who will be awarded the AWAC flying?

[AWACoff]

That's strange,

Due to our rigs, I garner an additional 20% on top of my FAR block every month. It sure isn't a few percent as some people seem to believe.

 

[Lear70]

More ALPA crack pipe smoking...

How many cancellations do you get in one month? How many days do you fly where min day pays more than the scheduled credit? How many days do you over-block your credit by more than a few minutes?

Don't drink the kool-aid... even the ALPA brand.

 

[bvt1151]

Pilot pay is minuscule (about 4%) compared to the operating expenses of an aircraft like the CRJ. Operating costs for the CRJ range between $2500-$3000/hour depending on the operator and their route structures. Comair continues to be one the most economical CRJ operators in the world because they are good at what they do, not because they have the cheapest pilots.

Just to clarify...

Pilot Pay is 30-35% of a CRJ's operating expenses. When you include aircraft costs (which we usually do) Pilot pay becomes 17-25%. Comair's pilots represent about 22% of the aircrafts total costs of a -200, and 27% of a -700. AWAC -200 pilots represent 17.5%. This is due to either lower pay, or higher total cost. Probably a little of both.

For grins:
Pilot pay as percentage of total cost 737-300
Delta - 30.1%
United - 25.0%
Soutwest - 23.3%
Airways - 26.1%

All in all these numbers aren't too indicitive by themselves, but they become very interesting when you factor in the total costs.

 

[NDM]

bvt1151,

I believe your numbers are accurate, when you are not counting fuel in the operating expenses.

If you count fuel as an operating expense (just at $30 a barrel) you can knock 10% off of those numbers easily. Increase that to $45 a barrel and it decreases even more.

If I can find my hard numbers I will post it, but they are packed away in a box somewhere.

Dan

 

[SKYWRJGUY]

Wha?

BVT1151 --

Methinks you need to check your math, as the numbers you post appear to be total labor costs as a percentage of CASM. According to 2003 Annual Reports, Southwest's labor (salaries, wages and benefits) CASM were 3.1 cents of 7.6 cents total, or roughly 41 per cent (p.35) ; at SkyWest, our CASM costs were 3.8 of 13.4 cents (pg. 21) or 28 percent. As far as I can tell, there is no real way to determine the flight crew (pilots and FA) portion of the labor cost as a percentage of the total. When flight crews are figured in as a percentage of the direct operating costs, it is likely a much smaller percentage.

Even based on operating expenses...if an RJ burns 2500 lbs (370 gph) per hour, at a cost of $1.20 a gallon, then we're burning $444 in gas alone--30-35% of that would be $130-140/hour, which very few crews likely approximate. Be interested to see where your figures come from.

 

[Rottweiller]

That's strange,

Due to our rigs, I garner an additional 20% on top of my FAR block every month. It sure isn't a few percent as some people seem to believe.

Yep thats the beauty of it - with the rigs I've been averaging $75+ an hour given my pay check and the scheduled block for the month plus throw in another $450+ per diem

 

[bvt1151]

Would it make you feel better if I included fuel as well? Remember that labor costs not attributed to crewmembers are not "operating" expenses and are not included. But I'm sure you all knew that...

The numbers are slightly different because I used block hour cost instead of CASM's to save time:

CRJ-200
Crew expenses
Comair - 21.6%
ASA - 18.8%
AWAC - 17.6%
(these with fuel included. Well above 4%)

Fuel Expenses
Comair - 29%
ASA - 31.6%
AWAC - 23.3%

CRJ-700
Crew Expense
Comair - 26.9%
ASA - 34.9%
Eagle - 22.4%
Horizon - 20.0%

Fuel Expense
Comair - 33.3%
ASA - 35.1%
Eagle - 26.9%
Horizon - 23.2%

737-300
Crew
Delta - 30.1%
United - 24.6%
Southwest - 22.9%
Airways - 26.7%

Fuel
Delta - 16.4%
United - 23.4%
Southwest - 30.0%
Airways - 20.1%

 

[Peleton]

CRJ 200 Crew Costs
Capt=67/hr
FO=34/hr
FA=18/hr

Total
119/hr

Fuel
3000 lb/hr= 448 gals
448*1.84/gln=$824/hr

1.84 is the average fuel cost on the routes Indy flies according to the webcast

Lease rates:

I have to guess a lot on this but based on multilple different sources it is on the low side on 85K a month. I used a guess of 82375/month

82375/mnth / 30.5 days average=$2700/ day
2700/day / 8.5 hours of flight time per day= $318/ hour

Landing fees:
They seem to average about 150 per landing throughout the East Coast. Average stage length about 1 hour so we have $150 an hour in fees.

Total
150+318+824+119=1411/hour direct operating cost
119 crew cost / 1411 per hour operating cost gives us a grand total of 8.4% of total DIRECT operating cost per flight hour.

Now of course this does not include the 8.5 crews per aircraft and so forth and it does assume alot of things but as one can see the crew costs on an RJ are very small indeed. If I wanted I could throw in the cost of the snacks and drinks but you see I had to keep it simple.

 

[bvt1151]

Benefits, 5-7 crews per aircraft, reserves, crews in training, vacation, sick time, work rules...it all adds up to much more than $119/hr.

