Pilot Salary Changes - Hourly

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joefremont
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Pilot Salary Changes - Hourly

Post by joefremont » Thu Mar 11, 2021 10:17 pm

I have been thinking about adding an hour based option to salary to the current ranks, using a 'standard hour' like we do for the rank promotions, which is a formula based on distance and cruise speed. Only rinkle is the copilots, right now all the pilots on the flight share the profit, so more pilots do not cost the VA more money, but fixed salaries would affect it, so some though or control would be needed for that.

One of the reasons I have not done it in the past is that in the real world, pilots really just fly the plane on the route they are assigned, they don't worry about passengers or loading cargo and they don't get to pick and choose the more profitable routes, even the amount of fuel loaded is controlled by the dispatcher with changes by the pilot needing to be approved, while in FSA they get to much more control so using a percentage of revenue gives the pilot an incentive.

As with any change I consider how would this new feature be gamed by those who would abuse it, say giving themselves a billion dollars an hour, I suppose a maximum amount would be the simplest way to control that.
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Cat
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Re: Cargo System/Packages

Post by Cat » Fri Mar 12, 2021 6:49 pm

Actually pilots do have some control over the routes they fly as they bid on routes via the seniority system with the top seniority pilots usually getting everything they bid on and the lowest new hires getting leftovers.

And yes I would highly recommend a max per hour figure although if the airlines want to go bankrupt paying pilots far more than their value, that's on them. This only involves pilot pay pre-multiplier so it would not be in any airlines' best interest to overpay their pilots and lose money on the route.

The current % system allows airlines to pay up to 100% flight revenue to the pilot.

An hourly rate could easily drive flight revenue profits into the negative if the pilot is overpaid. Perhaps a "hard ceiling" value of something like "no greater than 100% flight revenue" would work as a salary cap.

And like you stated above, it takes away the "cargo hunting incentive" for pilots as well, so perhaps not a good idea after all, although the goal here was to try to make the hub idea work, because as it stands now, it doesn't work. Not when regional pilots can make more NOT flying the final mile package delivery but instead taking generic cargo.

If it was an airline option to pay either way, (overall airline edit option, not something that can be flipped between fleets/ranks), that would allow airlines to choose the best option for their particular operation.
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Re: Cargo System/Packages

Post by joefremont » Fri Mar 12, 2021 9:02 pm

My thoughts were that it would be something set on a specific rank rather than VA wide. They airlines would have the option of either % or fixed v$, would there be need for having both % and fixed at the same time? Do we take the larger or add both together?

I don't know if having a max payment based on the flight profit is a good idea, someone doing a repositioning flight may not make any revenue but they still deserve to be paid. On doing some research on how much pilots make and what are the limitations on how much they can fly. The FAA limits pilots to 1000 hours per year and a typical pilot at a major airline may make 100-150k per year so a typical hourly rate may be 100-150 $ per hour, so I could see a hard limit of 1000 v$ per hour being more than reasonable.

Of course I also checked our database to see how many hours pilots are flying on FSA and there are about 40 pilots who have flown more than 200 hours at 1x in the last 30 days with the top pilot who had 550 hours. Now for those top pilots I divided the current salary paid by there total hours and they are quite often getting way more than 1000 v$ per an hour of flying, in fact as I look at the top 40 by hours only 7 made less than 1000 per hour with 8 making more than 10,000, with one pilot averaging 73,000 per hour. As I dig more I see the average salary for all flights in the last 90 days is more than 8000 v$ per hour.

Given that a 1000 per hour limit seems quite low,
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Re: Cargo System/Packages

Post by Cat » Fri Mar 12, 2021 9:50 pm

I'm sure the super jumbo guys are going really tilt the stats, especially the ones who are gaming the system flying full loads with full fuel which is not possible in the real world. They will be the ones who will whine and howl about losing all their money LOL
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Re: Cargo System/Packages

Post by joefremont » Fri Mar 12, 2021 10:15 pm

Cat wrote:
Fri Mar 12, 2021 9:50 pm
I'm sure the super jumbo guys are going really tilt the stats, especially the ones who are gaming the system flying full loads with full fuel which is not possible in the real world. They will be the ones who will whine and howl about losing all their money LOL
Well hopefully nobody will whine or howl about this, like many of the changes we have made, IF we do it, it will be optional and up to there VA management, they will get any howling, no me (I hope).
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Re: Cargo System/Packages

Post by Cat » Fri Mar 12, 2021 11:27 pm

Yeah I am not pushing for it after looking at all the details involved. With our pay scale at 10% across the board, the more senior pilots flying larger aircraft are getting paid more than the junior ones flying regionals, so what we have works.

I was just trying to figure out a way to make the package hub / handoff thing work which we don't do anyway.

Our rule for pilots is - you accepted it, you go deliver it. If you have to change to a regional airplane to do so, that's on you, nobody else is going to clean up your mess. LOL
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Re: Cargo System/Packages

Post by Zehvra » Sun Mar 14, 2021 8:01 pm

How about combing the idea of a salary per NM with a monthly bonus of the airlines profits?

it would make short haul and long haul equal as far as salary per NM goes, and if airline profits would be shared it would not matter who made the final delivery of packages.

For extra complexity: Let the CEO set the bonus per pilot rank... :)

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Re: Pilot Salary Changes - Hourly

Post by joefremont » Thu Mar 25, 2021 9:23 pm

I split this off from the package thread in bugs/problems because it has gone a bit off the original topic into its own ideas.
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Re: Cargo System/Packages

Post by joefremont » Thu Mar 25, 2021 9:25 pm

Zehvra wrote:
Sun Mar 14, 2021 8:01 pm
How about combing the idea of a salary per NM with a monthly bonus of the airlines profits?

it would make short haul and long haul equal as far as salary per NM goes, and if airline profits would be shared it would not matter who made the final delivery of packages.

For extra complexity: Let the CEO set the bonus per pilot rank... :)
A monthly salary/bonus could be done independently of changing the pay for a single flight. And I think every VA is going to be a bit different in the way they want to approach it. I am not certain we could come up with something that would satisfy enough VA's to make it worth while.
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Re: Pilot Salary Changes - Hourly

Post by Ezaco » Tue Mar 30, 2021 7:52 pm

I know our VA would love being able to have the option to pay a rank either VA percentage or a set amount by the flight hour. Honestly we'd probably find it easier to just set everyone's pay rate by flight hour than trying to figure out percentage pay.

Especially with personal money not really 'mattering' in FSA, since you can't do very much with it. For us it's become more of a flavor - we know you need to get paid, it's just a matter of how much of it really matters.
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