Wide bodies on the way. ANY NEWS???

[Old fella]

We're coming old fella to bury your beloved airline.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yam5uK6e-bQ

[TheStig]

Good on WJ, a 3 or 4 year dry-lease seems like a pretty safe business venture. They've been selling tickets on the Alberta-Hawaii market a couple of years and should have a very accurate revenue projection, and selling tickets to Europe in the summer from a loyal customer base in western Canada shouldn't be too difficult. It will be interesting to see what arrangement Management and the Pilot group come up with and what routes are operated.

[Old fella]

They(WJ) will have a grand time hauling the Newfies and Irishmen between YYT and Dublin and make a few $$$$ as well. Good on'em

[Black Cat]

Congrats to the WJ pilot for getting their flying back. Enjoy the new machines!

[planeless]

Hopefully westjet gets their wide bodies and the pilots get paid accordingly for it. If they aren't paid well its not good for any pilot in Canada.

[DaveP]

The chair and committee (line pilots) were just selected - so it will be up to them for the wawcon proposal.

I always thought Jazz had a creative solution with the way they handled the 57 pay.

What do you think WJ should pay? What comparators would you use? Rouge, Transat? Based on Yyc to Hawaii and maybe some Europe from YYZ.... How would you approach it?

Cheers

[DH772]

Well Dave, as mentioned in a prior post, when Encore was starting up it was stated that this is a brand new side of the operation and the lower wage is there to build and guarntee the success of the airline (maybe not in those exact words and maybe not from you). Someone stated that everyone should give it a fair chance to successfully grow before criticizing. So using that same logic I think it's fair to pay 80% industry standard for wide body pay. So 80% of that should be somewhere around $96,000 marker for first year captain. Fair is fair right Dave? Why treat the new start up Encore any differently than the new widebody start up?

[Wheels]

Yeah, and then in 5-10 years when the new start up comes in they can pay 80% of $96,000.
Repeat as necessary until wide body pilots are making regional pay.
At least it's good for ticket prices right?

[7thirtyseven]

Dave how did you know they were picked?

[True North]

Dave how did you know they were picked?

I'm pretty sure he works there. Why wouldn't he know?

[True North]

This question of pay for a wide body vs a narrow body has always intrigued me. Could someone please explain to me why a wide body pilot should be paid more than a narrow body pilot? At the end of the day it's just another airplane.

[DH772]

ASM's

[ahramin]

Why is are A380 pilots paid more than navajo pilots True North? Same question.

The theory is that the larger the plane, the more money it makes, therefore the more the pilots get paid.

DaveP, there is a lot to be said for status pay when it comes to reducing training costs. It also helps prevent F/Os hiding in the right seat waiting for their seniority to improve. Just as you say the way Jazz handled the 757 might be a good start. Only problem I can see with that approach is that it was based on a known number of aircraft for a fixed contract. In your case are you going to continuously adjust the pay scale based on the nb/wb mix? Doesn't seem ideal.

Honestly, and with all due respect to you, if I was one of your drivers I would tell management to get stuffed with the 80% of lowball comparator groups and point to the Air Canada 787 scale with a simple hard line of "You want to operate widebody international? Great. But you have to pay for it." Westjet pilots already gave the company a huge pass with not only the Encore payscale but the entire benefit package. I hope they feel that it's time to say we gave enough and insist that the only comparator for widebody pay is Air Canada.

[True North]

ASM's

Well that doesn't hold water. A wide body typically does long haul so the crew generally does one leg. The narrow body guys do multiple segments. Let's say the wide body WestJet gets has 300 seats then the guys flying the NG would only have to fly 2 segments to generate more ASMs than a wide body crew, so they should get paid more.

[ahramin]

Air Seat MILES!

Not Air Seat Legs.

[True North]

Air Seat MILES!

Not Air Seat Legs.

Uh,yeah. The NG crew flying multiple segments is generating more Available Seat Miles in a day than the wide body crew flying one segment.

[7thirtyseven]

Dave how did you know they were picked?

I'm pretty sure he works there. Why wouldn't he know?

Well I have a friend that works there too, and these pilots are supposed to represent him. He doesnt know yet... Just seems odd to me.

[whiteguy]

Dave how did you know they were picked?

I'm pretty sure he works there. Why wouldn't he know?

Well I have a friend that works there too, and these pilots are supposed to represent him. He doesnt know yet... Just seems odd to me.

Is your buddy one of the Chief pilots? Like DaveP......

[DH772]

Yup. You're right when you look at ASM from such a simple view. There is significantly more to it than what youre looking at. In fact there have been some greats posts regarding pay and ASM's in many other threads

[True North]

Yup. You're right when you look at ASM from such a simple view. There is significantly more to it than what youre looking at. In fact there have been some greats posts regarding pay and ASM's in many other threads

ASMs are ASMs. Are you suggesting there is more to the ASM calculation or more to the pay scale calculation?

[7thirtyseven]

Is your buddy one of the Chief pilots? Like DaveP......

No, are the chief pilots picking the negotiating team for the pilots? Interesting way to work things...

[whiteguy]

Is your buddy one of the Chief pilots? Like DaveP......

No, are the chief pilots picking the negotiating team for the pilots? Interesting way to work things...

Yeah because that's what was said........

[DH772]

ASM's are ASM's??? What are you even talking about. Do you even know what ASM's are and how to calculate them? It's more than just how many pax you fly around in 1 day. Do a quick calculation of a 74 seat plane flying 600nm, 4 times in 1 day by a crew. Then calculate 350 seat plane flying 3900 miles. What do you come up with??

[True North]

ASM's are ASM's??? What are you even talking about. Do you even know what ASM's are and how to calculate them? It's more than just how many pax you fly around in 1 day. Do a quick calculation of a 74 seat plane flying 600nm, 4 times in 1 day by a crew. Then calculate 350 seat plane flying 3900 miles. What do you come up with??

Yes I do know how to calculate ASMs, I'm not sure you do though and why would I care about a 74 seat airplane? We are comparing a 737NG to a wide body.

So let's look at a real world example. A (insert type here) with 300 seats goes Edmonton to Honolulu, roughly 3200 miles x 300 seats = 960,000 ASMs

A 737-700 with 166 seats (I believe that is WJ's config) flies Calgary - Toronto - Calgary, roughly 3400 miles return (but we will use 3200 to compare apples to apples) x 166 seats each way = 1,062,400 ASMs.

The NG crew flew more ASMs that the wide body crew.

[Lemon]

I don't really now how ASM's work but would it not be 1700 x 166 = 282,200 and then multiply that number by 2 = 564,400?