Encore's Pay and Work Conditions

[Impact]

So JJJ you are saying that the first officers at Encore are of lower quality than the f/o's hired at WJ. Jazz has hired college grads with 250 hours and operate just as well as someone with a lot more experience. So what you saying does not hold true, any pilot can be trained to fly a jet.

Flyer

Son, we don't get paid for what we do. We get paid for what we know.

You might be able to comprehend that idea after another decade or two in this industry.

[FL767]

All very good points, I find this to be an extremely interesting topic;

Theres no debate, "a pilot becomes safer, more efficient and better with experience."

However the point I am making is that CEO's of airlines the world over don't value this experience very much. My evidence for this is that year after year pilot salaries get lower, cockpit experience gets lower but accidents per passenger seat mile also get lower. This is largely due (I believe) to the improved science behind piloting (CRM, better SOP's better checklists ect), technology and better infrastructure.

The global big boys have proved this year after year that 200 hr pilots can safely occupy the right seats in modern airliners given enough training.

The reason 200 hr pilots in Canada have such a bad rep is they come right from highschool into "Joes flying school", get menial jobs on the ground for a year where they lose any skills they had, are given a day or two of ground school, a few sim sessions and half a dozen hours training before being turned over to Northern Captains (like myself) where we watch these 200 hr pilots get flumuxed by anything that doesn't look, sound or smell like a forklift, then we sit back and say, "200 hr pilots are useless."

If we trained 200 hr pilots like they do in Europe; right out of a bachelor of science, into a professional 2 yr flight college, into a big airline where they get a month or more of; company indoc, ground school, CRM training, sim after sim after sim before several months of line indoc. We would have a very different view of 200 hr pilots.

The point I make is that years of piloting experience isn't as valuable as it was due to improved aviation science and technology. Flying modern airliners into big international airports is so damn safe, CEO's can pay peanuts and aircraft don't fall out of the sky.

Here's a neat thought experiment some one told me;

Imagine aviation hadn't improved since the 1940's. No one knew about airframe icing, jetstreams were unknown, airborne wx radar and GPS was science fiction, aircraft bounced between NDB-NDB and flew 100's of miles VFR. The gas turbine never made it out of a crazy Englishman's shed and radials powered still powered the globe, where they routinely leaked oil, seized and lit on fire. Would piloting still be paid like bar tending? Or would a pilot who understood and survived all these unkowns be worth his weight in gold?

The point of this thought experiment is its technology has played the biggest part in lowering pilot wages, supply of ATPL's has it role but a small one (are you listening "Pilot College") and CEO's know this. WestJet is just the newest one on this front line which is why this convo is on this forum.

I hope you all like my rant! Cheers.

[FL767]

Also why Northern flying still pays relatively well. Northern Canada still bombs around in turbo props from the 70's and 80's relying on full procedure approaches into ridiculous gravel runways. But if I can train a 200 hr pilot to fly with me and my King Air into places like "tuk-too-gofukyourself, then the same 200 pilot can be trained to fly a modern, user friendly ultra reliable airliner into Calgary.

Sorry, rant over.

[jjj]

FL 767,

Point taken.

Well said I think.

[True North]

The global big boys have proved this year after year that 200 hr pilots can safely occupy the right seats in modern airliners given enough training.

Really?

Ask Air France about that.

[loopa]

The global big boys have proved this year after year that 200 hr pilots can safely occupy the right seats in modern airliners given enough training.

Really?

Ask Air France about that.

While I see FL's post, I was just going to say that... Air France? Lion Air (where supposedly u go in at 250 hours, and 2000 hours on type u are captain of a 737-900ER at 2300 hrs).

My disagreement would be that you can train someone to go in perimeters around the same box all day... put the person into a position where they no longer are in a familiar box, and it's not such a pretty picture. All these low time cadet programs in europe have some very smart kids that can probably draw out how an astro-compass is designed... heck they can even tell me that if you multiply your GS by 5.313 you get exact FPM for a 3 degree slope on an ils... or a factor of 7.6334 for a 4 degree descent rate.

Problem is - you take these "airline trained" individuals out of their box, they will be requiring to rely on experience. Experience that they don't have no matter how many hours they press AP2 or CMD B or CMD R of an aircraft at 1000 feet, and disconnect at 200 feet.

Line indoc can only cover so much.

