With commercial pilots in my family, and can count several friends as commercial pilots, I can lend a touch of insight. The bigger planes for many years were the newer planes. Newer = Cooler = prime pickings. The larger jets also do longer runs to far-away (exotic) locales that to many are the reason that pilots took up commercial flying in the first place. It's not that they pay the 747 drivers more, it's that the more senior captains have the seniority to choose their plane and they choose the 747; and they get paid more dollars. AA's pecking order likely is F100->MD80->737->757->A300->767->777 UA's pecking order likely is A319/320/737->757->767->777/747 Though I do know as these pilots are getting older, many are preferring the 'shorter'-haul A319/320s as the craft to wind out to their retirement. Another example; some of BWIA L1011s crews wanted the A340, while many wanted the shorter 737 runs to North America. Matthew On Thursday, May 8, 2003, at 05:19 AM, Nick Laflamme wrote: > At 11:24 PM 5/7/2003 -0700, Jon Wright wrote: >> I've never understood why so many fees and wages associated with >> commercial aviation are based upon the weight of the plane. >> >> Take landing fees. How does a 747 cost and airport more than a 737 to >> handle? > > It might not take much more to handle the 747, but it takes more > infrastructure to handle the 747. The runways have to be longer and > have to > support more weight per aircraft wheel. The gates that will handle the > 747 > need more room to park the behemoths. I suspect the taxiways need more > clearance from surrounding buildings. > > Take the A380 (please! :-) ). Even though Airbus constrained its width > and > length to 80m in each direction, airports are still going to need to > upgrade some of their facilities for the sheer size of the beast. If an > airline could replace a couple of 767 runs with an A380 run at no > additional cost from the airport, suddenly the airport is responsible > for > infrastructure upgrades with no corresponding increase in landing fees. > > Possibly one could tie landing fees to the passengers or cargo on > board, > but that leads to all sorts of bookkeeping nightmares, and even so, the > empty weight of the A380 would still dictate some infrastructure > upgrades. > > Nick >