Without wishing to incur any wrath anywhere, or futher grief from any quarter, I was always led to believe the fundemental pay differentials for jet and TP pay was to do with economies of scale. TP aircraft only used to have 50-65 odd seats and jets were usually 100+, thus the revenues of operating the respective types, plus the relative seniority of the pilots operating such types made it work.
Young guns were starting out and thus would attract low salaries, as they were gaining good experience as well, and the older Skippers were often there to settle back towards retiement after a long career of long haul.
Of course, the modern world of 78 seat TPs and 50 seat jets turns that on it's head. The LoCo jet workload means they have to pay silly money to get enough quality folk to stay, and the TP still doesn't generate sufficient cash to pay the crews likewise. Originally, if I remember rightly, Manx/BRAL weren't going to pay the 145 crews the same as the 146 ones, for that very reason, but gave in quite quickly.
Having poled an ATP about for quite long enough, I wholy agree that the workload on a TP can be significantly higher at times. Life's not fair. Perhaps if the industry had agreed scales that ran on seat numbers it might be economically fairer, particularly to employers, as MOL would have to pay more to his 737-800 jockeys than Easy do for 737-700, but in reality as both pay their folk more or less as much as most other companies do 747/767/A340 crews, is that fair?
As gets continually mentioned, supply and demand is an essential economics model that applies to all areas of business life. If the scales for the Q400 produce empty seats and grounded aircraft, then the pay WILL have to go up. JF and every decent manager knows this. Ryanair pushing for possible pay cuts (as per another thread) is the direct result of so many of us wanting to join them...supply and demand.
Twas ever thus......