That being said - Canada's way of bringing pilots up is far from perfect as well.

[FL025]

to answer a few questions, help from the wjpa, not really, they are in the business of looking after WJ pilots (another thread), not us from what I see but feel free to ask your rep what they have been doing for us, maybe something behind the scenes, I don't know, they don't talk to us.

regret my decision, yea, but I am waist deep in it now, just hope it gets better. I am not telling you where I came from.

something to think about with all your experience talk, our first officers all upgrade to captain in 6 months. big difference to sitting in the right seat for 3000 hours of a big jet.

[Impact]

to answer a few questions, help from the wjpa, not really, they are in the business of looking after WJ pilots (another thread), not us from what I see but feel free to ask your rep what they have been doing for us, maybe something behind the scenes, I don't know, they don't talk to us.

regret my decision, yea, but I am waist deep in it now, just hope it gets better. I am not telling you where I came from.

something to think about with all your experience talk, our first officers all upgrade to captain in 6 months. big difference to sitting in the right seat for 3000 hours of a big jet.

That's unfortunate. Perhaps Encore and WJ are not right for you. There are always other job opportunities out there that may better suit your needs.

All the best of luck!

[Bede]

FL767,

Well written post. You are correct that it is difficult to make a financial justification why we should pay 20000hr pilots significantly more than 4000hr pilots. By contrast, an experienced lawyer brings far more value to his client than a newer lawyer and can therefore charge 3x more.

WRT to the King Air training you mentioned- yes you can train them, but the accident rate for airlines is significantly lower than 703 ops. In fact, there appears to be an inverse correlation between pay and accident rate: majors and regional airlines in the US have identical operating environments yet majors have half the accident rate of regionals.

[FL767]

FL767,

Well written post. You are correct that it is difficult to make a financial justification why we should pay 20000hr pilots significantly more than 4000hr pilots. By contrast, an experienced lawyer brings far more value to his client than a newer lawyer and can therefore charge 3x more.

Very good point Bede;

Experienced lawyers, doctors, carpenters and mechanics bring significantly more to the table with years on the job but, at some point a pilots actions are governed by the SOP's and decisions governed by the COM - there seems to be a experience plateau with modern piloting.

Then why are 4000 hr pilots at Encore making $38/$68 a credit hour with 20 days/month, while 20,000 hr mainline pilots make more than twice that with 16 days/month? Your all part of the same company adding to the same bottom line doing roughly the same job for very unequal pay.

[7thirtyseven]

to answer a few questions, help from the wjpa, not really, they are in the business of looking after WJ pilots (another thread), not us from what I see but feel free to ask your rep what they have been doing for us, maybe something behind the scenes, I don't know, they don't talk to us.

regret my decision, yea, but I am waist deep in it now, just hope it gets better. I am not telling you where I came from.

something to think about with all your experience talk, our first officers all upgrade to captain in 6 months. big difference to sitting in the right seat for 3000 hours of a big jet.

FL025, my sincerest apologies. Your comments are not unique. To be clear many WJ pilots would argue that the WJPA isnt even in the business of looking after WJ pilots.
We are all in this together, right now you guys are carrying more than your share of the load, but we no one that actually has something between their ears is happy with the situation. Please ignore comments like the one above about breevaluating whether you belong.

[7thirtyseven]

to answer a few questions, help from the wjpa, not really, they are in the business of looking after WJ pilots (another thread), not us from what I see but feel free to ask your rep what they have been doing for us, maybe something behind the scenes, I don't know, they don't talk to us.

regret my decision, yea, but I am waist deep in it now, just hope it gets better. I am not telling you where I came from.

something to think about with all your experience talk, our first officers all upgrade to captain in 6 months. big difference to sitting in the right seat for 3000 hours of a big jet.

That's unfortunate. Perhaps Encore and WJ are not right for you. There are always other job opportunities out there that may better suit your needs.

All the best of luck!

Completely ignorant, address the problem dont blame the person.

[rudder]

That's unfortunate. Perhaps Encore and WJ are not right for you. There are always other job opportunities out there that may better suit your needs.

All the best of luck!

Translated: your ISP address has been logged and forwarded to the westjetitude police. No koolaid for you!

[Bede]

FL767,

Pilots get paid as a function of revenue they generate which is why wide body driver earn more than turboprop drivers. I'm not sure if it's right or wrong but for now that's the way it is.

