Laid-off pilots can expect pay cut to fly regional planes
Karen Ferrick-Roman, Times Staff 02/11/2004
Pilots laid off from US Airways who are looking for jobs with its upstart MidAtlantic Airways division can expect to earn less than half of what the airline's senior pilots make flying mainline jets.
The Master Executive Council of the pilots' union approved a contract Monday evening, accepting US Airways' terms for flying 70-seat planes for MidAtlantic Airways, a not-yet-airborne regional division of the airline.
"There is nothing from the Air Line Pilots Association that prevents the launching of this division," said Jack Stephan, ALPA spokesman.
Because the contract stemmed from the filing of a grievance, Stephan said that rank-and-file members would not vote on the agreement, which is based on the contract for American Eagle, the commuter line of American Airlines.
A pilot's top rate will be $58 an hour, Stephan said. Depending on experience, and years of service with US Airways and the number of hours flown (usually 85 hours a month, 100 hours a month tops), a captain would earn $50,000 to $60,000 a year, and a first officer about $35,000 a year, Stephan said.
That's how much laid-off US Airways pilot Ron Gabler said he was making when he switched from military to commercial piloting 20 years ago. That's less than what a friend of his, a Pittsburgh bus driver, makes.
But if Gabler were offered a job, he said he'd have to take it.
Gabler, 57, a former pilot for Emery, the U.S. Postal Service and Eastern Airlines, had flown for US Airways only 2½ years before he was laid off in January 2002. Since then, he has worked for merely three months, as a corporate jet pilot. His wife, a flight attendant, has absorbed pay cuts of up to 35 percent, so keeping the family afloat has meant scooping money out of savings and pondering putting their Bell Acres house up for sale.
"People are so hard-pressed financially," Gabler said. "Subsequently, it's like throwing a bone to a starving dog. That, to me, equates to people being exploited."
Meanwhile, Gabler said, some senior US Airways pilots flying Airbus jets to Europe still pull down more than $225,000 a year. Senior pilots are the ones who still have union voting rights - and they decide the economic fate of the laid-off junior pilots, he said.
"In order to protect what they have, unfortunately, they're willing to sacrifice the wages and careers of pilots under them," Gabler said. "No medicine is too strong, and no sacrifice is too great, as long as they don't have to make it.
"It's not even immoral," Gabler said. "It's criminal."
"It's just not worth your while if you've got any time left in your career," said Mike Oakey, a retired US Airways pilot from Beaver. "I'd feel pretty sold out if it were me."
Stephan said he didn't suspect that pilots would be thrilled with the pay. "It's the low end of what that plane should be flown for," he said.
Although Pittsburgh has been the only city publicly discussed as a possible MidAtlantic base, Stephan said, the contract "doesn't preclude it from being based elsewhere."
MidAtlantic is "still slated for Pittsburgh, (but) issues have to be resolved," said David Castelveter, US Airways spokesman.
The airline and Association of Flight Attendants will discuss contracts today, Castelveter said.
Teddy Xidas, president of the local AFA chapter, has said the flight attendants' contract, like the pilots', is being modeled after the American Eagle agreement.
Talks will start with pilots again next week, as the union and the airline work out routes and staffing, Stephan said.
And, if the day should come to pass when MidAtlantic is flying larger jets, both the company and the union reserve the right to negotiate that rate, Stephan said.
MidAtlantic is expected to be flying in the next couple of months, Castelveter said.
Stephan said he expected the airline to start with four planes based in Pittsburgh.
Karen Ferrick-Roman can be reached online at kroman@timesonline.com.
©Beaver County Times/Allegheny Times 2004
