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[Oliver Twist]

My how the venom flows when one hits a nerve eh?

First let me say this, I'm not jealous of your job.
Do I think it is an easy job and everyone can do it? No.
Does it take a lot of training? Yes.

Could I do it? Probably, but at my age it's too late to begin that kind of path, except for pleasure.

Do I want the best pilots flying our commercial airliners? Yes.

Do I think that APLA's PR people have both the members and the public scared to death thinking that it takes that much money to provide a safe journey? Most assuredly YES!

When such a small group of employees takes such a huge portion of the entire payroll budget, something is terribly wrong.

AS for the BK or KMART help issue, those folks probably could not do your job, or mine for that matter. But don't kid yourself in thinking the available pool of smart and gifted people that can do your job is that small. I assure you it is far larger than you or your union wants anyone to know.

And as long as wages for your job are held up so artifically high, you do us all a huge diservice. SW Pilots make nowhere near what you do-don;t even try to say wages equate to saftey. What about JET Blue pilots, no problems there and those folks have been flying for lots of years to, maybe not with JB but with other outfits. How about the pilots at Midwest Express? They don't even come close to the majors pilot wages. No horrid accidents there either. So pay does not equate to safety. It equates to greed and the fear sold by your union.

I have no problem with a pilot making more than a ground person, none whatsoever. My problem lies in the ego and artifically high wage rates sold by fear and greed of APLA that results in higher than needed costs. Costs that ruin peoples lives and dreams because they got cut from a job they dearly loved. I can replace my salary easily when compared to 150-250k jobs you have. Who in their right mind would pay you that much money to do anything? No one. You have a vested intrest in the fear factor-it hides your unions greed.

AS for the Moderator's SpillnSpoil comments, this is an open discussion and every one of my points was either directly related to the original post of this thread or a response to post written to me. I'll give you the ego comment, but if I re-read the ORIGINAL post that began this thread, it points to pilot union greed and arrogance. I see it plain as day, don't you? That is what the article was about...

 

[ualdriver]

Oliver-

Normally I don't waste my time debating the issues with someone who debates more by USA Today news quotes and coffee table complaining, but I guess I'll give it a try and give you the opportunity to provide the facts that back your statements:

****Do I think that APLA's PR people have both the members and the public scared to death thinking that it takes that much money to provide a safe journey? Most assuredly YES!****

Please give me one or two concrete examples where ALPA's PR people have the membership or the public scared to death about pilot's salary and the need that it be high or at any particular level. Please give specific facts and sources.

****When such a small group of employees takes such a huge portion of the entire payroll budget, something is terribly wrong****

Prove this statement. Please provide the specific numbers with source (not Joe who I chatted with in the breakroom, the real numbers) that back this statement. I've only seen the breakdown in one place, but the source was a bit suspect. But obviously you are familiar with the numbers or you wouldn't have made such a statement- and I'm curious if your numbers will match mine.


***AS for the BK or KMART help issue, those folks probably could not do your job, or mine for that matter. But don't kid yourself in thinking the available pool of smart and gifted people that can do your job is that small. I assure you it is far larger than you or your union wants anyone to know****

Never said that anyone in particular could or could not do your job or mine. I don't even know what your job is. But if one job requires an education and years of experience just to apply, and someone elses' simply requires a high school diploma, I imagine the pool of people available to do the first job will be less than the available pool to do the second job, even if both jobs are important to a particular company. And I imagine they would pay accordingly.


****And as long as wages for your job are held up so artifically high, you do us all a huge diservice. SW Pilots make nowhere near what you do-don;t even try to say wages equate to saftey.

Again, please provide facts, and let's compare apples to apples. SW Pilots fly various models of 737's. So do we. Since you say SW pilots make nowhere near United pilots, I guess that means you are familiar with both of our hourly rates, work rules, and retirement. Let's make this easy. Please provide me with the hourly payrate of let's say a 12 year 737 CAP at SW and a 737 CAP at UAL and we'll start that debate from there. Any other SW pilot contract info would be interesting because I don't even know exactly what they make compared to us.


***What about JET Blue pilots, no problems there and those folks have been flying for lots of years to, maybe not with JB but with other outfits. How about the pilots at Midwest Express? They don't even come close to the majors pilot wages. No horrid accidents there either. So pay does not equate to safety. It equates to greed and the fear sold by your union****

Well, again you make assumptions that you probably know nothing about, but here we go. Yup, no fatal accidents at Jet Blue during their short existence. Can't argue there, other than the fact that the number of miles they have flown compared to a UAL or an AMR are probably statistically insignificant enough to not be debatable. Midwest Express? Ouch!! There you go shooting your mouth off with no command of the facts. You had better go to http://www.airsafetyonline.com/safetycente...eportcard.shtml and look at the statistics then come back to me on that one.

And for the record, I never said that high pilot pay equals a great safety record, and I doubt you will find a statement from my union dictating that either, since ALPA also represents pilots who make pretty poor salaries as those pilots build the time and experience necessary to apply for a major airline. Further, in my opinion, it takes great maintenance, dispatch, ATC, aircraft design, management, etc., to make an airline as safe as it can be, not just good pilots.