The other option would be to make the pay more equal across the industry- let's say, pay all captains $150k and all FO's $100k no matter if it's a 1900, DH8 or 737. However, I think that over an entire career, it would end up being less money.

[zulutime]

FL767,

Pilots get paid as a function of revenue they generate which is why wide body driver earn more than turboprop drivers. I'm not sure if it's right or wrong but for now that's the way it is.

The other option would be to make the pay more equal across the industry- let's say, pay all captains $150k and all FO's $100k no matter if it's a 1900, DH8 or 737. However, I think that over an entire career, it would end up being less money.

Please tell us you're joking, right!?

[FL767]

FL767,

Pilots get paid as a function of revenue they generate which is why wide body driver earn more than turboprop drivers. I'm not sure if it's right or wrong but for now that's the way it is.

The other option would be to make the pay more equal across the industry- let's say, pay all captains $150k and all FO's $100k no matter if it's a 1900, DH8 or 737. However, I think that over an entire career, it would end up being less money.

Setting a national pay scale across different companies is not practical, that's where the free market comes in.

But there's no reason why the WJPA could have said, "Start up Encore? Sure, a WestJet FO's time and energy is worth x much, and a WestJet captain's time and energy is worth x much." But instead the "Undercut everybody" approach was taken.

My real beef with WJ is by allowing low salaries ($38/20 days) and STILL have more job applications than job vacancies, this sets a very dangerous precedent that piloting is overpaid. Prior to Encore, Jazz's livable pay scale was industry standard but now its Encore. Setting the pilot bar lower will come back around to mainline at some point in the future.

My evidence for this is that Encore was up and running for just 6 months, and the WJPA rejected a contract with cutbacks - some accountant inside WJ is looking that these pay scales and shaking their head as we speak.

Which is why I would love to see Encore wages at mainline, lets just speed up this race to the bottom process and see a real jump in WJA share price! (joking of course)

[Mr. North]

I think the reason that there's more applicants than positions is because it's still a "brand new" airline. Lots of guys and gals are looking at the short upgrade times and want to get in while at the ground floor and ride out the expansion. From the birdies I talk to there's already rumors of raising the pay, when they do so and by how much remains to be seen of course. It will be interesting though to see how things unfold in the near future. Once their initial growth spurt has passed and Encore is established, if the pay doesn't improve, that's when you'll see applications falter. People will look at the low pay and average upgrade times and decide that Porter, Jazz, etc. are the better choice. To resolve that problem I see WestJet either raising the pay to industry average or dropping the hour requirements drastically. Of course everyone would prefer the former but I'm willing to bet the latter will happen.

In addition to that I also think a lot of the applications are reactive to WestJet changing the "goal posts". Pre-Encore, WestJet required a significant amount of time to get the call. Lots of guys are out there working their ass off, are nearly there, but still fall short on hours. Now with the advent of Encore, these 3-4k hour guys are facing the prospect of going from under-qualified to overqualified in very short order. In this situation (lowering the bar topic aside), I can see why many elect to take the sharp cut in pay now as opposed to missing the boat entirely. There are other airlines of course but who in their right mind is going to gamble on an unknown? A bird in the hand...

Lastly, Air Canada hasn't been hiring in the last few months while Encore plans to run a ground school every month for the next 12.

[North Shore]

I think the reason that there's more applicants than positions is because it's still a "brand new" airline.
Encore plans to run a ground school every month for the next 12.
From the birdies I talk to there's already rumors of raising the pay,

Sorry to quote somewhat out of context, but if statements 1 and 2 are correct, what possible economic justification is there for 3 to happen? Because the accountants are nice guys and feel that pilots are underpaid?

The only way that the wages are going to go up at Encore is if they can't get enough people to fill the seats in the groundschools, or if people start leaving for other, more lucrative, jobs after having worked at E for a while - like the Jazz/WJ 'flow in the early 2000s..

[Black Cat]

FL767,

Pilots get paid as a function of revenue they generate which is why wide body driver earn more than turboprop drivers. I'm not sure if it's right or wrong but for now that's the way it is.

The other option would be to make the pay more equal across the industry- let's say, pay all captains $150k and all FO's $100k no matter if it's a 1900, DH8 or 737. However, I think that over an entire career, it would end up being less money.

I think the above is a flawed mentality. The following are estimations but I think close enough.

