Ahhh, the life of a commercial airline pilot. Fly a couple of hours to an exotic locale, prop up your feet on the cooler for Miller Time at the hotel suite and get a big, fat paycheck for it. Sounds too good to be true.
It is.
Meet Jack, a jet pilot for Cincinnati-based Comair. Along with 1,200 other Comair pilots, he's been involved in contract negotiations with company management for almost two years.
Comair's industry status as a "regional airline" enables it to pay pilots much less and offer fewer benefits than what pilots at "major airlines" like Delta, United and American receive. Jack and the pilots' union say they simply want to share in Comair's phenomenal growth and financial success in recent years -- growth and success, they feel, to which they've contributed significantly.
Jack can't detail a typical day for a Comair pilot, because he doesn't go to work and come home as a nine-to-fiver. He admits he's traded that to do what he loves -- fly. But, at the same time, he says he's traded something else -- his quality of life.
His life exists in a barrage of three- to five-day cycles each month. At the beginning of any given cycle -- the average length of a trip -- he arrives at Concourse C at the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport an hour early to do a pre-flight check and fill out paper work before finally getting into the cockpit and preparing to take off.
On average, Jack has to be at work two hours for every hour of actual flying time. He's paid pilot's wages only for the time he flies the plane. The remaining hours are compensated at a per diem rate of $1.15 per hour.
He usually spends 250 to 300 hours away from home each month, but he's actually flying a plane for only 75 to 95 of those hours.
Jack is 35 and has been a Comair pilot for 10 years. His average monthly salary works out to about $3,880, or $46,500 annually.
He isn't guaranteed a minimum amount of pay for the time he spends on duty. If he's scheduled to fly an hour-long flight and it's delayed four hours, he gets his pilots' wage only for the hour spent in the air.
He has a company health insurance plan but no disability plan. He can participate in a 401K plan, and Comair matches 25 cents to his $1. There's no profit sharing plan.
The company provides life insurance for him, but he has no protection if he loses his pilot's license. If his eyes wear out in five years, he's out of a job.
Some beginning pilots -- who earn less than beginning flight attendants -- support themselves with food stamps, say officials of the pilots' union.
Still, to many people, $46,500 wouldn't be a bad annual salary for a 35-year-old. And Comair, named "Best Managed Regional Airline" in 1999 by Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine, seems like a good company to work for.
But a 10-year veteran at Delta makes $112,300 annually flying its smallest plane. And he or she gets long-term disability insurance, profit sharing and a retirement plan in addition to the standard benefits.
The discrepancy in pay and benefits, the long contract negotiation period and the lack of reward from a thriving company all make Jack question his commitment to Comair.
"When I originally decided to work for (Comair), it was with the enthusiasm that they would value what experience and skill I was bringing to them," Jack says. "I thought it would be the kind of company that would recognize the worth of a person."
One more thing you should know about Jack: That's not his real name. Frustrated at the lack of movement in contract talks -- which began in mid-1998 when the existing four-year pilot contract came up for renegotiation -- he approached CityBeat with his story under the condition we not reveal his identity.
Pilots get noticed
Comair has a two-tiered pilot scheduling system based on seniority: The most senior pilots receive their schedules a month in advance, while pilots like Jack are simply on call.
Jack's on-call window is 14 hours long, and he says he often receives an "11th-hour call out" -- if he's on call from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., he might get a call at 7 p.m. to be prepared for a 10 p.m. flight.
"Remember that when I'm called for duty, my full work day begins one and a half hours from the time the company calls me," Jack says. "If I'm scheduled to fly eight hours, that could mean a 14- to 16- hour day for me, all starting after I've been up already for at least 11 hours."
That's too much, he says.
The past two years of contract negotiations have left Jack feeling his hands are tied. He's tired of working so many hours without a guaranteed minimum amount of compensation. He's tired of not getting what he considers adequate rest between flights. He's tired of worrying about his retirement. And he's tired of his company telling him it cannot afford to give him these things.
Jack's ultimate goal is to fly the friendly skies for a major airline. The pay is better, the hours are better and the benefits are better. Life, he says, is better.
When he decided to become a pilot, he says, he knew he'd have to pay his dues. But right now, those dues make him question whether or not it's worth it to stick it out in the regional airline level.