To be exact:
CRJ-200 crew costs industry average $241 per hour.
CRJ-200 fuel costs industry average $354 per hour.
ACA's reported CRJ fuel cost per block hour in Q1/2004 - $397.
ACA's reported CRJ aircraft cost per block hour - $418

I would be scepticle of that $1.84 average. It sounds like they are weighing each station equally, when most obviously they are getting an extreme discount in IAD, much like every airline can negotiate at their home airport. That is why you tanker fuel to outstations.

Your fuel costs are way out of whack. You have to get to the MD-80 with old JT-8D's to reach $800 per hour fuel cost ($804 industry average). Even the 737-800 runs around $688 per block hour in fuel.

Regardless, the price of fuel does not affect crew rates, which are still at 18-25% of the CRJ's total operating cost.

 

[Peleton]

Last time I checked I burn about on average 3000/hr.

We do not tanker fuel to outstations either. We used to in the old days but not under IDE flights. In fact for awhile we used to tanker fuel into IAD as they were having a supply problem. Tankering fuel in this aircraft gives you very little advantage over the difference in cost of fuel at the different airports. If we have a dispatcher reading maybe they can shed a light on the cost to move fuel around the country per hour per pound.

APU burn is 200lb per hour=-been told it costs $1/minute to operate with fuel and Power by the Hour contract with Honeywell.



3000lb/6.7=447 gph
447*1.84=823 $/hr
15 minutes of APU time=$15

Total fuel bill equals $838/hour

No way around that number.

In fact the Airbus 319 burn about 5900/hr according to our FOM so that equates to about 881 gallons per hour. Even at 1.00/gln you cannot get to the numbers you stated for the 737-800. Last time I checked the 319 with IAE engines were more fuel efficent than the 737 NG series, but I do not remember where I read that.


You cannot throw in the multiple crews as each airline is staffed in different ways.

Secondly, we are only talking about pilot pay...nobody mentioned anything about benefits and the sort. Only pilot pay is mentioned. You even yourself said pilot pay in your previous post, you cannot change it mid point!

Crew pay is less than 10% of the hourly expense to operate a CRJ.

If we really want to get technical we would have to have the Power by the Hour rates for the CF34-3B1 and the APU. MX told me it is near 200/hour for the total expense. In addition you would have to break down the other various expense of wear and tear by the average flight hours per year.

This calculation can get VERY omplex very quickly but pilot pay is not even near the greatest expense per hour this aircraft and is NOWHERE near the number you came up with.

 

[DiverDriver]

More ALPA crack pipe smoking...

How many cancellations do you get in one month? How many days do you fly where min day pays more than the scheduled credit? How many days do you over-block your credit by more than a few minutes?

Don't drink the kool-aid... even the ALPA brand.

Question 1: Not many on average. They come in clusters. Especially if I'm scheduled for ORD-SBN-ORD-PIA-ORD-CWA. I've seen them hack flights during the day just to catch up when ORD goes down with snow. So, it doesn't happen often but when it does happen I am WAY glad I have 100% Weather/Mechanical/OPR xncl pay.

Question 2: Uh, that's happening more and more lately. I came in once for a ORD-MKE overnight. (total block 35 min) Glad I have min day then.

 

[Peleton]

[

Your fuel costs are way out of whack. You have to get to the MD-80 with old JT-8D's to reach $800 per hour fuel cost ($804 industry average). Even the 737-800 runs around $688 per block hour in fuel.

Where did you get these numbers? A little research on the web indicates that a MD80 weighing 149500 will burn 851 gallons per hour. This is out to the following link http://api.hq.faa.gov/economic/742SECT7.pdf. There is no way if you burn 851 gl/hr you can get a fuel cost of $804/hr. Not in this day and age, maybe when gas was .98 per gallon not now.

 

[jayme]

So who WILL be awarded the AWAC flying?

I'm hoping AWAC.

 

[bvt1151]

Where did you get these numbers? A little research on the web indicates that a MD80 weighing 149500 will burn 851 gallons per hour. This is out to the following link http://api.hq.faa.gov/economic/742SECT7.pdf. There is no way if you burn 851 gl/hr you can get a fuel cost of $804/hr. Not in this day and age, maybe when gas was .98 per gallon not now.

Really, I'm not making them up. Find them at http://www.bts.gov

You can also find them at http://www.flyi.com/com-investor.htm.
Indy shows total fuel costs in Q3 of $44,192,000.
Block hours in Q3 of 92,716.*

Simple math results in a fuel cost of $476.64 per block hour, and this is from their own 10-Q. Far shy of your calculated $824/hr.

*These numbers are Q3, while previous posts showed Q1 numbers

 

[SpocksBeard]

I think we will retain our flying because our company will find a way to make themselves cheaper. I don't think we will be asked for concessions again and I seriously doubt this pilot group would approve them should it come to that. Maybe I'm being too optimistic but I saw a similar thing happen to the Mesaba pilots during their last contract struggle which I was involved with at the tail end. Northwest bluffed everybody into thinking they were going to park the avros and it never happened. XJ even went so far as anouncing the furlough of 19 or so pilots (whom I was a part of) and sending out official furlough notices and then cancelled the furlough as I took my job at Air Whiskey. As soon as the contract was signed they hired a bunch of guys all of the sudden. I honestly think this is simply a way of scaring ZW into charging United less. That or to increase capacity on our routes with 70 seaters. Maybe this will put sufficient pressure on our management to actually enter the larger aircraft market. Sometimes I'm afraid they're a bit too conservative.