If this costs a regional airline more than a percentage point or two of total operational costs (1 or 2 bucks on $100), I'd be surprised.

 

[AC560]

Unfortunately, management, who controls the airlines, doesn't see it that way. Labor is their liability....

Labor is its own liability and frankly the results of the last 20yrs support that. Scope, pay, benefits, job security, the wholesale elimination of 10,000's of non-pilot union jobs at the airlines, etc.

Bang the management sucks and lets dig our heels in boys mantra all you want. Fact remains it isn't working. Management has nothing to lose, labor has everything to lose.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Labor is its own liability and frankly the results of the last 20yrs support that. Scope, pay, benefits, job security, the wholesale elimination of 10,000's of non-pilot union jobs at the airlines, etc.

Bang the management sucks and lets dig our heels in boys mantra all you want. Fact remains it isn't working. Management has nothing to lose, labor has everything to lose.

Agreed.... and this is an acceptable paradigm?