One ticket sold. What's the difference between the pilots flying a passenger on WestJet connecting to Delta in same day?

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There’s no difference. Where the difference lies is that UA/DL/AA all have huge markets with strong business demand like NYC-LHR/CDG, LAX-JFK, etc etc. to pad their pockets with. Those markets make major Canadian markets look like YZF-YEV in comparison. If all the major US airlines only flew the transborder markets that AC, WS, etc fly, and nothing else, they sure as hell wouldn’t be able to afford the current US airline pilot rates. It should really not be the goal of any negotiation happening in Canada to reach pay parity with the US. Doing so is just ignoring basic economics.

However, there is lots of work to do on entry level and low seniority airline wages. That should be the focus. A far more comparable market with similar geographical and population constraints (Australia) has pilots making 90k as a starting wage on a 737/320 or 60k for a Q400 FO (this is 2018 figures). Their dollar is nearly 1 to 1 with similar taxation as well. Imagine being able to afford to live in cities you’re based in from day 1…

No theres no reason for us to make less. You are comparing Yellowknife - Inuvik against LAX - JFK. Just look at routes like yul - yyz.

I think you misunderstood my comparison. What I'm saying is that the most profitable routes served from Canada (YYZ-LHR, YUL-CDG, YVR-SYD, YYZ-CUN/PUJ, for example.) pale in comparison to the yields seen on comparable routes from the US, which is further compounded by a higher cost environment. At the end of the day, their population base is multiple times the size of ours and they have more people and corporations that will pay to fly. We do have big markets within and to/from Canada and some of them bring in impressive revenues (I've seen the financials with my own eyes when making decisions on new routes to launch in a previous role), but there isn't as many of them and the important ones are simply smaller than their American counterparts. Perfect example is YYZ-LHR vs JFK-LHR. Go have a look at the difference in seats available between the two city pairs. Then go look at JFK-CDG vs YUL-CDG; LAX-HNL vs YVR-HNL, YVR-HKG vs LAX-HKG, etc. If Canada was all that you make it out to be, the current picture wouldn't make sense at all. Go compare fleet sizes as well. Fact of the matter is that the American airlines have more seats available to sell and they have access to a bigger selection of bigger markets to sell them to. Hence bigger profits and more money available to spend on labour.

You could argue that AC/WS carry 6th freedom US pax and therefore compete on the exact same markets, but those passengers are flown at a significant yield discount and they are just filler for what the local market cannot fill. People pay more when flights are non-stop. When a connection is involved, the willingness to pay goes down. Connecting in another country adds to that effect. This is why Westjet has 320 seat 789's with a tiny business cabin as an example. The local market of people who would fly from YYC to BCN (or really anywhere else they send their widebodies aside from London) is tiny, but they can fill the plane up with folks from LAX and SFO as long as the price is right. If you're filling the plane up with low-yielding price-sensitive connecting pax, you better have more seats available to be able to cover the operating costs with less revenue coming in per passenger.

There is definitely room to pay more liveable and fair wages in Canada, but the companies here do not have comparable profit margins in absolute terms. Yes the physical job itself is the same, but so what? The company could also make the same argument: The Canadian airlines do the same exact same business as the US airlines so why are the passengers not paying them the same? Why are the profits smaller? They're the exact same businesses afterall... right?

Look, I fully support higher pilot pay. I want to be paid a fair wage for the work I put in and it would be great to have an ROI on my student debt, but I would hate for the demands to be so ridiculous that nothing ever gets agreed to and things stay the same, or worse, it gets agreed to and the companies don't survive and I have no career ahead of me. When I hear things like Perimeter Dash-8 pilots wanting to be paid $250k and that's why contract talks are stalling, meanwhile 1st FO's are struggling to make ends meet on $29k/yr it pisses me off. It's just greed at that point and it's to the detriment of junior pilots.

Lol im what world is YYZ - CUN a record earning route. There are hardly any flights going there. Literally 1 Rouge flight going there tomorrow. Im pretty sure you are posting here on behalf of an airline negotiating board trying to drag down our expectations.

[‘Bob’]

Historically, the top factor which determines whether or not an airline collapses is the airline’s safety record & accidents.

When airlines operate unsafe & have multiple safety incidents, passengers stop booking flights.

If there is a major accident or crash, the airline is usually done.

Colgan Air is an example
After the crash in Buffalo

Colgan Air went out of business
Pinnacle Airlines went out of business
Continental Connections went out of business (absorbed by United – now highly paid pilots)
Continental Airlines went out of business (absorbed by United – now highly paid pilots)


Colgan Air pilot pay, work/life balance, fatigue all played a role in the accident.

