Brainwashed WestJet pilots

Discuss topics relating to Westjet.

Moderators: sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, lilfssister, North Shore, I WAS Birddog

User avatar
Bede
Rank 11
Rank 11
Posts: 4427
Joined: Tue Mar 09, 2004 5:52 am

Post by Bede »

Keep in mind that the average family doc in Canada makes about $116K after expenses, which is only marginally better than a Jazz captain. Lawyers are also around $90-100K. Only the best lawyers and doctors make considerably more than pilots. Those guys aren't that much better off.
---------- ADS -----------
 
tonysoprano
Rank 10
Rank 10
Posts: 2589
Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:01 pm

Post by tonysoprano »

Bede. The dollar value is not as important as the consistency. If a doctor moves around from one province to the next, he can expect the same salary, with small variances. We can't say that about our industry. Our salaries are all over the board from one company to the next, often within the same equipment. We take what the boss says we're worth. Hey look, personally I'm happy with what I'm making. I'm just thinking about those who deserve better.
---------- ADS -----------
 
User avatar
Huge Hammer
Rank 3
Rank 3
Posts: 148
Joined: Wed May 31, 2006 1:59 pm

Post by Huge Hammer »

Tony you seem to be making 2 arguements. On the one hand you say you are not making a comparison but then you make the comparison of a 767 Zoonm captain to a dentist.

Apples to mangoes, which is it.

Like every other profession, pilots get paid what the market will bear. It is why a neurosurgeon makes more than family practitioner.

Dentists, lawyer and doctors get paid what they do because of their education and experience in the marketplace, not unlike pilots. Their respective associattions are not what drives their salaries, their specialized skill is.

A Greyhound bus driver is responsible for a lot of lives, should he be compensated based on this or based on what the market values a bus driver at?

Apples to Kumaquats.
---------- ADS -----------
 
User avatar
corytrevor
Rank 2
Rank 2
Posts: 77
Joined: Fri Jun 04, 2004 7:17 pm
Location: sunnyvail

Post by corytrevor »

Huge Hammer,

Going by your name, and silly posts, I deduce that you have a very small penis.
---------- ADS -----------
 
User avatar
Bugz
Rank 2
Rank 2
Posts: 82
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2004 12:37 pm

Post by Bugz »

Wow, from Kool Aid drinking pilots to small penises, this is the worst hijacked thread ever...I'm outta here before Huge Hammer starts posting his pics! :shock:
---------- ADS -----------
 
flyinphil
Rank 7
Rank 7
Posts: 570
Joined: Sun Feb 04, 2007 7:26 pm

Post by flyinphil »

Does the market determine the salaries or do the low salaries create the market? What would ticket prices be if the front end crew were pulling down a combined 500k per year? How many families would then vacation via airlines? If Canadian salaries increased dramatically, why would foreign carriers not capitalize our market? What would reduced industry capacity do to flying jobs?

Tough questions and all of them influence the industry.
---------- ADS -----------
 
tonysoprano
Rank 10
Rank 10
Posts: 2589
Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:01 pm

Post by tonysoprano »

Minimum salaries would not be difficult to establish. A nationwide association is the hurdle, as witnessed on this very forum. We now have a situation where flight attendants get paid more than entry level pilots. And just because you're at WJ where management and pilots hold hands, doesn't mean it's always going to be that way. As a profession, we need to prepare for anything. No, we are not brain surgeons Hammer. And you might feel you're making good money now and who gives a shit about the rest, right? I've beaten this one to death. Should have known better than to join what began as a sarcastic thread. Ciao, off to work to get some sanity.
---------- ADS -----------
 
prop2jet
Rank 7
Rank 7
Posts: 573
Joined: Thu Feb 17, 2005 11:50 am

Post by prop2jet »

Tony & HH, your arguments are both correct in a way...

HH, you are definatley correct in saying that the wages paid are market driven. You need only look around the world to see that where there are huge demands for "talent" and low supply, the pay goes up. The opposite exists where there is a larger pool of talent. This affects just about every industry and eventually as "Globalization" takes hold of ours, lower pay may become more prevalent.