AC "Wide body" pilot: one leg days, 400 pax 14 hour duty day , 10 days a month. 200k ish left seat? Up to 4000 passengers per month, with a pretty decent nap for 25% of that time in the air.

WJ "single isle jet" pilot. 4 legs a day, 136 pax, 14 hour dd, 16 days a month. 160kish? Up to 8704 passengers per month.

Encore "Turbo prop" pilot: 6 leg days, 75 pax, 14 hour duty day, 20 days a month. 75k? Up to 9000 passengers.


You cannot argue that a longhaul seat brings in more revenue and thus said pilots wages should be higher either. The more profitable routes are fed the slim margins provided by regional lift. No region feed, no passengers for the gravy runs.



WJ pilots are selling out encore pilots plain and simple. And the reason is pretty clear, to see their profit sharing cheques grow and to see their airline grow into larger aircraft. But don't feel bad guys, i dont fault ya, it's just the nature of pilots. And guess what? your management knows exactly how to get what they want from you, they just play a song that's dear to almost every pilots heart; it's called the ballot of the carrot, aka mo money and bigger airplanes. That's all it takes and they'll be playing y'all like a banjo at the opry all nigh long, just remember that them encore pilots dance to the same tune and if you keep all the sexy birds for yourself there's bound to be some jealousy

[jjj]

Black Cat,

The bigger the iron the bigger the $ has been around since before anybody here started flying. Even at AC the 777 pays more than the 787.

If you can define fair and find a way of getting there without making it crappy for everybody then I'd love to hear it.

Nobody likes the a Encore pay rates except for the suits and the guys on here being accused of selling out had no say in the matter.

JJJ

[Bede]

Black Cat,

I think you analysis is somewhat simplistic. You have to look at RASM.

For example, AC 777
70hrs/mo * 450mph * 350 seats * $0.18 RASM = $2.3M revenue/mo

AC A320
70hrs/mo * 420mph * 150 seats * $0.18 RASM = $794k revenue/mo

Jazz DH8
70hrs/mo * 300mph * 75 seats * $0.18 RASM = $284k revenue/mo

I might be a bit off on block speeds. Hours per month are actual flying, not scheduled hours.

The 777 driver provides nearly 10x more revenue than the regional pilot, but does not earn 10x more money.

[Black Cat]

Other than a group of united pilots in Canada who dictate a minimum wage per AC type I have no idea how to stop companies from offering cheaper airfares on the backs of pilots.

[Impact]

Completely ignorant, address the problem dont blame the person.

Completely ignorant? Why would it be completely ignorant to support somebody in their realization that a certain job may not be right for them, especially after only a few months in said job. It is much better to address the issue in the early months, rather than having been at said job for years in which one will become bitter and twisted.

Ultimately it is the person who is responsible for their own happiness and job satisfaction. You do realize that, don't you?

As I've mentioned, it is unfortunate that he/she is not happy at Encore. I wish them a long and happy career at a company that fulfills their particular dreams, expectations, and aspirations. Nothing more, and nothing less.

[flyer 1492]

So JJJ you are saying that the first officers at Encore are of lower quality than the f/o's hired at WJ. Jazz has hired college grads with 250 hours and operate just as well as someone with a lot more experience. So what you saying does not hold true, any pilot can be trained to fly a jet.

Flyer

Son, we don't get paid for what we do. We get paid for what we know.

You might be able to comprehend that idea after another decade or two in this industry.

Hey Impact,

I have been in this industry for more than 2 decades, so I do know what I am talking about.

Cheers

[Black Cat]

JJJ,

Could you elaborate on how the WJ pilots had no say on the creation of encore and the wages and conditions they work under? I thought the pilots had the final say on encores creation. And I believe that wjpa at least had some say in their initial waco negotiations? Certainly the wjpa could have included or negotiated on encores behalf for improvements during your current contract talk, no?


As for another pay solution; i dont have one. But I know that a progressive company that prides itself on inclusion and fairness among groups could have come up with a more "fair pay" solution than the creation of two pilots lists. Even evil unionized shops like jazz have a more socialized/westjetty pay structure than westjet at the moment. And let's not mention the poor (no pun intended) flight attendants struggling away at encore. It's a disgrace boys and girls, and maybe its time you oust your senior management and his circle of number crunchers before you become just another airline