The crash resulted in the 1500 hour rule which restricted pilot supply, resulting in airlines having to pay pilots more to continue operating. In the end, the airlines had to pay higher pilot wages, more than they would have paid if there hadn’t been a crash without the 1500 hour rule.

Wouldn’t be a more profitable solution for Continnental, Pinnacle & Colgan to have paid pilots higher before the crash? To have maintained a better work/life balance for their pilots before the crash?

If the company had done so, the accident wouldn’t have occurred. Coglan, Pinnacle & Continental wouldn’t have lost business and the companies could still be operating today, a more profitable outcome and without the expensive 1500 hour rule restricting airline hiring.

Colgan is one of many examples. Several Canadian operators have closed due to accidents.

Maintaining top safety and avoiding an accident is in everyone’s interest, the pilots & the management.

If higher pay and better work life balance is required to retain experienced pilots and high safety levels, then it’s a cheaper solution rather than building the environment for a crash and resulting bankruptcy.

Continental did NOT go bankrupt and both United and Continental were losing money due to numerous other factors that in no way included Colgan when they decided to merge.

Colgan didn’t go bankrupt. It was absorbed into Pinnacle Airlines.

Pinnacle Airlines didn’t go bankrupt. Its holding company did. Pinnacle is still operating today as Endeavour.

[yowflyer23]

No theres no reason for us to make less. You are comparing Yellowknife - Inuvik against LAX - JFK. Just look at routes like yul - yyz.

I think you misunderstood my comparison. What I'm saying is that the most profitable routes served from Canada (YYZ-LHR, YUL-CDG, YVR-SYD, YYZ-CUN/PUJ, for example.) pale in comparison to the yields seen on comparable routes from the US, which is further compounded by a higher cost environment. At the end of the day, their population base is multiple times the size of ours and they have more people and corporations that will pay to fly. We do have big markets within and to/from Canada and some of them bring in impressive revenues (I've seen the financials with my own eyes when making decisions on new routes to launch in a previous role), but there isn't as many of them and the important ones are simply smaller than their American counterparts. Perfect example is YYZ-LHR vs JFK-LHR. Go have a look at the difference in seats available between the two city pairs. Then go look at JFK-CDG vs YUL-CDG; LAX-HNL vs YVR-HNL, YVR-HKG vs LAX-HKG, etc. If Canada was all that you make it out to be, the current picture wouldn't make sense at all. Go compare fleet sizes as well. Fact of the matter is that the American airlines have more seats available to sell and they have access to a bigger selection of bigger markets to sell them to. Hence bigger profits and more money available to spend on labour.

You could argue that AC/WS carry 6th freedom US pax and therefore compete on the exact same markets, but those passengers are flown at a significant yield discount and they are just filler for what the local market cannot fill. People pay more when flights are non-stop. When a connection is involved, the willingness to pay goes down. Connecting in another country adds to that effect. This is why Westjet has 320 seat 789's with a tiny business cabin as an example. The local market of people who would fly from YYC to BCN (or really anywhere else they send their widebodies aside from London) is tiny, but they can fill the plane up with folks from LAX and SFO as long as the price is right. If you're filling the plane up with low-yielding price-sensitive connecting pax, you better have more seats available to be able to cover the operating costs with less revenue coming in per passenger.

There is definitely room to pay more liveable and fair wages in Canada, but the companies here do not have comparable profit margins in absolute terms. Yes the physical job itself is the same, but so what? The company could also make the same argument: The Canadian airlines do the same exact same business as the US airlines so why are the passengers not paying them the same? Why are the profits smaller? They're the exact same businesses afterall... right?

Look, I fully support higher pilot pay. I want to be paid a fair wage for the work I put in and it would be great to have an ROI on my student debt, but I would hate for the demands to be so ridiculous that nothing ever gets agreed to and things stay the same, or worse, it gets agreed to and the companies don't survive and I have no career ahead of me. When I hear things like Perimeter Dash-8 pilots wanting to be paid $250k and that's why contract talks are stalling, meanwhile 1st FO's are struggling to make ends meet on $29k/yr it pisses me off. It's just greed at that point and it's to the detriment of junior pilots.

Lol im what world is YYZ - CUN a record earning route. There are hardly any flights going there. Literally 1 Rouge flight going there tomorrow. Im pretty sure you are posting here on behalf of an airline negotiating board trying to drag down our expectations.