Tony, the notion of having a set standard of pay based on the size of aircraft flown would be a great idea, but it is also sad to say, highly dependant on a strong unified workforce that has a common set of objectives. Not exactly what defines most of us as pilots. The only time you will ever get a bunch of pilots to agree on anything is a trip to the bar... and even then there are a few who opt out :roll:

When it comes down to pay, I think the way of the future is going to continue along the lines of what the market drives. I suspect you will see a gradual introduction of Status Pay vs Equipment. There is a dual benefit here in that the company saves money in long term training costs as there are fewer people bidding off lower paying equipment so as to maximize pay on larger equipment. For the "old" dogs the benefit is to fly the smaller equipment and stay closer to home, making more cash than when they started. British Airways works that way, and I think you will see many more shifting to that model in the future. In a way it makes sense, last thing I want to do is subject my bod to the rigours of overseas flying in today's world. 30 or 40 years ago was a different story... long layovers, not anymore.
---------- ADS -----------
 
Flightlevels
Rank 7
Rank 7
Posts: 703
Joined: Sun Feb 29, 2004 7:16 pm

Post by Flightlevels »

:lol: well what a thread. I can recall Blastor even liking WJ but when he had to pay a little more on his YYC to YEG flight he was choked... :cry: Some thoughts that come to mind from distant posts in the past...WJ will never get past 10 percent market share, Westjet will never get 90 A/C let alone survive. My friend Tony has now made a new prediction that we will hit a wall in the future. Maybe maybe not, however with leading margins and the ability to make money at 90 dollars a barrel, I think I'm sliding my bet over to WJ for North American survivability.
---------- ADS -----------
 
tonysoprano
Rank 10
Rank 10
Posts: 2589
Joined: Mon Jul 18, 2005 7:01 pm

Post by tonysoprano »

Flightlevels.
I was hoping you of all people could prove the title of this thread wrong. Joe did a better job. pretty sad. The price of oil is not your downfall. But you'll figure that out someday. :wink:
---------- ADS -----------
 
Blastor
Rank 8
Rank 8
Posts: 964
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2004 11:20 am
Location: North America

Post by Blastor »

The "Wal-Mart" philosophy of WJ will be its own undoing. Forget the stock options and the PF. They are worthless unless you happen to be among the first 100 employees. Just talk to your F/O, FA, CSA etc.. and you’ll know what Tony ‘s talking about.

Thanks to low cost carrier and low cost tickets, everyone thinks it’s their god given right to fly. Not so. This ain’t a greyhound bus. Thanks to WJ, flight crew pay the price in lower wages.

I’ll be sad to see God leaving…..Nha! Good riddance
---------- ADS -----------
 
RB-211
Rank 3
Rank 3
Posts: 199
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:18 am

Post by RB-211 »

I think the price of oil will determine the future of WJ because of two reasons. 1) They fly the arguably the most fuel efficient fleet of aircraft in North America along with their already low cost base. Adding the 787(which will happen) will keep this trend going. 2) Their headquarters and main customer base is sitting on what many experts are saying are potentially the largest oil reserves in the world. Look at the success of Middle East carriers these days carriers if you are wondering why I mentioned that.

Rocket science 101 will teach you that WJ is here and will be here for some time. The question is how much bigger will they get, and how much more market share will they grab from the fire sale in Toronto and Montreal. My money is on a good chunk. Kool Aid or no Kool aid, I know where I would stick my cake.

Tony, go to work.

:smt039
---------- ADS -----------
 
Blastor
Rank 8
Rank 8
Posts: 964
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2004 11:20 am
Location: North America

Post by Blastor »

Just for ya Flightlevels and other wannabe..

How do stock options work?

Job ads in the classifieds mention stock options more and more frequently. Companies are offering this benefit not just to top-paid executives but also to rank-and-file employees. What are stock options? Why are companies offering them? Are employees guaranteed a profit just because they have stock options? The answers to these questions will give you a much better idea about this increasingly popular movement.
Let's start with a simple definition of stock options:

Stock options from your employer give you the right to buy a specific number of shares of your company's stock during a time and at a price that your employer specifies. Both privately and publicly held companies make options available for several reasons:

*They want to attract and keep good workers.
*They want their employees to feel like owners or partners in the business.
*They want to hire skilled workers by offering compensation that goes beyond a salary. This is especially true in start-up companies that want to hold on to as much cash as possible.

