I don't really think there is enough evidence to suggest that if Eastern increased command salaries to $130 000 that blokes would have stayed anyway.
I left on the day my command was awarded. Not with any grand notion that I had to fly a jet or that the money wasn't enough, just that it was a career objective I had set and I certainly feel satisfied that I have acheived that objective.
In hindsight I think it would probably be an awesome job still belting around in a Dash 8 doing RNAV approaches or NDB approaches at night etc. As
Hugh Jarse said there would have to be a management shift though because they did make it rather unpleasant by rounding up anyone who stepped out of line and throwing the book at them wherever possible. People can't work under those conditions. Plus it just took too long to get to a command (5-7 years ), so a lot of good people left and went to fly jets.
What management have to take ownership of is the fact that those people may not have left if it was hard to leave; ie: good money $120 000 for a command and a bit of respect and give and take towards crew. But MD always openly said that pilots will always want to fly jets and if you don't like it you can leave.
So in trying to summarise this mind numbingly long post, I believe on the jet argument alone, they would have lost a handful but if the money was just a bit better with a chance of progression, a lot of extemely capable and experienced pilots would still be around, Hugh Jarse being one of them.
Instead they opted for a cadet type scheme and paying incentives, which probably cost a lot more overall, because they were paying those incentives to blokes who wouldn't have gone anywhere anyway.
GUARD