Umm… the real world. In the winter season it’s a money printer for everyone. There’s a reason AC can get away with regularly sending 400 seater 777’s on it in the peak and fill it up. The fact that CUN/PUJ are still flown in the summer season, albeit on a reduced schedule, is a testament to the strength of those markets. There aren’t many Mexican/Caribbean routes that are sustainable year-round.
Whatever man, believe what you want. I’m sorry to drag down your expectations… I’m just throwing in some facts. What you do with them is up to you and I’m done engaging in this thread. I would love for pilots to earn US wages, but I just do not think it’s possible or sustainable. Perhaps my own expectations are too low. I would gladly eat my shirt if the Westjet negotiators could pull off US wage parity in their next contract and if management could somehow make the numbers work long term. I know where I’d want to fly…

[CanadaAir]

Historically, the top factor which determines whether or not an airline collapses is the airline’s safety record & accidents.

When airlines operate unsafe & have multiple safety incidents, passengers stop booking flights.

If there is a major accident or crash, the airline is usually done.

Colgan Air is an example
After the crash in Buffalo

Colgan Air went out of business
Pinnacle Airlines went out of business
Continental Connections went out of business (absorbed by United – now highly paid pilots)
Continental Airlines went out of business (absorbed by United – now highly paid pilots)


Colgan Air pilot pay, work/life balance, fatigue all played a role in the accident.

The crash resulted in the 1500 hour rule which restricted pilot supply, resulting in airlines having to pay pilots more to continue operating. In the end, the airlines had to pay higher pilot wages, more than they would have paid if there hadn’t been a crash without the 1500 hour rule.

Wouldn’t be a more profitable solution for Continnental, Pinnacle & Colgan to have paid pilots higher before the crash? To have maintained a better work/life balance for their pilots before the crash?

If the company had done so, the accident wouldn’t have occurred. Coglan, Pinnacle & Continental wouldn’t have lost business and the companies could still be operating today, a more profitable outcome and without the expensive 1500 hour rule restricting airline hiring.

Colgan is one of many examples. Several Canadian operators have closed due to accidents.

Maintaining top safety and avoiding an accident is in everyone’s interest, the pilots & the management.

If higher pay and better work life balance is required to retain experienced pilots and high safety levels, then it’s a cheaper solution rather than building the environment for a crash and resulting bankruptcy.

Continental did NOT go bankrupt and both United and Continental were losing money due to numerous other factors that in no way included Colgan when they decided to merge.

Colgan didn’t go bankrupt. It was absorbed into Pinnacle Airlines.

Pinnacle Airlines didn’t go bankrupt. Its holding company did. Pinnacle is still operating today as Endeavour.

Colgan was big factor.
Those public hearings did damage

There was restructuring, the previous companies no longer exist. New companies with new management and FAA approvals.

[‘Bob’]

So what was United’s excuse, then?

It was not a hostile takeover or the purchase of an ailing asset. It was an equal merger between two large companies who were in financial difficulties.

Maybe you are too young to remember, but there’s was this little thing around then called the sub-prime mortgage crisis. It spiralled into what is now called the Great Recession.. where nearly half of the DJIA was wiped out, several large banks and corporations failed, and the US government had to enact massive bailouts.

This like any economic crisis hit airlines hard who had already been hit by 9/11 and high fuel prices in the previous decade.

Colgan folding or getting reorganized? Sure. Pinnacle.. which survived two pilots going for a joyride a few years previously? Doubtful. Continental? No way. United? Unrelated in every single way.

The only thing that Colgan did was create an artificial shortage of pilots with the 1500 which combined with demographics took a decade and a half to come to maturity.

[CanadaAir]

So what was United’s excuse, then?

It was not a hostile takeover or the purchase of an ailing asset. It was an equal merger between two large companies who were in financial difficulties.

Maybe you are too young to remember, but there’s was this little thing around then called the sub-prime mortgage crisis. It spiralled into what is now called the Great Recession.. where nearly half of the DJIA was wiped out, several large banks and corporations failed, and the US government had to enact massive bailouts.

This like any economic crisis hit airlines hard who had already been hit by 9/11 and high fuel prices in the previous decade.

Colgan folding or getting reorganized? Sure. Pinnacle.. which survived two pilots going for a joyride a few years previously? Doubtful. Continental? No way. United? Unrelated in every single way.

The only thing that Colgan did was create an artificial shortage of pilots with the 1500 which combined with demographics took a decade and a half to come to maturity.

Its agreed that Colgan folded or getting reorganized due to the crash.
Crashes are the end of airlines.
Repercussions to their mainline brands. Pinnacle and Continental both.

If Jazz crashes, it will be end of Jazz.
Air Canada would be impacted.

A crash has costs. More than the costs of any additional wages to pilots or mechanics.