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Old 21st Sep 2007, 03:43
  #176 (permalink)  
Ignition Override
 
Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Down south, USA.
Posts: 1,594
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Betterave:

A very minor point here, but let's clarify for pilots outside of the US that Southwest Airlines, although it is called 'low cost', in general, has high salary airline staff. There appear to be misunderstandings about Southwest on Pprune among many foreign pilots. Maybe among US pilots and those who misrepresent themselves.

The phrase 'low-cost' is sometimes quite misleading, and seems to portray such pilots as being paid less than most other pilots who fly the same type.
At Southwest, the pilots are probably the highest-paid B-737 pilots in the Western Hemisphere, possibly in the whole world. This contradicts the common portrayal of 'low-cost' pilots. And at SWA they do not pay for trivial typical things such as a cup of coffee from the 737 galley, or for an airline ball point pen (Stilo, Kugel-), as is alleged at the European darling 'low-cost' carrier, RyanAir. The mentality is quite different.

And based on new contracts at several US major airlines, as we (here) are well aware, most of us could also be described as 'low-cost', when our hourly salaries are often similar to that at 'low-cost' carrier Airtran (formerly ValueJet, whose Upper Mgmt was so publicly shamed by its incompetent "leadership", so to speak, that it changed its name...). Airbus salaries for thousands of US pilots can also be less than for JetBlue A-320 pilots (where each pilot is reportedly an "Army of One", with individual contracts {divide and conquer}).

Those '757/767 hotels' can be very nice, if you have hotel language in your contract as good as that in Delta's contract.
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