Spirit Airlines and its pilots near strike deadline

[wheelsup]

Originally Posted by rogerbacon

Yes, you actually can compare airline pilots with other jobs. Anyway, teh best measure of what an individual is worth for his job is what an individual can get for that job. In the absence of unions everyone will be paid what they are worth. When unions enter the picture and threaten to cripple a company if they don't get their collective wages then salaries no longer reflect an individual's ability but instead reflect the collective strength of the unions intimidation tactics.

Not completely true. As the economy continues on crumbling you have more and more out of work people. You have accountants making half of their previous pay in the same line of business. Etc. etc. Many corporate positions have cut pay because of the large amount of skilled people out of work.

In addition you have other jobs that are artificially inflated, such as government workers and those who work in connection with government contractors.

Unfortunately air line pilots cannot just leave one job and get a pay raise at another. They start at the bottom of the list with huge pay cuts. It's just a different industry all together and is very difficult to compare to other positions where one can leave one and slot in at another company with a pay raise.

[wheelsup]

Also jetBlue is non-union, and pays their A320 CAs up to $159/hr plus 150% pay above 78 hours. FOs up to $108/hr with again 150% pay above 78 hours. So Spirit is actually below non-union "market rate" pilot wages.

In addition to pay there are many other intangibles that jetBlue has that Spirit does not.

[11thHour]

I wish the spirit pilots the best of luck and admire their giant brass cajones. They knew full well going into this strike that it may well end their employment. That scumbag management team is among the worst and they really did force the pilots hands. Even the chief pilot and director of flight ops resigned their management positions to join the pilots on the picket line! Now that is true leadership and worthy of respect.

[PacificFlights]

Just to give some of you an idea what others are trying to explain, our flight crews make about half of what those Spirit Airline crews make. I am the lowest paid member of our crew (under $30 an hour) but I made over $100,000 last year. We are paid according to typical american work scheduling. Our company has offered to almost triple our hourly pay if we switched work rules to how the typical american crew gets paid. We have said no.

So I ask those of you that think the crews of Spirit is overpaid, how is it that when we get paid less than the spirit flight crews, we can make more? And why is it that our company is willing to almost triple our play if we follow work pay rules like the spirit crews? I bet if your company paid you in the same manner as flight crews are paid, you would demand four times your hourly pay! I think many of you have NO IDEA how these pilots are paid and all your doing is looking at the hourly wage.