The price the company sets on the stock (called the grant or strike price) is discounted and is usually the market price of the stock at the time the employee is given the options. Since those options cannot be exercised for some time, the hope is that the price of the shares will go up so that selling them later at a higher market price will yield a profit. You can see, then, that unless the company goes out of business or doesn't perform well, offering stock options is a good way to motivate workers to accept jobs and stay on. Those stock options promise potential cash or stock in addition to salary.

Remember that each year you can buy 25 shares of stock at a discount, then keep it or sell it at the current market value (current stock price). And each year you're going to hope the stock price continues to rise.
Another thing to know about options is that they always have an expiration date: You can exercise your options starting on a certain date and ending on a certain date. If you don't exercise the options within that period, you lose them. And if you are leaving a company, you can only exercise your vested options; you will lose any future vesting.

One question you might have is: How does a privately held company establish a market and grant (strike) price on each share of its stock? This might be especially interesting to know if you are or might be working for a small, privately held company that offers stock options. What the company does is to fix a price that is related to the internal value of the share, and this is established by the company's board of directors through a vote.

Overall, you can see that stock options do have risk, and they are not always better than cash compensation if the company is not successful, but they are becoming a built-in feature in many industries.
---------- ADS -----------
 
Four1oh
Rank 10
Rank 10
Posts: 2448
Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 9:24 pm

Post by Four1oh »

Blastor wrote:The "Wal-Mart" philosophy of WJ will be its own undoing. Forget the stock options and the PF. They are worthless unless you happen to be among the first 100 employees. Just talk to your F/O, FA, CSA etc.. and you’ll know what Tony ‘s talking about.

Thanks to low cost carrier and low cost tickets, everyone thinks it’s their god given right to fly. Not so. This ain’t a greyhound bus. Thanks to WJ, flight crew pay the price in lower wages.

I’ll be sad to see God leaving…..Nha! Good riddance
"PF" Blastor? What's that? Profit Fare? Do you spell like you speak?

Also, explain how that appriximately $20 grand of ESP and profit 'share' is worthless to me, a meager 4 year FO? I just cashed in about a quarter of a year's worth of ESP for over $6000. Thanks, but that's worth a lot for me.

And for all the whiners out there bitching about how the first couple of years employees are the rich ones, don't forget the incredible risk they took with a fledgling company. I don't expect that kind of money because compared to when they started my job is relatively risk free.
---------- ADS -----------
 
Drinking outside the box.
Blastor
Rank 8
Rank 8
Posts: 964
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2004 11:20 am
Location: North America

Post by Blastor »

Profit Sharing


Profit sharing, when used as a special term, refers to various incentive plans introduced by businesses that provide direct or indirect payments to employees that depend on company's profitability in addition to employees' regular salary
---------- ADS -----------
 
Blastor
Rank 8
Rank 8
Posts: 964
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2004 11:20 am
Location: North America

Post by Blastor »

Pension Plans


A pension plan is a promise by a pension plan sponsor to a plan member to provide a pension upon retirement

A pension is a steady income given to a person (usually after retirement). Pensions are typically payments made in the form of a guaranteed annuity to a retired or disabled employee.

Some retirement plan (or superannuation) designs accumulate a cash balance (through a variety of mechanisms) that a retiree can draw upon at retirement, rather than promising annuity payments. These are often also called pensions. In either case, a pension created by an employer for the benefit of an employee is commonly referred to as an occupational or employer pension. Labor unions, the government, or other organizations may also fund pensions.

Pension plans are regulated by governments. In Canada, this occurs at both the federal and provincial level. The federal legislation covers federally incorporated and regulated companies such as airlines. Each province has its own legislation and agency, such as the Ontario Pension Board.


