NEDude
yada yada yada
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2001
- Posts
- 1,611
Imo, about the only viable comparison would be to take the current pay range of the most junior to most senior pilot in the specific seat. I say this, as negotiating "capital" is not wasted in seniority areas where there are no (nor ever will be) actual pilots in that seat/seniority range.
S
It would be nice if we could negotiate pay that way. But the reality is that is not the way the industry works, nor has it ever worked. Like it or not we all lost our longevity and seniority when we lost our other jobs. No airline in the United States would care if you had ten years in at United, or 25 years in at ATA, you start out at the most junior seat and pay when you start again. Let's just suppose that all pay scales were the same across the board regardless of company, every five year FO in an A320/B737 was paid XXX dollars, every ten year captain on an A320/B737 was paid XXX dollars and so on. If you had ten years seniority when you got furloughed, it would take you ten years at your new company to get back to where you were before.
I like your idea, but basically what you are asking is for Virgin to give us credit for other pilots longevity at other airlines - ie. the senior A320 pilot at United has 20 years in so the senior Virgin captain should get "credit" for the United pilots 20 years and get paid the same. No management in the world would go for that.
As for publishing rates where there are no pilots currently seated, even though we do not have 12 year captains yet, we will in less than seven years and we now have a benchmark to work from should we choose to unionize at some point. There is no point in publishing 1 or 2 year captains rates, and as best the crystal ball can tell right now it will be a long time before we see 12 year FOs. But I do like publishing a 12 year captain rate because it gives us a bench mark for future raises or contractual negotiations should it come to that.