Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

[808shooter]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

And by the way, if I were a Mesa pilot, I'd be looking to jump to Aloha also. Did you see their hourly rates? Those rates didn't even include an unspecified salary.

And I guess you are a pilot. Well, I will be more civil. Everyone has to be looking out for #1. I don't blame you personally but you do comp waaaay better than the vast majority of folks out there.

[808shooter]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

Aloha is already the LOWEST paid 737 operator in the nation. How much less should we take so you can get $39 fares?

You can use the same charts at airlinepilotcentral.com to see THATS Aloha is already the lowest paid 737 operator.

How much cheaper would you like us to be?

Actually I would like Aloha to be an average paying operator. If I was god, the entire industry would be have it's pay structure revamped. And adjusted downwards quite a bit. Your comp is not that obscene. Just kind of obscene. The majors pilots comp is really really offensive.

If $39 fares are what the market would dictate, so be it. That is the way capitalism works in every other industry. Technology changes industries and the global economy is changing industries. Unions have been artificially been holding up your comp for far too long. Competition will force the market to adjust eventually. By Unions keeping operating costs artificially high, it's hurts your ability to compete.

Nice post, I can agree in principle, but Mesa is not the one bringing competition. Mesa is hurting it. A real competitor, James Delano's Fly Hawaii was axed because of Mesa and Island Air had to return the MOST EFFICIENT airplane (Dash 8 Q400) from Hawaii's skies and market because of Mesa's predatory actions.

I am not familiar with this. Could you elaborate?

I will fairly judge any information you bring to the table and - caw caw - eat crow if justified. I will even become a loud advocate if I agree with you. I don't need to be right, I'd rather be educated.

[joshuatree]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

75 hours a month of flight pay. This is only while the airplane is under its own power.

A typical five day "trip" away from home will net most pilots less than 30 hours of pay. This is because the FAA limits pilots to 30 hours of flight time in 7 days.

75 hours a month of flight pay. And this is what 808shooter was pointing out earlier.

Hmmm. This data is very interesting. Let's say I was a first year captain at Hawaiian on a 717 (smaller jet). I make $146 per hour with a guaranteed 75 hours a month?

$146 * 75 = $10,950 per month minimum or $131,400 annually at a minimum.

So that is pretty good comp as it is. And I've stated before, newbie pilots do get shafted and their plight needs to be addressed. But I'm tired of hearing the plight of all pilots because those that are captains or have served as FOs for a few years on either Aloha or Hawaiian make decent dollars. By the way, it's 75 hours a month, 30 flight hours in 7 days still translates to 120 flight hours a month using 4 weeks as a rough estimate for a month. The FAA doesn't crimp a pilot's ability to make money.

"SOUNDS AWESOME WHERE DO I SIGN UP" you might say. "I would love to have a 30 hour work week" you are probably thinking. now go watch the TIRED PILOTS video again and tell me if you really think this is glamorous. Wheres the "comped hotel"? Why aren't they out spending all their per diem?

Five days away from home sleeping is metal tubes for only 20 something hours of compensation is not what any of these pilots signed up for.

Inter Island Hawaii is much nicer but these schedules where we are home every night are the exception. No other airlines operate this way. Not even go!

Where are you going with this argument? If you read all my posts, I have not defended Mesa. You responded to 808shooter's reply about how much a 717 1st year captain at Hawaiian can make with remarks of being away from home and no pay during nonflight hours. I responded by pointing out how often is a Hawaiian 717 pilot away from home considering it's an interisland route?

I also realized that your reply to 808shooter could also be a generalized statement of the airline industry. And so my second response was, even if a pilot is away, there is comped hotel and per diem, NOT specifically at Mesa, but there are other airlines that do.

I already know Mesa is flogging their pilots and it's a bad thing that needs to be fixed. What I'm trying to point out is that many Hawaiian/Aloha pilots have it good and they still complain. They justify they need even more higher pay because a pilot's life is hard especially when they first start out. All I'm saying is, with your unions and collective bargaining, you guys should fix the problems with newbie pilot pay. Make it reasonable and on the top end, you need to trim the top end pay so you don't look like greedy pigs. But then again, human nature, so maybe it's a moot point.

Even Inter Island, to get 75 hours of pay we will be in airports or airplanes almost double that amount of time. But it is a good deal and we will defend it. But those are "work rules" not pay. Do you have a problem with our work rules too? Should we sleep away from home and camp out in the Boeings to save you another five dollars on your airfare?

