Exceptions to distinct equipment type/seniority-based pay include: - FDX and UPS have what are, essentially, "big" and "small" equipment pay rates with expanded longevity (LOS, seniority) scale, which tends to mitigate the desire for opportunistic changes in bid status driving training daisy chain and associated costs and productivity loss. Cost and productivity impacts are favorable and significant. - Until recently, Horizon pilots were salaried, not paid hourly, though were paid by equipment type. Latest contract morphed to hourly, as I recall. - Bob Mann -- R.W. Mann & Company, Inc. >> Airline Industry Analysis and Consulting Port Washington, NY 11050 >> tel 516-944-0900, fax 516-944-7280 mailto:info@xxxxxxxxxx >> URL http://www.RWMann.com/ Nick Laflamme wrote: > > At 06:57 AM 5/8/2003 -0700, Matthew Montano wrote: > >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. > > During the Delta 777 roll-out fiasco (Delta threatened to return their > first two 777 deliveries and postponed the rest), Delta's union was > insisting on a much higher pay rate for 777 pilots than for the same pilots > flying MD-11s or 767s. I don't remember exactly how those negotiations were > resolved, but it wasn't, "OK, pay us the same whether we're flying MD-80s > or 777-200s." There is a pay differential for the type being flown, > compounded by a differential for seniority. And I'm sure that this is the > case at all the US airlines that fly more than one type in their fleet. > > I hate to argue with someone who can claim commercial pilots as friends and > family members, but I don't trust your insight. > > Nick