Paphitis wrote:Kikapu wrote:The old Swissair captains were making a lot of money also for flying 2-3 times a month, but in the end, it could not be sustained. I'm sure the salaries at Swiss now for the captains and first officers are in parity with Lufthansa.
About 5 years ago, an American Airlines pilot of mine was showing me the monthly bidding for work online, where a AA captain flying 7 days a month was going to make about $13,000 USD based on that monthly flying schedule. That could have been just the base pay plus whatever premium was added based on how senior the captain was. This was after the pilots union gave wage concessions to the company after 9/11, but then came the bankruptcy protection and reorganisation in 2011 which meant pilots salaries were re-negotiated, to less than before no doubt, and then came the merger with US Airways. Now, most of the AA pilots are due for a 23% pay increase if they vote on a new contract as we speak. Even with the new pay increase, I don't think the pay will be any higher than what it was 5 years ago for most pilots.
What captains earned in the yesteryears as to what they make today is totally different. Yes they do make a good living still in comparison to most, but most pilots are not getting rich as others do in financial, business and Medical institutions for example, for the same level of education and responsibility.
Conditions are not that great in America, but still better than they were at CA at least in the American Majors.
Lufthansa would be right up there Kikapu. Can't imagine them being under 20k per month.
The absolute minimum for a small company (so it can attract decent crews) would be around 8k per month. Can't imagine anything lower than that.
All this is a smoke screen to blame the pilots. But we all know who is at fault and it is not the Flight Crew.
Another thing Kikapu, most pilots are doing about 100 hours of flying per month. A bit under that actually - between 70 and 90.
But aren't most, if not all pilot's contracts guarantee payment for 100 hours per month, regardless how many hours they might fly below the guaranteed 100 hours?
