Peer Level Wages: MESA and Comair...

[350DRIVER]

Also, as more and more people need to fly, will RJs cause an ATC saturation? Will they have to build or convert smaller airports to reduce conjestion on major airports? At the same time they are mowing down fields all over the country and turning them into golf courses. Great planning for Sundays, but not for the future.

I think that present day we are already over saturated in some parts of this country under certain circumstances, even with the present number of aircraft in operation the delays when weather goes down at IAD, EWR, LGA, STL, etc, are no joy. I have also heard that the FAA is continuing to reduce staffing levels and they have put a halt to the classes in OKC so should leave for some interesting times ahead. I think you will continue to see a push for "expansion" at the current airports whenever that opportunity presents itself versus the building of "new" airports. I think some of learned a valuable lesson when they decided to build the "other" aiport in St. Louis that was suppose to solve many problems which in reality it did next to nothing to solve any problems.


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[BoilerUP]

Re: General....

With that said, what is the point of running a 90-100 seat RJ when you could pull more revenue from a 717?

A quick point.

There is NO SUCH THING as a 90-100 seat regional jet. The DC-9-15 seats what, 78 or so pax? How many seats did the F28 have? What about the 732 or F100? Now compare those with the Baby Bus (A318). Not a real big difference in seating capacity, when compared to the large RJs (CR9), EMB-190/195 and 717.

I don't think anybody can fault "regional" pilots for wanting to fly larger "regional" equipment like 70 seaters because it raises their overall pay and allows airlines to cover thinner routes with more appropriately sized aircraft. However, IMO anything CR9 and larger belongs at mainline, if only to keep wages for similar-size equipment up. Management may say "we can't afford mainline pilots for 100 seat planes, we need lower wage pilots to compete", and as long as there are pilots willing to fly similar size equipment for a C scale, the whipsaw will continue and they'll put those aircraft at the Connection/Express carriers. OTOH, it doesn't do any good if the majors price themselves out of being competitive, so middle ground will have to be attained.

I'm curious if Lowecur or any other lurkers out there have comparisons between the 717 and EMB-190. I've never flown on the 717, but it seems like the perfect aircraft for markets too thin for a 737 but too big for RJs. It would be nice to see companies order a few, but I don't know the economics of it all...

But as was stated before, its easy to be armchair airline executives when you don't have anything (like golden parachutes) at stake...

 

[doh]

I agree with one thing med flyer says. If our positions were reversed the delta guys would never take a pay cut. The delta guys should not agree to "peer level wages " though, because their airline is not in as bad a shape as the rest. Comair pilots are paid competetively with the rest of the industry, somebody has to be #1. The mesa guys could have negotiated more but chose to settle. You don't see the top paid airline exec taking a cut because it's not right for him to have more than "peer level wages " do you? Okay, enough random musings!

 

[wms]

Peer wages or not, the pay regional pilots make for the work we do is criminal, even at CA/ASA. The fact that some cave in to less is foolish. Dalpa should not be coercing us to lower the bar, but encouraging us to advance our pay. Instead they're trying to use us to ease their pain.

There is a difference between higher-than-peer pay that qualifies you for food stamps, and higher-than-peer pay that qualifies you for a summer home.

I'm not saying that DAL should take pay cuts, because they shouldn't; at least not what the company wants. What I am saying is I'm tired that the same mainline guys who say to our faces we should be making $75 instead of $60, want to throw us to the wolves.

 

[doh]

wms, well said.