Aloha is already the LOWEST paid 737 operator in the nation. How much less should we take so you can get $39 fares?

You can use the same charts at airlinepilotcentral.com to see THATS Aloha is already the lowest paid 737 operator.

How much cheaper would you like us to be?

Okay, double the 75 hours, that's 150 hours a month, multiplied by 12 months and we get 1800 hours a year. Dividing that back by 52 weeks, we get 34.62 hours a week. That's sure lot less than a 40 hour work week that most of us have to pull. So how hard is that really? A first year FO on Aloha makes $23 an hour, which is $41400 a year, not bad for a less than 40 hour work week. And the following year, the pay already bumps up to $53 an hour.

This is where people like you and HERO make a mistake. You think the flying public (most of us at least) EXPECTS a $39 interisland fare. Hardly the truth. I know $39 and all the other lower promotional fares are not sustainable. I will take them as long as they last. But what I and most of the public are upset about was how in the past, fares easily hit $100 each way. What I like to have seen was maybe fares of around $60. What I like to have seen was Hawaiian and Aloha compete, spark periodic promotional interisland price wars, not collusion every step of the way. What I like to have seen was Hawaiian and Aloha managed their costs more instead of just always using the excuse, "it's expensive to fly". I'm sure it's expensive to fly for Southwest but they manage to weather the storms and make money. And I don't think they have union yet their crews are happy. What I like to see now is HERO be passionate about how they can make Hawaiian and Aloha be profitable and yet still give a fair low price to the people of Hawaii, not just Mesa bashing. You guys manage to give out some pretty good Hawaii-mainland airfares, why can't you for interisland? If maybe Aloha/Hawaiian/HERO were as passionate about their local customers in the past as they are now about their jobs, you wouldn't need to be fighting this battle with Mesa. There's a backlash from the Hawaii public at Aloha and Hawaiian cuz you guys come out shouting, "support your local airlines, we're here for you, we're real "Hawaiian" airlines," but you could care less what you charged us in the past when there was no Mesa to annoy you.

[aloha-anon]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

Actually I would like Aloha to be an average paying operator. If I was god, the entire industry would be have it's pay structure revamped. And adjusted downwards quite a bit. Your comp is not that obscene. Just kind of obscene. The majors pilots comp is really really offensive.

If $39 fares are what the market would dictate, so be it. That is the way capitalism works in every other industry. Technology changes industries and the global economy is changing industries. Unions have been artificially been holding up your comp for far too long. Competition will force the market to adjust eventually. By Unions keeping operating costs artificially high, it's hurts your ability to compete.


I am not familiar with this. Could you elaborate?

I will fairly judge any information you bring to the table and - caw caw - eat crow if justified. I will even become a loud advocate if I agree with you. I don't need to be right, I'd rather be educated.

Fly Hawaii was to be owned by ex-Lion Coffee CEO James Delano. Very well liked Honolulu businessman.

James Delano's Fly Hawaii shuts down Delano lost his investors because of Mesa's early drumbeating about starting a predatory battle in hawaii.

The Q400 has some of the lowest costs of any aircraft and is the "perfect" aircraft for Hawaii's inter-island market. The only operator of this aircraft is Island Air and they are suffering immensely from Mesa's scorched Earth policy in Hawaii.

Island Air sidelines its biggest airplane, blames continued predatory unsustainable pricing by Mesa.

Mesa is not here to stimulate competition, rather they are ruining it.

Happy Thanksgiving! Dont eat crow, eat turkey!

[Miulang]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

From some earlier calculations I made, I believe all the interisland carriers could be profitable if they normally charged around $70/OW. It appears that even with the low low interisland fares now, the peak demand for seats has declined anyway (partly due to the fact that HA and AQ increased the number of seats available) except around holidays, so I think that means that most people who wanted to fly to a neighbor island have gotten that out of their system.

If go!, HA and AQ all had seats that were regularly priced at $70/OW (with periodic "price wars") and started selling coupon books for frequent commuters (this is actually a good idea, because, like buying a book of postage stamps, the company gets the value of the entire coupon book up front which they can then invest), the differentiator would be on the service each carrier provided (most on-time, most convenient schedule, fewer lost bags, fewer cancelled flights, etc.). Would people still fly interisland? Of course they would. And they would remember the days when a ticket cost $100/OW or more and think they were getting a bargain now.

Right now, I think the shareholders of Mesa and HA and the owners of AQ are all not very happy. Shareholder expectations of a profit are what drive the consumers' perception of a company's being "greedy", and like supermarkets, the operating margin is very tight to begin with.

