Mesa

[Dave Benjamin]

They may not be any sort of an "industry standard" but you have to admit they are getting a big chunk of flying.
Just coincidence?

 

[stillaboo]

They may not be any sort of an "industry standard" but you have to admit they are getting a big chunk of flying.
Just coincidence?

Nope, not a coincidence. But Mesa getting allot of flying doesn't make their contract an industry standard either. CoEx is the largest regional, and their contract isn't industry standard. Should it be?

Passengers are not willing to pay extra $ for what they see as the same product, and the distinction b/t different carriers isn't great enough to overcome this.

Though 'Blue, Southwest, and ATA are doing really well right now (and many pilots want to get on with them), the main reason they're doing well is b/c they offer lower fares then their competition. Part of the reason they can do that is lower labor costs. Now, most pilots know that these pilots get paid less (stock options can't be included, b/c stock can go down too, making the options worthless) than the 'industry average', but they're ok with it b/c the growth opportunity and job stability is worth what they give up in pay and the work rules are still acceptable. The only difference with Mesa is that the work rules are a bit rougher. Mesa is paying its pilots a wage slightly less than the industry leaders (CMR?), while the LCC wage rates aren't nearly similar to DL's, the mainline industry leader. If Mesa was a mainline, I bet they'd have much better work rules b/c the Mesa pilots wouldn't accept less (where I fault the Mesa pilots is on work rules, why shouldn't regionals have work rules like mainline?), and we'd love them b/c the pay would be 10% less than DL. But that's not how it is.
In the end, Mesa's MEC gave up some compensation and work rules to get some job stability and growth. Most Mesa guys will say the job stability they got was when they eliminated Freedom. True, they did, and it was somewhat of a thankless task, since nobody really seems to see Freedom as the threat that Mesa did, and there has been little gratitude shown to them for this effort. What the Mesa MEC really did was guarantee job stability in a tough economic climate through cost control. Nothing will guarantee you job stability like growth that puts you further away from furlough and keeps your contractors dependent on you (Mesa is the bulk of U and HP’s express operations).

Face the facts, guys, if 2 products are offered, and they are almost identical in every respect except cost, which one will you buy? Though you may say you’d pick the marginally superior product (and when I say ‘marginal’ I mean an extremely slim margin), our customers have already spoken. They see no real difference b/t airlines, and will buy the cheapest fare. Is it any surprise then that mainline carriers have chosen to give their business to the company that serves the passengers needs the best? Mesa will get a passenger to their destination on a jet (passengers don’t like props, they’re ‘unsafe’ ) at the lowest cost. Mesa has some of the lowest operating costs in the industry, so low that Wall Street estimated that ACA pilots could work for free and ACA still wouldn’t have costs as low as Mesa (and as you can see by the ACA example, Mesa’s pilot labor costs are only 1 of many contributing factors that allow Mesa to bid low. If Mesa didn’t control all their costs, including management, they’d never be able to low bid, no matter how much their pilots were paid). Cost is what drives the purchasing decision. It will take allot more than the Mesa pilots signing a huge contract to raise rates in an industry that has so little product differentiation and so much emphasis on cost.

We must all work together to slowly raise the compensation and work rules in the industry to a higher level.

Congrats to ACA and 'Lakes for re-upping with UA. I fear that it is only a stop-gap measure designed to help Mesa and/or TSA ramp up to replace them.

-Boo!

 

[Dave Benjamin]

The only difference with Mesa is that the work rules are a bit rougher. Mesa is paying its pilots a wage slightly less than the industry leaders

Does the word understatement come to mind?

Even MSS would have a tough time passing that one off.

 

[stillaboo]

Understatements

I don't think it really is a large understatement. I'd guess no part of Mesa's contract is 20% less than that of the regional leader. 20% of a small # (all regional contracts are made up of small #'s) is a really small #. And since they upgrade on RJ's faster than virtually any other carrier, who cares that their 4 year FO pay is lacking? How does their 4th year RJ captain pay compare to their competitors' 4 year FO pay is the real question.

