Jarops, my man you should run for president immediately and start talking up the boom!! In the last 10 years I can think of 3 talked about booms and none of them have happened. First we had the US retirements recruiting boom that said the majors needed 10,000 pilots each over the next 10 years. Then the low cost boom and now the China boom.
Sadly; all that seems to have happened is that pilots have been laid off, salaries and conditions have worsened, and the new hires have been prepared to take any sh*tty package to get their foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. That worked fine when there were 20 steps or so to climb but now we are down to about 4.
Mr K F Hucker (like the name), I actually am not absolutely sure how many hours we are contracted to now because of the recent credit changes. Before we were contracted to 990/year but that was abated for leave, standbys, office duties and sims. Now we get no credit for the any of the above. It looks to me as if we are contracted to about 914. That means that a new F/O would get (believe it or not) $60/hr and a new Captain $91/hr. We don't pay tax and look pretty secure at the moment. (Lets hope Iran stay in their box) To put it into perspective, this is how EK compares in USD/Hr with the US carriers and Virgin even after their recent pay slashes.
New Captain:
EK $91/hr
United $189
Delta $198
US Air $146
NW $191
Virgin $214 (Todays exchange rate)
5 Year F/O (Just in case upgrades do slow)
EK $68
United $124
Delta $131
US Air $96
NW $122
Virgin $142 (Todays exchange rate)
Food for thought!!
Ceberus
