Virgin America hangs as its hedge fund owners get antsy

[Fubijaakr]

I find it hard to believe that you believe anything that comes out of Bill Ayer's mouth.

I don't. I do know that is the rationalization THEY use to screw us. Thanks for giving it to them.

 

[ualdriver]

I wish new hires could make more at VA, but as it sits right now, they will gross approx 99000 for their first two years, if they do not upgrade.

Unfortunately, that bar is being lowered by UAL newbies grossing 84000.

I'm sorry joevollers, but did you include the UAL pilot's 16% tax deferred B&C fund contribution into your equation? Did you adjust that figure to a pretax number in order to have a pretax gross earnings apples to apples comparision? Did you include the UAL pilot's short term and long term disability plans that cost $0 (zero) dollars per month? Did you include his health insurance plan, which for a Chicago based pilot (jr. pilot base), would include a very good quality HMO for $0 (zero) dollars per month?

Or did you just go onto airlinepilotcentral.com, take the hourly wages for the first 2 years, multiply them by $1000, and them come up with those figures you quote? Your numbers look suspiciously like the latter (I just did that calculation from airlinepilotcentral.com and they came out as exactly what you posted).

Price out some 55% same job long term disability plans and throw those monthly payments in to your calculation along with the cost of a short term 90 day disability plan- both with no waiting periods. Throw in what you guys pay per month for health insurance, and don't forget that time a quarter above 82 hours (geez, you don't even have time and a half? Hell JetBlue gets time and a half!) and your 401(k) match. Then rerun those numbers and get back to me. I suspect you'll be surprised with what you come up when comparing those numbers.

Also, keep in mind that we will be entering contract negotiations this April and have every intention of raising wages. What can we expect from your pilot group, besides the NOTHING we've seen so far?

 

[cruxx@9]

Oh, I understand now. For example, our County is growing very rapidly and they're building new schools and a large health provider is building a private hospital just south of me. So the employees working for those new institutions should expect wages significantly less than the going rate for their professions because said institutions are "starting in a hole."

Or if I was planning on opening a new accounting firm and needed CPA's, I should explain to them that although I know CPA's make $X dollars a year in pay and benefits, they should expect significantly less than the going rate because I just opened a new office.

Do you know what would happen in each of the above scenarios? The new school would have no professionals, the new hospital would have no doctors or nurses or therapists, and the new accounting firm would have empty cubicles. Pilots, such as yourself, are the only professionals that I know that are expected to subsidize a company's start up costs. And like I said earlier, as long as there are guys like you that can rationalize their decisions in such a manner, there will be plenty more VA's, Allegiant's, and Skybus's in our future. Don't expect the rest of us to be happy about it or accept rationalizations like the ones you and Daytona peddle on this forum.

And you missed my point about employee/management relationship. My point was that if the rest of us agreed to fly narrowbody aircraft at VA rates, we would have WONDERFUL relationships with our management teams, too. In your previous post you were telling us all how great it is to come to work. You BOUGHT that "great work environment" to the tune of thousands upon thousands of dollars in lost compensation and benefits.

So you would start paying your employees at what rate? The standard pay that a CPA makes in an established firm at the what 10 year payscale? 20 year payscale of their peers? Or would you start them off at a little less to get your business off the ground?

I understand your argument, I really do. But the pay has been in the sh1t bucket long before VA started operating. Some of it had to do with the major carriers duped into excepting huge paycuts so the upper level management could rake in bonuses.

 

[Fubijaakr]

You see, VA operates largely off the graces of other airlines jumpseats. If the union wants to uphold the profession, then there ought to be standards or minimums of contract provisions before professionals are allowed to jumpseat on a fellow union carrier.

Actually, the ALPA Admin manual covers this. Sec.115.E.2 gives Captains policy guidance allowing them to ask for a Union card as additional identification for jumpseat access.

The intent, of course, is to keep non-Union and scab pilots from getting access to the jumpseat. If more ALPA pilots knew and adhered to existing ALPA policy then maybe Sir Dick's boys would have a harder time getting to work to undercut us.

I can't believe even the UAL or AK mgt is happy knowing that they supply a free flight to the majority of VA and JB workers on a daily basis. Quite ironic in a way.

Au contraire, mon ami. In fact, I have had an in depth discussion with my BCP on just this topic. He was ALL FOR the reciprocal agreement. In fact, he negotiated it. Why? Because we have 20 guys who commute from the Bay Area and Virgin's loads are always crappy.

My question to him was: "Angle Lake is making a big deal out of Virgin as the West Coast boogie man, yet we're giving their pilots free transportation to and from work so they can cut our throats? You can't have it both ways. Either they are a threat or they aren't."

All I got was the typical non-responsive management answer.

 

[Fubijaakr]

Never ever in the history of American aviation has an major airline pilot group ever taken a pay cut due to lower wages at their competitor.

B.S. Delta, United and USAir ALL had their narrow body rates lowered to jetBlue levels by the bankruptcy court. Those wages were imposed. You need to check some history before you make statements like this.

 

[Fubijaakr]

Pilots, such as yourself, are the only professionals that I know that are expected to subsidize a company's start up costs. And like I said earlier, as long as there are guys like you that can rationalize their decisions in such a manner, there will be plenty more VA's, Allegiant's, and Skybus's in our future. Don't expect the rest of us to be happy about it or accept rationalizations like the ones you and Daytona peddle on this forum.

Amen!

 

[ualdriver]

So you would start paying your employees at what rate? The standard pay that a CPA makes in an established firm at the what 10 year payscale? 20 year payscale of their peers? Or would you start them off at a little less to get your business off the ground?

I understand your argument, I really do. But the pay has been in the sh1t bucket long before VA started operating. Some of it had to do with the major carriers duped into excepting huge paycuts so the upper level management could rake in bonuses.

No, you'd pay them something RESEMBLING THE GOING RATE. What VA pays in TOTAL pilot compensation doesn't even come close to resembling the going rate. Especially considering that VA wanted experienced Captains who I assume would also act as LCA's when the airline was starting up. VA's rates aren't even CLOSE. THAT'S THE POINT. If you agree with me, even a little, please do something to fix that instead of giving us all a list of reasons why it's "OK" to have $95/hr. Airbus Captains.

And I would tell you that to your face, assuming you weren't bigger than me

 

[joevollers]

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[ualdriver]

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It's a good thing you pulled that question, because you wouldn't have liked that answer I was going to give you, either.

 

[Laboule]

It's a good thing you pulled that question, because you wouldn't have liked that answer I was going to give you, either.

Tough guy! Why don't you logoff and go work on the grammar in your posts? Specifically, practice your use of apostrophes. Not everything is possessive...it's just plural. Use your "high UAL pay" and take some junior college English courses. Some of them give a free steak upon enrollment; you should probably take the free bookmark instead, as you are looking a bit fat lately.