****I have no problem with a pilot making more than a ground person, none whatsoever. My problem lies in the ego and artifically high wage rates sold by fear and greed of APLA that results in higher than needed costs. Costs that ruin peoples lives and dreams because they got cut from a job they dearly loved. I can replace my salary easily when compared to 150-250k jobs you have. Who in their right mind would pay you that much money to do anything? No one. You have a vested intrest in the fear factor-it hides your unions greed****

Artifically high? That must mean that I am making a rate that is MUCH higher than my peers at other major airlines. Please provide me with the hourly wages of a 737/DC-9/MD-88 12 year Captain(so we can compare apples to apples the best we can with narrowbody captains) at all of my peer airlines (Delta, American, Northwest, Continental) so that we can debate this point further. You must have these numbers in order to make the statement that UAL's are artifically high, otherwise it would just sound like you were letting your hatred of pilots/ALPA get in the way of the facts?


****A for ualdriver, my point is simple. Too high wages that do not reflect the real world makes for a poor company bottom line****

A company that has employees with angry, irrational attitudes such as yours do not reflect very well on the bottom line either! Unfortunately, your points are mostly emotion based upon your simplistic assumption that 1) ALPA is greedy and the root of all evil at UAL and 2) if ALPA would just agree to a paycut, all of UAL's problems would be over. I wish it were that simple, but if a particular working groups' salary is all your mind can grasp, then so be it. Oliver, your anger is much better directed elsewhere, and I'll leave at that since we need to look forward more than we need to look back!

 

[Captaintomo]

Busdrvr,

Nice point by point rebuttal to the Fortune Article. Like most of the business press, they are anti-labor, anti employee ownership, and have never met a management they could not support. They think that the airline industry is their personal piggy bank and non profit transportation service. They get fanatical when those pesky airline employees suggest that their wages should at least keep up with inflation. Oh no, airline employees should be beaten into submission to insure that airfares remain at least 25% below what they were 10 years ago. Airlines should continue to fly full airplanes around with airfares so low they can't make even a 1% return on their capital investment. They write articles such as this one full of 1/2 truths, contextual spin and out right lies and pawn them off on their eager anti labor audience as legitimate journalism. No question, these guys are never going to get the Pulitzer price unless they come out with a new category for best trashy business fiction. Next time they fly, they want a below cost seat with all the perks and they will do anything to get it. The last thing that they want is to have to pay a reasonable price for a ticket that would allow airline managements to provide reasonable wages and working conditions, good service, great maintenance and high security all delivered with a smile. In short, they want something for nothing and because it is a boys club and every one wants to be a member after all, so far at least, major airline managements have been happy to indulge them in a totally self destructive and dysfunctional way.

These are the same people who never saw a start up airline they didn't like or an airline IPO they could not fund. What a novel concept. They will raise capital from eager investors to start new airlines. They will make huge investment banking fees and make sure all of their buddies get shares in the IPOs. They will hype the hell out of them so they and their buddies can cash out of the stock because they know eventually, the start up airlines will burn through their cash, actually have to start to perform maintenance, provide their employees with reasonable wages, fund some benefits and start to pay for infrastructure like the long established airlines do. But at least for a little while, their start up airlines will force the major carriers to charge below cost prices to compete with them until they go belly up, and then they can just do it all over again and again and again.

The business press, like Arthur Andersen, stock analyst, Enron and Worldcom executives and Martha Stewart need to take their rightful place along side the used car salesman as ranking at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to voracity and integrity. I suppose there will always be some people who will believe anything and everything they see in print.

Thanks again for a nice post,

Tom

 

[Oliver Twist]

You know ualdriver-- you are so right! Most of this is a waste of time. Let's get to the real meat of the issue. Money!

This was from a SW pilot who posted this info into another thread- He says he is a LUV pilot, which I nor anyone else has reason to doubt. Please note the previous rate was $140/hr. Also note these are not my figures but his, he should know whats in his contract.
---------------
12 yr 737 capt at SW

Sep 02 $152/hr
Sep 03 $158-164
Sep 04 $180-186
Sep 05 $186-199
Sep 06 $197-199
----
Previous USAIR 737 Capt $219/hr This rate courtesy of the clause in their contract which gives them pay parity plus 1% which kicked in ATER UAL's last pilot contract. This means that while I do not have the rates for UAL's 737 capt, they can not be far off U's numbers because of the 1% clause. (Your right there--I don't have the exact Numbers for UAL.. are you willing to provide them here??) By the way- U's current rate has dropped to $168/hr for the 737-- still above SW's but not for long. U will be quite strong here shortly after the BK process is finished.. Contracts are nearing a rational rate.

As for me, I will check back with this topic from time to time to see what you may say. I do not begrudge you or your salary, I do think UAL made a terrible mistake in signing that contract. Something you and every other employee will need to deal with. For that I wish you well. Hopefully bfore the BK judge gets in on it..


Oh-- and the SW pilot's final quote on this subject.

