This is going to be a controversial one!
I've followed with much interest the pay claims of pilots at United, American and Delta - and as can be seen from the thread on take home pay, their monthly after-tax pay is, in many cases, more than the annual pay of some crews flying identical aircraft.
From a corporate standpoint, this is a fast-track to bankruptcy, especially in a recession which it is widely acknowledged we're entering at the moment. Salaries are part of overhead - and high overhead kills off companies when revenues are down.
Not only this, but their agreements limit the number of hours they have to work to ridiculously low levels - the equivalent of just over a working week for an average person per month.
They expect to be paid for training time - regardless of the fact that most professions require training/seminars/conferences for which there is no additional pay.
Benefits - such as concessionary travel - are worth many thousands of dollars (especially for a family travelling first class several times a year); yet this is apparently not taken into consideration.
The pay gap between US crews (and these three carriers in particular) and crews in the rest of the world is vast and seemingly growing out of control. It's very much to ALPA's benefit if other US majors (such as Continental, US Airways, TWA, Northwest, Southwest etc) join them - and ensures for those carriers that are paying their crews high salaries that come the recession, their competitors are in the same boat.
But can these pay levels be justified? I think not. Sure, there are some very high salaries paid to a few - very few - entrepreneurs and senior executives; but by and large almost all of the senior executives at AA, DL and UA are on lower salaries than their captains.
Is there any justification for retaining the old system of paying higher salaries for larger aircraft? An evaluation of the Delta payscales shows that a captain on the B737-200 can currently expect to be paid US$208.30 per hour; yet his colleague on a B737NG can expect US$232.59/hr. If he's on B727s he'll get US$221.83 - yet if he's on B757s he'll get US$239.41. A B767 captain has has
six possible pay rates - US$243.92 for a B767-200; US$245.48 on a B767-300; US$248.27 on a B767-300ER flying domestically and US$260.27 flying the same aircraft internationally. If s/he's on the new B767-400, s/he can expect US$269.74 when flying domestically and US$281.74 when flying internationally.
Even the venerable L1011 has four rates - US$262.28 for the longbody on domestic and US$275.28 for the same aircraft internationally; and US$269.33 and US$281.33 for domestic and international operations on the -500.
Highest pay rates are for the B777 - US$285.34 per hour for domestic sectors and US$297.34 for international.
Delta pilots get a US$12 per hour override for international vs domestic operations.
Not only are these rates high; but DALPA wants them to go
much higher - with increases averaging over 40%.
Insanity - pure insanity.
Surely a far better way of doing things would be to have a 'normal' level of base pay - and then profit share (perhaps in conjunction with an ESOP) so that if the company's doing well - then the employees do likewise. If it isn't - then they don't get any extra. The benefit to the company is that they can control their overhead by keeping pay at a reasonable level - and employees share in the good times.
Comments?