Regional career possible?

[Vorleron]

Witn few exceptions, it always must be remembered that Airline Management has ONE (1) goal:

Qualify for their exorbatent bonuses. If that means making the airline look profitable, or artificially inflating the stock prices, so be it.

Actually running an airline is second. ALWAYS.

Examples: NWA, UAL, US Air all have drastically underfunded pensions.

Continental: GB got a 11+ million dollar salary in 2002, while having over 500 pilots on furlough and the company was losing money.

Exeptions that I can think of:

SWA, 30 years of profitability and a very conservative and effective growth plan.

Skywest 34 years of growth and never a furlough in sight.

Jetblue: only time will tell.

There are others I'm sure, but these come to mind for me...

 

[PBRstreetgang]

Swing and a miss,
Typical pilots though, we all would like to think we are the reason flying costs so much. Do some basic math, here you go:
Look at a major airlines total employee count. Look at a regional airline employee total count. What percentage of the above are pilots? How bout 10-20%, depending where you look. Now look at the same job description for a major vs regional(ie ramper, mechanic, f/a, gate agent, ect).
The pay in some cases is less than 1/2 at the regional for the same job. Now you can see why the major wants the regional to carry it's pax. REGIONAL AIRLINES are CHEAP operations, and only getting cheaper.
Wake up!
PBR

 

[Rogue5]

Along the same lines (thinking of pilot pay in terms of operating costs), a CRJ CPT gave me a great analogy one night over beers at the hotel lounge:

Think of crew pay compared to total operating cost of A/C. For a short while I flew right seat charter ops where a B200 was billed at $650 an hour and a BeechJet at close to $1000. Imagine operating cost of a Regional Jet (per hour), and then compare that to the, maybe, $100 per hour you are paying the flight crew COMBINED.

Regional pilot pay is a VERY small part of the expense of the total airline operation.

 

[greyhound]

Just what I thought.

I guess it can work out for a few, but all this tells me it is every pilot's obligation to improve contracts at regionals.

If contracts would go up in value, I can see more flying going back to the majors where most people want to be.

If it keeps getting cheaper to just give it to the regionals, then the flying won't go back to the big leagues.

 

[cl-65link]

Pension? What pension. No such animal at the regionals. Certainly not company-funded.