SWA pilots don't make as much during their career--no A fund, no heavy aircraft--as other carriers'. But we don't have to endure furloughs or worry about going out of business. There's value in that.

Seems like a nice rational fella this SW guy.

 

[ONTHESTREET]

[blockquote]
----------------
On 9/10/2002 927 PM Oliver Twist wrote:

And for the post from OntheStreet, "Airplanes break. You might be on the next one". How am I suppose to take that statement? Would you really allow a plane to leave the gate when it's not safe? Are you trying to instill fear in the public with that statement? Oh Mr Moderator-- what do you think about that statement? To me it's quite chilling and morbid.
----------------
[/blockquote]
No I would never leave the gate or take-off with an unsafe aircraft!

I have on occasion had to land an unsafe aircraft and park it at the gate!

Most mechanical items only tend to break while in use Mr. Twist. This is common knowledge.

 

[ualdriver]

Wow! Some actual facts instead of just hatred spewing emotion! I know as a fact that comparable UAL 737 captains make more than SWA 737 captains. That's why many pilots and other professionals in the airline biz chose to work at UAL vs. SWA many years ago. Some pilots even had job offers with SWA and turned them down to go to UAL. Go figure.

We'll take one of your numbers both for year 2002:

12 yr SW $152 (your number)
12 yr UA $188 (my number from Contract 2000)

By golly, you've found why UAL is going bankrupt! UAL pays their pilots about 20% more than their SW counterparts! Guess what? That's a true statement across the board for most of our employee groups when compared to SWA. And AMR's employee groups make more than SWA's! And DAL's employee groups too! Hhmmmm....and they're not going bankrupt, but that's another argument. Anyway, just as labor costs are not the sole reason why SWA is successful, labor costs at UAL are not the sole reason why UAL is in its predicament either. You see, Oliver, things are a little more complex at a multi-billion dollar company than the local rag might lead you to imagine.

So Oliver, you have solved all of UAL problems! It's those darn pilot costs that are 20% higher than SWA's! That's what's dragging us down! Let's do a little math and use some approximates from, perish the thought, the AFA's (our flight attendant union) own published company payroll numbers!! Let's see....

For the sake of argument, let's assume UAL will lose about 3 million/day this autumn/winter(an estimate that I've heard thrown around by all those so called experts on Wall Street, but I could be off a bit) because of us overpriced pilots. That's 1.1 Billion a year. But SWA 737 pilots make 20% less! So, gosh darn it, let's cut ALL of UAL's pilot payroll by 20% to solve all of UAL's problems, right Oliver?? Let's see, the AFA says that UAL pays us greedy pilots 2.1 Billion a year in pay and benefits. Let's cut that by 20% to 1.73 Billion a year. That will teach us!

Wait a minute, UAL is losing approximately 1.1B a year, but cutting those greedy pilot salaries by a whole 20% to SWA style wages saves only about 300 million a year! What's going on here? Could it be that even if UAL pilots made SWA style wages we'd still be losing money? No way!! That can't be!! Everyone knows it's all the pilots' faults for UAL's dire financial situation, right? After all, that's what it said in USA Today!! And then that guy, what's his name, said the same thing during lunchbreak. They both can't be wrong?


*** I do not begrudge you or your salary, I do think UAL made a terrible mistake in signing that contract. Something you and every other employee will need to deal with. For that I wish you well. Hopefully bfore the BK judge gets in on it***

This is one of my favorite statements. You do not begrudge me or my salary? You've done nothing but attack me and MY Union. Read your own statements......

Do I think that APLA's PR people have both the members and the public scared to death thinking that it takes that much money to provide a safe journey? Most assuredly YES!
And as long as wages for your job are held up so artifically high, you do us all a huge diservice.
When such a small group of employees takes such a huge portion of the entire payroll budget, something is terribly wrong.



****Oh-- and the SW pilot's final quote on this subject.

SWA pilots don't make as much during their career--no A fund, no heavy aircraft--as other carriers'. But we don't have to endure furloughs or worry about going out of business. There's value in that.******

I agree. There is value in that, just not to me. Oliver, if you think making 10-20% less than your peers doing the same job with no retirement (A fund) is a great deal, then run, don't walk, to your nearest SWA employment office and sign on the dotted line. They're a great airline, but I can honestly say that I wouldn't be completely happy working for a company knowing they are making a portion of their profit by underpaying me and their employees when I know I could go elsewhere and do better, even if it means a few bumps in the road. To each his own.

And what's the big whole point of this whole mess? Oliver, its people like you making emotional statments that are based on little or no fact (like your posts on this thread) that just flames the fires at our company. If you're gonna attack me, pilots, or ALPA, at least use some FACTS instead of telling us about some airline's perceived safety record or some other airline's overpaid labor, will ya?

 

[kcabpilot]

Again you all quote dollar rates and debate weather or not you are worth it. Do you question the rates of Consultants or Lawyers? How about Doctors? How about the Billy-Bob toothed Mechanic that works on your Lexus?

Knock it off and start demanding what you are deserving of. It’s time to say pay us or bring on those busloads of Venezuelans to replace us that you infer are out there waiting.. Call the bluff now.