raas767 says
No airline has EVER gone out of business because of pilot salaries.
Well pilot - and management - greed has played a very major role in the fact that out of all of the US majors, only Southwest has practiced financial prudence and put money aside for a rainy day. The others - especially American, Delta and United - got into a p1ss1ng contest with each other to see who would have the highest paid pilots: even though it was blatantly obvious that a recession was around the corner.
These carriers are now stuck with additional costs of well over half a
billion dollars a year each. Smart thinking, guys!
Now, Crossair is trying to pick up the pieces of Swissair in a deal that has attracted a great deal of opposition from the EU. When SR was given permission to buy EU airlines, the Swiss government agreed that they would abide by EU rules affecting government bailouts and subsidies - they have reneged on that agreement.
There will be a lot of changes to the industry on both sides of the Atlantic, and you can expect things like Scope Clauses to disappear out of the window - along with those insanely high salaries (for both senior management and pilots).