Wide bodies on the way. ANY NEWS???

[B757FO]

Dave,

I personally feel that the jazz model worked also. But it worked in my opinion because of status pay and years of service. The point as I see it from a cost perspective is wide body flying works for some but does not work for others due to family or commitments etc. To avoid training events (multiple) it is best to assume a small percentage of pilots want to run off and do the long haul flying all the time chasing the bigger iron if the pay is the same of the 737 because of years of service pay vs higher equipment pay. However if there is no incentive to do it i.e. same pay because we used the jazz model and spread the pay around less people will be inclined (I think) to jump to the bigger machines and thus reducing the multiple training cost triggers.

or,,,,

as is mentioned ASM's. Bigger means more pay. It's a hard choice to make. It is possible to have separate pay scales but would have to match a level to a level so really we are talking about years of service here being the answer.

As for comparators I think Transat is a good place to start they now operate both narrow / wide body fleet. Not sure how they are doing it with pay scales if its one or two. Maybe Gilles can speak on it.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Right now there are two payscales but I am not certain that this is good for the company or the pilots. I have hope that another method will be negociated by our union when the current contract expires this spring. Two payscales creates musical chairs like Air Canada has and ends up costing millions in unnessary cross training. Its best when people change aircraft for lifestyle or for new challenges, not because they will get extra pay.
However, in practice, the way things are at TSC, most of 737 crews are dual qualified on a wide body and the 737 and because of the dual qualification, remain on the wide body pay scale.

[DaveP]

Interesting and it's not going to be an easy task landing on something.

7thirtyseven, I only knew they were selecting yesterday and I wasn't sitting in the meeting with the association.

One thing for certain with all of this, it won't be simply focused on pay - we have to worry about the working conditions too. I do agree that it's important to avoid all the extra training as a few mentioned. Great feedback guys!

As for the type selection, Boeing was in town this week assisting us with tail availability and our technical standards pilots were in Miami flying the A330 sim so the type is far from chosen. One thing is for certain, there are a lot more younger A330's (6years old or so) available than "good" 15 or 17 year old 767's.

[Transonic]

Thanks Dave,

Did Boeing have anything interesting to say about the 787 "teens"?

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-2 ... -787s.html

Exciting times indeed!

[DaveP]

Hi,
Yes they made the pitch, but it's my understanding that they are too odd. Heavy along with some certification issues. Simply not the right plane right now is what the marketing, maintenance, ops and tech guys are saying.

Cheers

[planeless]

It will be interesting to see the pay solution when westjet gets wide bodies. I think a status pay could work when the company gets larger aircraft but the whole pay scale needs to increase to accommodate this. If everyone stays on the current pay scales with new larger aircraft it takes advantage of the pilots, which happens too often in Canada. If its not a pay increase for the westjet pilots it hurts every other pilot in Canada, not just westjet pilots.

[Eric Janson]

I've always worked for Airlines that had the same salary no matter what you flew. Most of these companies had no overtime regulations so you made the the same money whether you flew 1 or 100 hours in a month. You also did not get penalised for taking holidays in any given month.

There is one salary scale for Captains and one salary scale for First Officers.

It's a simple system and allows people to choose their preferred type of flying.

(Example:- In an Airline operating A320/B767/MD11/B747 - the A320 fleet was where all the senior people ended up and new Captains would normally end up on the 747 or MD11 fleet).

A variation on this system is the introduction of a Type Allowance. This gives a higher salary depending on aircraft Type flown. (Example:- A320 $400/mo A330 & A340 $700/mo and Mixed Fleet Flying A320/330 or A330/340 S1000/mo).

You don't see a lot of Mixed Fleet Flying - mostly because of the salary systems in place at a lot of companies. It's easy, fun and gives some variation to all long haul or all short haul.

[Gilles Hudicourt]

The year after I started at Air Transat, we had B-757, L-1011 and we began receiving the first A-330s. Then in winter, we seasonally operated a couple B-737-400 for a few years, and that was replaced by a couple A-320 afterwards. Everyone got paid the same. The pilots that flew the 737 and the 320 were taken off the other aircraft in winter. There was one F/O pay scale which began on your hire date, and one Capt pay scale which began on your first revenue flight as captain.

[True North]

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?

Right you are Lemon. That's what I get for doing math while I'm drinking scotch.

So if I'm willing to concede the wide body crew could generate more ASMs and if that is your argument for a pay increase, my next question is; do the FAs get more money too? AMEs? Dispatchers?

[complexintentions]

Actually your own example shows the smaller a/c generating about half the ASM's with twice the legs. So not a marginal difference.

The ASM comparison is simplistic in the extreme. I don't know of very many single-class widebodies, the vast majority have at least one premium class where the yields far exceed any potential fare on a short haul flight. It's all about yield.

Charging for an extra pillow is not the same as a seat in J or F.

It's really not that unusual for employees working in a division generating more income for a company to make more money than employees generating less. Search the forum for the debate about Costco versus Walmart. Ot Google "Economies of Scale".

[jetsetfly]

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?

Right you are Lemon. That's what I get for doing math while I'm drinking scotch.

So if I'm willing to concede the wide body crew could generate more ASMs and if that is your argument for a pay increase, my next question is; do the FAs get more money too? AMEs? Dispatchers?

I hear Encore AME'S will be doing the Maintainance not Mainline

[True North]

It's really not that unusual for employees working in a division generating more income for a company to make more money than employees generating less. Search the forum for the debate about Costco versus Walmart. Ot Google "Economies of Scale".

So by that I take it FAs, AMEs and dispatchers that work the wide body make more too. Is that what you are saying?

[DH772]

So by that I take it FAs, AMEs and dispatchers that work the wide body make more too. Is that what you are saying?

Really dude? Really? Are you that much in denial? Please do not EVER start a business. Your model of ASM is by far the most simplistic theory and completely neglecting other facts/information.

The reason I was using a 74 seat plane is because I was trying to compare one extreme example to another and trying to prove the general reasoning regarding pay structure.

That is a lovely example you gave. But let me ask you, do you really think the average credit day at your said airline is a 9-10 hour credit? Doubtful? Once again, when your only looking at 1% of the equation it doesn't give much evidence

Can I do the same? Those are as you said real examples of a typical day. Well these are also real days part of a pairing.

narrow body jet - YEG-YWG 750miles at 177 seats 130,000
777 YYZ-HGK 7800 at 350 seats 2,700,000

Boy sure is easy to bend information when you only look at 1% of the information. Anyways, good luck with your reasoning and logic.

Cheers

[7thirtyseven]

Angry much?

[True North]

So by that I take it FAs, AMEs and dispatchers that work the wide body make more too. Is that what you are saying?

Really dude? Really? Are you that much in denial? Please do not EVER start a business. Your model of ASM is by far the most simplistic theory and completely neglecting other facts/information.

The reason I was using a 74 seat plane is because I was trying to compare one extreme example to another and trying to prove the general reasoning regarding pay structure.

That is a lovely example you gave. But let me ask you, do you really think the average credit day at your said airline is a 9-10 hour credit? Doubtful? Once again, when your only looking at 1% of the equation it doesn't give much evidence

Can I do the same? Those are as you said real examples of a typical day. Well these are also real days part of a pairing.

narrow body jet - YEG-YWG 750miles at 177 seats 130,000
777 YYZ-HGK 7800 at 350 seats 2,700,000

Boy sure is easy to bend information when you only look at 1% of the information. Anyways, good luck with your reasoning and logic.

Cheers

I'm not in denial about anything simply asking a question out of genuine curiosity, which you didn't answer. My "said airline" doesn't exist - I'm retired. So I'll ask it again in light of your revealing numbers; do the FAs, AMEs and dispatchers working the wide body also get paid extra as you propose for the pilots?

[fish4life]

The reason why it makes no sense for FA's is the number required increase with the number of seats where as you still only need 2 pilots no matter what the size or how many passengers are in the back.

[True North]

The reason why it makes no sense for FA's is the number required increase with the number of seats where as you still only need 2 pilots no matter what the size or how many passengers are in the back.

Really? What about relief pilots?

[Gilles Hudicourt]

Really? What about relief pilots?

We do 10, 11 and sometimes close to 12 hour flights (block hours) at Air Transat with just a 2 person crew. The only time we fly augmented, is when we do really long turns in the south, like YEG-CUN-YEG. As long as you can fit your flight inside of a 14 hour duty day, the Regs allow it.
Our duty day begins 1 hour and 20 minutes before sched departure for international flights and ends 15 minutes after block in. That leaves 12.6 hours of block time for the flight

Then you can rely on "unforeseen circumstances" to go to 17 should something happen en-route but if that happens too often, Transport will take action and require adjustments (either crew or scheduling)

[True North]

Gilles,

I understand the crew sked rules. I'm not sure of WJ specific rules - not sure they even have rules for a wide body yet - but I imagine they are similar to yours. That said, they don't preclude the use of a relief pilot. The point being fish4life stated the reason pilots get paid more to fly a wide body, and FAs don't, is because extra FAs are required and extra pilots are not. Sometimes they are.

Further then, extra dispatchers or AMEs are not necessary either or for that matter call centre people. Will they get paid more?

[brooks]

Any reason as to why Air Canada has ordered the B737-900 MAX but WestJet hasn't? Why would they be able to make it work but not WJ? I also noticed Air Canada hadn't ordered the 700.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bo ... MAX_orders

[leftoftrack]

You'll see the max 7's converted into max 8's as the lead time gets closer. There is only one other customer with an order in for the 7's the plane is just not worth certifying for just WS and Southwest. And before I get flamed I know they both operate lots of 700's but the economics of having the availability of the extra seats out weighs the penalty for weight. Boeing just asked some long time customers to submit some 7 orders to see if they can show there is some demand but no one else is biting bot the max and the NEO have left a nice little segment in the 150 seat market for the C-series (the plane is optimized for that size)

[brooks]

Still the question is the 900. Between putting a ton of Q400's on small segments and using 700's (lets not even start talking about the 600's) I would tend to agree that buying more 800's is the way to go. But the real question is why would AC put in a big fat order for 900's but WJ not. Lot's of talk about 900's at WJ about this time last year but it somehow all fell through.

[skyhigh]

-

[leftoftrack]

With a much smaller regional feed network maybe they feel that 800's are the right size. 900's might be to much airplane for their network which may require reduced frequency which may drive customers to other carriers. Depending on what is happening in the Canadian aviation market place they may change those 7's to 9's. That decision won't be required for a few more years when they have a little more regional experience and they have dabbled in wide body aircraft

[True North]

I don't know much about the 900 Max but the 900 NG is a dog. It is frequently brake energy limited. I'm not aware of any significant changes to the wheel/brake assembly on the Max and it's a heavier a/c.