macpilot said:
If anyone has done the math...
If Pa adopted Jr's salary, perdiem, overtime pay and 2 week on call/ 1 hard off schedule
Or, If JR adobted Pa's salary, perdiem, (imposible to adopt our 2 week on/off) and overtime pay
Or any combination their of,
would the both companies pilots take home pay be the same? It seems to me that it would be about the same or jet ride would be slightly ahead.
Am I making sence or completely missing the subjecet?
I guess this is the problem. The Jetride pilots (at least several I spoke with)were under the assumption that the Pinnacle pilots were getting pay raises to match the JR pilot salaries. Is this not the case? Most pilots at Jetride break even on the meal allowance ($36 a day) and therefore do not add per diem as part of the salary or take home pay. Based on the above post, I assume PA pilots are adding per diem into their salary when they figure out take home pay amounts.
You cannot really do the math on either system because in order to benefit from Pinnacle's per diem structure, one must stay in a hotel that is less than $85 a night before taxes. Jetride Dispatch and JR pilots routinely book hotels that are $90-$100 a night before taxes. If we continued that practice on Pinnacle's per diem structure, we would lose money, or starve to break even.
I think the point of many JR pilots is that they don't want a change in QOL while on the road with this new system, i.e. they don't want to stay in lesser quality hotels than we do now, and they don't want any less money for meals than we get now. I also think a lot of them don't want the hassle of making their own reservations at hotels and having to charge those bills to a personal credit card.
Now, what I would like to know to simplify the argument is this....
If JR pilots are staying in Holiday Inns, Crowne Plazas, Marriott chains, and Hilton chains for an average of $90-$100 ($105-$120 after taxes) a night before taxes, how would one break even or come out ahead on $141 a night? At that per diem rate it leaves $21-$36 a day for food which is hardly enough. Any less than $36 a day and you are hard pressed to break even, let alone come out ahead.
According to the IRS tables, on this system, we should be spending no more than $96 a night (after taxes) on hotels. That doesn't leave much wiggle room. It remains a fact that in order to do this, one must find a hotel with a nightly rate of $85 or less to get the full $45 IRS meal allowance. I spoke with a couple FBOs this week regarding rates that they have (in PBI), and not one has a rate less than $95 a night with local hotels.
The internet didn't produce anything better. I found three hotels with shuttle service and restaurants nearby (requirements in my opinion, unless the company pays for a rental car) that were $80-$85 a night.....Days Inn, La Quinta and Red Roof Inn. All crappy hotels in this area. Trust me, the $99 a night Marriott we are in now is nothing to write home about.
In any case, I don't see how the math adds up. Maybe I am missing something. I wish a PA pilot could give a detailed example of a common destination like TEB, APA, PBI, LAX, etc.