Miulang

[aloha-anon]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

75 hours a month of flight pay. And this is what 808shooter was pointing out earlier.

[B]Hmmm. This data is very interesting. Let's say I was a first year captain at Hawaiian on a 717 (smaller jet).

Your entire post is meaningless because, you begin the entire post with a huge mis-assumption. There are no 1st year 717 captains at Hawaiian. The most junior Captain at Hawaiian was hired Aug 1991. So there are only 15+ year captains at Hawaiian. Any pilots with less than 15 years longevity gets FO pay.

Hawaiian still has 52 pilots on furlough. They make a whopping zero every month.

[aloha-anon]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

From some earlier calculations I made, I believe all the interisland carriers could be profitable if they normally charged around $70/OW. It appears that even with the low low interisland fares now, the peak demand for seats has declined anyway (partly due to the fact that HA and AQ increased the number of seats available) except around holidays, so I think that means that most people who wanted to fly to a neighbor island have gotten that out of their system.

If go!, HA and AQ all had seats that were regularly priced at $70/OW (with periodic "price wars") and started selling coupon books for frequent commuters (this is actually a good idea, because, like buying a book of postage stamps, the company gets the value of the entire coupon book up front which they can then invest), the differentiator would be on the service each carrier provided (most on-time, most convenient schedule, fewer lost bags, fewer cancelled flights, etc.). Would people still fly interisland? Of course they would. And they would remember the days when a ticket cost $100/OW or more and think they were getting a bargain now.

Right now, I think the shareholders of Mesa and HA and the owners of AQ are all not very happy. Shareholder expectations of a profit are what drive the consumers' perception of a company's being "greedy".

Miulang

Very nice. I agree with all except the coupon books kill airlines and helped cause the double barrel bankruptcies (HA & AQ) in the first place.

[Miulang]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

Very nice. I agree with all except the coupon books kill airlines and helped cause the double barrel bankruptcies (HA & AQ) in the first place.

What did they do with all the money they got up front for those coupon books, though? The post office sells millions of dollars of books and rolls of stamps. All those stamps don't get used right away, so there is money that can be invested. Some stamps never get used (I still have a bunch of 29 cent stamps stashed away ), so the Post Office has money that I paid and that they haven't had to "use" yet.

If I was running an interisland airline company, I would offer coupon books (like maybe 10 OW trips/book) and not make them valid forever (maybe say that the tickets have to be used within 2 years). That way, you would reward the people who really need to travel interisland frequently. Then I would use the value of the unused tickets to buy fuel and stockpile it somewhere, or buy some fuel contracts when the price is lowest (that's how SWA was able to keep its airfares so low for so long). Since fuel and labor are the 2 big ticket items and since the price of fuel especially is so volatile, I would definitely see if I could at least have a predictable way to calculate fuel costs into the equation of my ticket price.

Miulang

[joshuatree]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

Your entire post is meaningless because, you begin the entire post with a huge mis-assumption. There are no 1st year 717 captains at Hawaiian. The most junior Captain at Hawaiian was hired Aug 1991. So there are only 15+ year captains at Hawaiian. Any pilots with less than 15 years longevity gets FO pay.

Hawaiian still has 52 pilots on furlough. They make a whopping zero every month.

Wow, my entire post is meaningless because of assuming there are 1st year 717 captains at Hawaiian? You obviously didn't bother to read all of it or just simply want to ignore it but it's cool. Take it however you see fit. Since you did point out there are no 1st year captains, rather the "youngest" captain has 15 years, means that they are making even more than the example 808shooter used.

As for pilots being furlough, that's because both companies went through a recent bankruptcy. And please don't tell me Mesa caused them.

[Miulang]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

Wow, my entire post is meaningless because of assuming there are 1st year 717 captains at Hawaiian? You obviously didn't bother to read all of it or just simply want to ignore it but it's cool. Take it however you see fit. Since you did point out there are no 1st year captains, rather the "youngest" captain has 15 years, means that they are making even more than the example 808shooter used.

As for pilots being furlough, that's because both companies went through a recent bankruptcy. And please don't tell me Mesa caused them.

Economic fact of life (unless you're protected by a union): If a company is facing financial trouble and the employees aren't unionized, the first ones to get laid off will be the ones with the most seniority on the job or age or a combination of both (and therefore cost the most in pay and benefits). In companies and industries where there are unions protecting the workers, the ones with the most seniority are the ones who get to keep working; the ones with less seniority will be the ones out the door. I suspect that most of the furloughed pilots had less seniority than the ones who are still flying and that's why HA pilots all have 15+ years' experience.

