Pay Comparison Misnomer

[canyonblue]

I started this flame-bait post because a lot of the SWA kool-aid drinkers on this forum are getting pretty annoying.

Easy, quit logging on.

 

[scoreboard]

Lets see, where do I begin...

deleted

ygbsm

 

[canyonblue]

Good for you, that's why I wrote "to each his own." Right now neither one of those statements is false. It has nothing to do with a bigger aircraft either.

Hey, I agree with you there. For me it has to do with the place I work and the environment I am in. Myself, and many other SWA pilots love coming to work, and that is a hard thing to find in any profession, and that is worth more than any payrate in the world. Now it could go south, but I feel the pay would before the environment would.

 

[RedBelly]

Slick,

Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm glad you left too. You have to do what makes you happy. I wish more guys had your conviction.

 

[canyonblue]

SWA pay is not the highest. Even after massive pay-cuts, AA and CAL pilots make more.

You also need to do some other comparisons before you sell people on your "Higher Pay" theory.

According to my investigating we have:

American
777 Captain with 12 years - $196 per hour 46 planes at that payrate

Continental
777 Captain with 12 years - $186 per hour 18 planes at that payrate

Southwest
737 Captain with 12 years - $190 per hour 446 planes at that payrate

Given the current seniority list we have over 1600 Captains at Southwest at that pay scale. I believe the number enjoying that "High Pay" at CAL would be @108 and at AA @ 276. I am not sure how many on the current list at each carrier will have the opportunity to reach that mark either due to slowdowns in upgrade, growth, etc..

 

[wndshr]

FedEx
Wide body Captain 12 year $201 ,15 year $206
A Plan - 2.00%
B Plan - 6%
401k - yes, though not much of a match

We have a bunch of 10 year wide body Captains and 4 to 5 year 727 Captains. How many 10 year 777 Captains do you thing CAL or AA have? I'd bet Zero, add to that most of our fleet are wide bodies.

Where is the comparison?

Airline job: 100K a year working 75 hours a month ( the min I possible can)
Outside business: 320K a year with UNLIMITED raises in the future.

Bottom Line: Fly for fun, own a business to pay the bills

 

[D'Angelo]

Originally Posted by Big Slick
.

My favorite is when SWA pilots boast about being the most productive. Most productive = lowest quality of life. Bragging about the fact that you work harder than anyone else is bizarre at best. Scary at worst.

SWA is lowering the standards for the entire industry.

Yea being lazy is really something to brag about. A big part of the reason why airlines are in trouble is not only because of payrates. The biggest problem is paying people to hardly work giving them 6 weeks of vacation a year. Sorry but paying someone to do nothing is bad for buisness. You wanna be lazy go into management throw your feet up on your big desk and don your golden chute

 

[CaptainMark]

Yea being lazy is really something to brag about. A big part of the reason why airlines are in trouble is not only because of payrates. The biggest problem is paying people to hardly work giving them 6 weeks of vacation a year. Sorry but paying someone to do nothing is bad for buisness. You wanna be lazy go into management throw your feet up on your big desk and don your golden chute

6 weeks..is that all? i take 6 weeks off every 4 vacation periods...let's see....that's 24 vacation weeks....now we're talking!!!!

 

[(o) (o)]

By the way, even if the pay was lower (which its not) I’d still prefer to fly a 777 to Nagoya than a 737 to Midland. Lots of my buddies ended up at SWA after 9/11 because there was nothing else. My buddies who have been there for 4+ years don’t enjoy their job. You can’t even take a break to use the restroom or buy lunch – gotta turn the jet in 20 minutes!

Have you ever flown a 777 to Nagoya? How do you know it's going to be better?

 

[K-Mart]

I quit SWA in 2001. I was on this forum in 2000 talking about how awesome it was to be hired by SWA. Once I got there, however, I realized that it wasn't that great. I honestly couldn't imagine busting my butt in a 737 for 28 more years.

How long did you fly the line at SWA and AA?? What made you realize SWA wasn't where you wanted to be when you hit the line?

I would say about 90% of my class-mates had interviewed with United and been turned down.

I don't know, that is probably a good thing. Not to sure about UAL's hiring practice though.

Here is my point - All of the SWA zealots on this forum haven't been around very long.

How long were you an airline pilot??

They are so pumped full of the SWA koolaid that they honestly think everyone else in the world envies them.[/QUOTE]
You quit SWA and went to AA. What are you doing on Active Duty now? How much have you deployed since coming back to AD??

Have a great AF day!:laugh: