Focus: United Airlines grapples with pilots avoiding the captain's chair
Focus: United Airlines grapples with pilots avoiding the captain's chair
Many pilots are turning down the captain's job as they do not want the unpredictable schedule that comes with the bigger paycheck.
So they know the problem, pay increase isn't worth the bullshit surrounding the promotion, and they know the fix.
Will they create more stable schedules or bump the pay to make it worth their captain's time?
Fuck no. Let's just cancel a bunch of flights because no one wants to work
And then bitch about it publicly to try and create pressure on the pilots. Sorry UA, the class warfare stuff is out of the bag, I'm with the pilots
You obviously didn't read the article as creating more stable schedules is exactly what they're doing.
Is it enough, probably not. But let's not make up lies.
As a pilot the problem with upgrading early is seniority dictates QOL. A junior captain needs to work a junior base, fly a junior plane, and get whatever crappy trips are left in the schedule. That means that a senior First Officer would have to move or commute to a new city until they build enough seniority to go back to where they want to live all while working the worst schedule, or even worse sitting on reserve. Absolutely not worth the pay bump when you can wait a little longer and not have to deal with all that.
Have you done the mental math about where the pay would make it worth your while?
Hard to say, upgrade means going to a junior base which are almost universally high COL areas and you'd need to either move there or rent a crash pad for several months to several years until you can go back.
In my case, I'm lucky enough to have 0 ex-wives and no kids to put through college so I'm in a comfortable position money wise. It would take a pretty big chunk of money for me to take the hastle to upgrade until I could hold my base.
It sounds like they need to figure out how to merge the two lists to give junior captains some time not fully on call. Maybe allow senior first officers to be standby captains one week out of the month to ease them into the role.
Or just increase pay. Supply and demand.
The senior first officers are noting QoL issues as the major reason they are not choosing to be junior captains. If a 40% increase in salary isn't enough to get people to make the jump, maybe the solution is to change the quality of life for junior captains.
It might also be cheaper for the airline to make the cutoff more flexible in a way that is acceptable to the pilots' union.
That clearly didn't work. A 40 percent increase is plenty, but it seems people don't want their jobs to dictate their personal lives. Which is fair, I guess.
They need to change the expectations tha t come with the junior captain's seat. Or force senior captains to be a bit more lenient, too.
The alternative is having no captains anymore, soon.
World News.