So..the pilot shortage is coming?

[livin'thesim]

Supply and demand. A beautiful, dispassionate teller of economic truth.

 

[clippyrip]

Claiming someone is regurgitating Fox news is the equivalent of regurgitating whatever someone else says without 'doing the research'. A bit ironic if you ask me.

 

[waveflyer]

The reality of a pilots job, you can only be paid what an airline can afford without going to BK.

Then why don't FedEx pilots make $2M a year, when their companies are 20 times as profitable as airlines. Think there might be more to it than affordability?

Seniority compromises the free hand of labor-
We do not get paid a market wage, we get paid a negotiated, highly political wage artificially skewed by the constraints of the RLA & NMB

That has given us inflated wages before, and it has given us pay well below market in the post 9/11 world.

 

[pilotyip]

Then why don't FedEx pilots make $2M a year, when their companies are 20 times as profitable as airlines. Think there might be more to it than affordability?

Seniority compromises the free hand of labor-
We do not get paid a market wage, we get paid a negotiated, highly political wage artificially skewed by the constraints of the RLA & NMB

That has given us inflated wages before, and it has given us pay well below market in the post 9/11 world.

FedEx is a profitable company they can pay top wages and still have money to invest in the airline's future without borrowing. Trying force FedEx wages at Omni, Kitty Hawk, or DHL would result in BK. Whoops a couple of those have already gone belly up.

 

[waveflyer]

That wasn't the question-

 

[pilotyip]

That wasn't the question-

what was it then?

 

[waveflyer]

Why doesn't FedEx pay more if it's all about what they can afford?

Look, until we can change companies and not have to start completely over, the free market isn't free for us- I understand that we can't make whatever we want- but what we make is much more about the strength of unions, solidarity, and which NMB we're dealing with than free market pressures- the negotiating system in place interferes too much

 

[pilotyip]

Why doesn't FedEx pay more if it's all about what they can afford?

Because they don't have to?

 

[152SIC]

Because they don't have to?

Supply & Demand.

Doesn't get any easier than that.

 

[waveflyer]

Like having a conversation with a wall

 

[NEDude]

I think we need to stop thinking of the "shortage" just in terms of the United States pilot market. There is most definitely a growing "shortage" on a global scale. Contract jobs are increasing in numbers and bettering their pay and benefits. A few years ago I interviewed for and was offered a contract job in China. In just three years that same contract has increased pay 50%, from $12,000 per month to now $18,000 per month (plus additional bonuses). There are contract jobs opening in Europe among the LCCs with Easyjet and Norwegian both offering contracts. That would have been unthinkable even two years ago.

While the U.S. majors may never see a true pilot shortage, the LCCs, national airlines, the ACMI cargo carriers and regionals will all feel the pinch, and in many parts of the world it is being fully felt. I have friends at some regionals who say they already are feeling it, with multiple no-shows for interview sessions and class dates.

 

[pilotyip]

Like having a conversation with a wall

my thoughts exactly

Supply & Demand. Doesn't get any easier than that.

A nice balance works at FedEx, did not work at UAL in 2000 to get the "Industry Leading Wages", nor did it work at Comair for the "Regional Industry Leading Wages" This is not only a supply and demand of pilots job, but also supply and demand of those consumers who purchase the product for sales.

 

[SWA Bubba]

Why doesn't FedEx pay more if it's all about what they can afford?

Look, until we can change companies and not have to start completely over, the free market isn't free for us- I understand that we can't make whatever we want- but what we make is much more about the strength of unions, solidarity, and which NMB we're dealing with than free market pressures- the negotiating system in place interferes too much

I'll take a stab at it--

It's because the real answer is it's a lot more complicated than any of you guys arguing make it out to be (not that I'm claiming all the answers). There's some truth in all of your arguments, but the sum has elements of each. Wave, to specifically answer your question, it IS supply and demand. FedEx doesn't have to pay $2M per year, because there are essentially infinite pilots willing to do that flying for less. Your idea of union solidarity forcing FedEx to pay more because "they can afford it" isn't really 'free market' pressure either (supply and demand), because you've eliminated the 'supply' aspect (of overall pilots) of the supply and demand dynamic. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that you would be 'controlling' the supply to manipulate the market.

And I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for "changing companies without starting over" to happen. It's not gonna. Not in this industry, nor many others with seniority-based unions. Especially when the workers in the industry are essentially interchangeable. In this type of work, you can't objectively say that pilot A is "better" than pilot B and more deserving of being the Captain (leaving out, of course, obvious things like accidents and violations). It's not like a sales company where you can say Bob consistently sells more widgets than Tom, so Bob gets the promotion. In this type of business, seniority is all you have to establish seat position and so on.

Now, I suspect you're thinking of keeping seniority, but making it trans-airline, so that 10 years 'here' is worth 10 years 'there.' Never gonna' happen either. There's absolutely no incentive for any company to want this, nor would it be fair to the current labor pool. The only real way to accomplish this would be by government fiat. I don't know if this is what you're after, but that obviously wouldn't be 'free market' either. Having one all-encompassing pilot union controlling pilot labor for any potential airline isn't any different than having all the managements getting together setting a single set of payscales. Either way is one side (management or labor) dictating all the terms, which eliminates the 'supply and demand' and 'free market' parts of the economy. Not to mention, it eliminates true competition. It seems like you bitch about management's tactics, but you want the power to do the same thing for yourself (labor, that is). In this situation, as in most 'real-life' situations, the reality is somewhere in the middle.

Bubba

 

[waveflyer]

All this MBA & business owner is saying is that our seniority system compromises the free hand- we're invested in this career and in our companies more than any other professional working with us-
The reality is that our wage is supply and demand plus a multitude of other factors and pressures- to discount any of it is to hold a simplistic and erred view-

That's my only point-

 

[Lear70]

All this MBA & business owner is saying is that our seniority system compromises the free hand- we're invested in this career and in our companies more than any other professional working with us-
The reality is that our wage is supply and demand plus a multitude of other factors and pressures- to discount any of it is to hold a simplistic and erred view-

That's my only point-

True statement.

Not that what Bubba said is incorrect at all, some good stuff in there too, but the fact is that MANY unionized workers in different fields, albeit what we would consider "blue collar" (electrical workers, etc) ARE nationally unionized and carry their seniority and longevity with them if they decide to move to another job across the country.

That would be the first real step towards fixing our system as pilots but I also agree that management would never go for it - Southwest is an excellent example, hiring when no one else was several years ago. If a national system had allowed pilots from a Legacy carrier on furlough to take those jobs, they would have come in at year 3, 4, 6 longevity, thus killing a large part of the financial advantage of hiring new-hires for management.

For that reason alone, managements at airlines would fight such a move tooth-and-nail, not to mention unions themselves fighting it with the risk of pilots coming in super-senior moving everyone down the list.

Just isn't going to happen, sad to say. I think the benefits would outweigh the risks for us as pilots, but you'd never get everyone on the same page long enough to get it done. In that respect, our Blue Collar unionized brothers are smarter than we are...

Sad, but true.