Miulang

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

The new planes today fly themselves. That includes take off and landing by themselves.

When they work.

Part of the reason that pilots get paid what they do is that they have to make the right decision quickly. They have to manage any emergency and they rarely have any backup other then the FO. They have to be "on top" of the situation at all times. They even have to know when following ATC's (or anyone else's) requests can not or should not be done. Ultimate responsibility for the safety of the flight rests with them. They don't just follow commands. Failure frequently results in a smoking hole. Not too many professions have that same level of possible bad outcome (100's killed, multi-million dollar aircraft lost) and backup and reaction constraints.

One issue, how much of a airline's costs is it's pilots? I don't have the stat, but it's not all that great a percentage. Fuel costs are much greater.

[joshuatree]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

Economic fact of life (unless you're protected by a union): If a company is facing financial trouble and the employees aren't unionized, the first ones to get laid off will be the ones with the most seniority on the job or age or a combination of both (and therefore cost the most in pay and benefits). In companies and industries where there are unions protecting the workers, the ones with the most seniority are the ones who get to keep working; the ones with less seniority will be the ones out the door. I suspect that most of the furloughed pilots had less seniority than the ones who are still flying and that's why HA pilots all have 15+ years' experience.

Miulang

I agree with you, with unions, if it ever came for a need to furlough workers, it's not about who has better job performance, but who's been there the longest. An archaic method if you ask me. If a company's struggling, wouldn't it want to retain it's best performing workers to help the company turn around, not just someone who's been there the longest? I suspect the company would want this route but union rules bind their hands.

Going to a previous post of yours. At $70 OW or even $60 OW, there can be profit to be made in the interisland market. Check out this link. Granted, you might have to adjust some of the profit forecasting to suit Hawaii's market but it shows it's possible.

http://www.q400.com/q400/en/turbo.jsp#profit

[GeckoGeek]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

If a company is facing financial trouble and the employees aren't unionized, the first ones to get laid off will be the ones with the most seniority on the job or age or a combination of both (and therefore cost the most in pay and benefits).

Uh, I think the powers that be would like to do that, but due to risk of age discrimination, I don't know as that would fly if taken to court nowadays. "Seniority" thinking has infected non-union shops as well. To get rid of the more highly paid, they have to be more sneaky and eliminate the positions they are holding.

But I agree that's why the seniority is so high at Hawaiian right now.

[Miulang]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

Uh, I think the powers that be would like to do that, but due to risk of age discrimination, I don't know as that would fly if taken to court nowadays. "Seniority" thinking has infected non-union shops as well. To get rid of the more highly paid, they have to be more sneaky and eliminate the positions they are holding.

But I agree that's why the seniority is so high at Hawaiian right now.

It's happening today. There hasn't been a successful age discrimination suit ever prosecuted that I am aware of. The way companies get around getting sued for this practice is they offer "golden parachutes", which, if the laid off employee elects to take it, precludes that person from ever suing the company for age discrimination. So if you're around 50 and have been with your company for 20 years, the likelihood of your getting laid off is much much higher than if you were 25 with only 5 years of experience.

Miulang

[aloha-anon]

Re: Hawaii's Interisland Air War - Chapter 2

What did they do with all the money they got up front for those coupon books, though? The post office sells millions of dollars of books and rolls of stamps. All those stamps don't get used right away, so there is money that can be invested. Some stamps never get used (I still have a bunch of 29 cent stamps stashed away ), so the Post Office has money that I paid and that they haven't had to "use" yet.

If I was running an interisland airline company, I would offer coupon books (like maybe 10 OW trips/book) and not make them valid forever (maybe say that the tickets have to be used within 2 years). That way, you would reward the people who really need to travel interisland frequently. Then I would use the value of the unused tickets to buy fuel and stockpile it somewhere, or buy some fuel contracts when the price is lowest (that's how SWA was able to keep its airfares so low for so long). Since fuel and labor are the 2 big ticket items and since the price of fuel especially is so volatile, I would definitely see if I could at least have a predictable way to calculate fuel costs into the equation of my ticket price.

Miulang

thats not a bad idea with the expiration dates.

The reason the coupon books killed the 2 local airlines is the same reason they were so popular, you could use them at the last minute and walk on any airplane. Those seats are usually sold for a premium price.