Occupational pensions are a form of deferred compensation, usually advantageous to employee and employer for tax reasons. Many pensions also contain an insurance aspect, since they often will pay benefits to survivors or disabled beneficiaries, while annuity income insures against the risk of longevity.
You'll go far with your flight privileges at retirement.....the only thing you’ll get. Way to go Westjet :twisted:

.
---------- ADS -----------
 
Blastor
Rank 8
Rank 8
Posts: 964
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2004 11:20 am
Location: North America

Post by Blastor »

Dumbass said:

I don't expect that kind of money because compared to when they started my job is relatively risk free.
Here lies the problem: You prostitue yourself for the "joy" of flying.
But obviously you ain't no pilot, 'cause it ain't ""risk free".
---------- ADS -----------
 
User avatar
Huge Hammer
Rank 3
Rank 3
Posts: 148
Joined: Wed May 31, 2006 1:59 pm

Post by Huge Hammer »

I can appreciate the thought of trying to combat the illogical idiocy of certain posters here. Even when the facts and logic are used to counter an arguement from this poster it is ignored or misconstrued because that poste is not interested in a discussion. He/she simply wants to throw some crap at the wall for whatever reason their pea brain tells them.

Until certain posters show themselves somewhat capable of a halfway intelligent thought my advice is this...

Image
---------- ADS -----------
 
RB-211
Rank 3
Rank 3
Posts: 199
Joined: Thu Jun 09, 2005 2:18 am

Post by RB-211 »

Blastor is right about pensions. They are great for retirement planning and the joys of retirement itself. Ahh the money. That is if they are still there when the time comes to hang em up. Anyone at AC or any company for that matter that thinks (other than working for the government) their pension is rock solid, needs their head examined. I would ask any employee in aviation in the US for confirmation on that one. I would think even those at the mighty Ford and GM would agree.

WJ's retirement options are limited but will change as their pay has. If I had thirty years left at AC, I would be looking seriously at the possibility of going to plan B.

Blastor. You done yet? :smt017
---------- ADS -----------
 
Flightlevels
Rank 7
Rank 7
Posts: 703
Joined: Sun Feb 29, 2004 7:16 pm

Post by Flightlevels »

Blastor wrote:Just for ya Flightlevels and other wannabe..

How do stock options work?

Job ads in the classifieds mention stock options more and more frequently. Companies are offering this benefit not just to top-paid executives but also to rank-and-file employees. What are stock options? Why are companies offering them? Are employees guaranteed a profit just because they have stock options? The answers to these questions will give you a much better idea about this increasingly popular movement.
Let's start with a simple definition of stock options:

Stock options from your employer give you the right to buy a specific number of shares of your company's stock during a time and at a price that your employer specifies. Both privately and publicly held companies make options available for several reasons:

*They want to attract and keep good workers.
*They want their employees to feel like owners or partners in the business.
*They want to hire skilled workers by offering compensation that goes beyond a salary. This is especially true in start-up companies that want to hold on to as much cash as possible.

The price the company sets on the stock (called the grant or strike price) is discounted and is usually the market price of the stock at the time the employee is given the options. Since those options cannot be exercised for some time, the hope is that the price of the shares will go up so that selling them later at a higher market price will yield a profit. You can see, then, that unless the company goes out of business or doesn't perform well, offering stock options is a good way to motivate workers to accept jobs and stay on. Those stock options promise potential cash or stock in addition to salary.

Remember that each year you can buy 25 shares of stock at a discount, then keep it or sell it at the current market value (current stock price). And each year you're going to hope the stock price continues to rise.
Another thing to know about options is that they always have an expiration date: You can exercise your options starting on a certain date and ending on a certain date. If you don't exercise the options within that period, you lose them. And if you are leaving a company, you can only exercise your vested options; you will lose any future vesting.

One question you might have is: How does a privately held company establish a market and grant (strike) price on each share of its stock? This might be especially interesting to know if you are or might be working for a small, privately held company that offers stock options. What the company does is to fix a price that is related to the internal value of the share, and this is established by the company's board of directors through a vote.

Overall, you can see that stock options do have risk, and they are not always better than cash compensation if the company is not successful, but they are becoming a built-in feature in many industries.
:wink: thanks buddy, they worked for me so far and if the stock stays stable for the ones vesting next year the fo's are looking at 30 plus grand and around 50 or better for the skips. In addition to this years stuff too. Thanks for the article.
---------- ADS -----------
 
Post Reply

Return to “WestJet”