Where I find disappointment with Mesa's contract is where I find disappointment with all regional contracts. A regional captain is no less skilled than a DL 777 captain. While experience is worth something, as is longevity with a company, that one of these pilots is compensated 3 times better than the other is rediculous. If all pilots work together, the pay at DL should come down a little (just 10% or so), and the pay at regionals, particularly as an FO, should go up so that no regional FO is ever forced to eat Ramen or use Foodstamps to get by. That is not professional.

Most guys at 'Blue and Southwest are paid at least 40% less than the DL 777 Captain, and they love their jobs, and other pilots are kicking down the door to get in. Clearly, once you reach a level of over 100K or so, compensation isn't everthing.

It is these factors that pilots should be encouraging in their new contracts. For instance, per diem pay isn't taxed. If you give up 20% in flight pay and get a 20% increase in per diem, you'll end up with a raise, since per diem goes 24 hours a day untaxed while nobody flies more than 8 hours a day at most (provided that you fly overnights. Obviously, this doesn't work for out-and-back schedules). However, if I were to post a contract with a 20% pay cut, I can guarantee you I'd hear nothing but "you lowered the bar" crap from the majority, even though I got a myself a raise. There is more to a contract than pure hourly rates.

So, maybe it was an understatement, but not as large of one as you might think.

-Boo!

Who's MSS?

 

[Dave Benjamin]

Boo,
You're looking at this in a very shortsighted manner. Great you get to upgrade a year earlier than someone at CMR. You're happy that you're only making 20% less. Any idea of how much that adds up to over a career? All of us in the regionals will spend more time at this level than anticipated. Many of us will spend the rest of our careers at a regional. By the time things turn around I'll be in the top 20% of the list at my airline. It's doubtful that I'd want to give that up for the opportunity to go to a major and be at the bottom of the list. There are a lot of us and it will be many years before the majors start hiring.
You need to start looking down the road further than your upgrade.
MSS is the former Iraqi Information Minister.

 

[stillaboo]

Boo,
You're looking at this in a very shortsighted manner. Any idea of how much that adds up to over a career?

The math is difficult, but I'd guess it's around 20%.

I don't know how it works at CMR, but someone posted "In the new Mesa contract, the CRJ-900 rate tops out at $104.39". That's a minimum of $94,994.90 (70 hour minimum, 13 bids at Mesa). So CMR makes $114K or something (the 20% thing). Maybe I come from too humble of a background, but anyone who calls someone out for making around 100K a year to fly planes into hubs is missing the bigger picture.

You're welcome to sit at CMR until you shrivel up like a raisin with your high pay (for regionals). If I were an RJ pilot and was driven only by $, I'd have grander long-term goals than the left seat of an RJ. The economy will turn around, furloughs will be recalled, and mainline will hire again. If getting below industry average pay (mainline pilots all make more than CMR, right?) and flying feeder ops in an RJ is what passes as long-term thinking at CMR, it's no surprise that senior CMR guys think nothing of the idea of requiring DL furloughs to give up their seniority (kill em' with kindness, huh?). CMR's left seat is like a glass ceiling as far as I'm concerned right now.

Why would a pilot group anywhere institute a policy that punishes other pilots who have achieved the very success most pilots aspire to? This 'us vs. them' mentality serves to divide pilots and subvert the collective effort, in the same way that petty griping over pay does. As long as pilots define themselves as 'mainline' and 'regional', there will always be two tiers, 2 payscales, 2 sets of industry norms. There is only 1 kind of 121 pilot. Do not let management divide and conquer the pilots with this dribble about regional and mainline. It is a self-fufilling prophesy, one started by ALPA when they instituted the 'regional' payscale by refusing to fly RJ's and large TP's. All flying should be on 1 list. All of it!

I think long term planning is lacking at more than one carrier these days, hmm?

-Boo!