Frustration among Jack and his fellow pilots peaked this past winter, he says. In December, local media reported an unusual spike in Comair flight cancellations. According to Comair spokesperson Meghan Glynn, pilots were canceling flights because of minor problems like broken coffeepots and torn seat covers.
Between Dec. 13 and Dec. 15, 1999, 270 Comair flights were canceled, a figure Glynn told The Cincinnati Enquirer was well above the airline's average 14 cancellations per day.
According to management's position at the time, the pilots were flexing their muscles by allegedly disrupting the "status quo." Under the Railway Labor Act of 1926, the status quo of public transportation companies -- normal business operations -- cannot be disrupted during labor negotiations.
"It means (both sides) must adhere to the (existing) contract (during negotiations), but they must also continue to do things as commonly practiced, including conduct not specifically governed by the contract," said Paul Lackie, communication chairman of the Comair Master Executive Council (MEC) for the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), Comair pilots' union.
The flight cancellations put the pilots and the union in a sensitive position, Lackie said. First, the union maintains that it wasn't an organized work action -- not through ALPA and not through Comair pilot leadership.
But the company thought it was and took ALPA to court, which resulted in a federal judge handing down an injunction enjoining the pilots from doing an organized work action.
Neither ALPA nor Comair management would comment on the litigation over the flight cancellations.
"It is the position of the Comair MEC that we do not want to discuss any litigation in the press," said J.C. Lawson, the council's master chairman.
Comair Director of Media Relations Nick Miller said actions still were pending and thus couldn't be commented on.
"Because the company is involved with contract negotiations and actions are pending in federal court, (Comair) can't comment," Miller said, adding that the company was "working diligently to forge a new agreement (with pilots)."
He said Comair wouldn't answer any other questions for this story.
Jack refutes the company's allegations of the flight cancellations as an organized work action, saying he didn't even hear rumors of a pilot-organized work action. What adds confusion to the situation, Lackie said, is that pilots don't have the authority to cancel a flight, especially for benign reasons such as broken coffee pots.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that any inoperable equipment be documented, said Kathleen Bergen, FAA spokesperson. Deviation from the rule could cost a pilot his or her license.
"Many things can be broken and the aircraft can be flown safely," Lackie said, "but a pilot still must record it."
The pilot and co-pilot conduct a pre-flight check prior to take-off to make sure that the craft is airworthy, Lackie said. When something is found to be inoperable or not operating in the way it's intended to, maintenance is notified.
It's then maintenance's job to fix the item, defer the item (OK the craft to fly with the item inoperable) or suggest the flight be canceled because the craft cannot be flown with the item inoperable and fixing it either is impossible or would take too long. Upon suggestion from maintenance, Flight Operations decides whether or not to cancel the flight, Lackie said.
"In the extreme, the pilot has the authority and responsibility to not fly an unairworthy craft," he said.
Basically, Comair management's position was the rate at which maintenance discrepancies were recorded in December was greater than normal and was overwhelming the maintenance department, Lackie said.
"The court asserted that the change in behavior was relative to causing economic pressure," he said. "So, academically, it was illegal."
Lackie feels that the judge who issued the injunction ultimately sympathized with travelers, since the cancellations occurred during the busy December holiday season. ALPA stressed to its pilots that they shouldn't break any law and that the judge's order must be followed.
Jack says he and his fellow pilots felt they were being admonished by ALPA and that their union didn't support them.
Neither ALPA nor Comair found a single maintenance discrepancy during the December period that wasn't legitimate, Lackie said. Furthermore, he said, the resulting injunction might be causing pilots to feel that they're more at risk from a federal judge than from the FAA.
Extreme pressure was felt by Jack and his fellow pilots, he says, after Comair management went to the media with the flight cancellation story. Jack felt the company was playing on public reactions to missing scheduled flights to apply pressure on the pilots.
"The public perception of pilots is that we're prima donnas who are overpaid and don't work a lot," Jack says. "The company knows this and used it against us."
Lackie also wasn't comfortable with the media coverage in December.
"When the company told (its story) to the traveling public, it was less than completely truthful," Lackie said. "(This situation) could not be conveyed in sound bites."
Directly following the cancellation spike, he said, Comair began to broadcast announcements via concourse speakers alerting passengers to the ongoing labor negotiations and instructed gate workers to tell passengers that the company was doing everything it could to assure their travel plans.
This move led to some pilots being accosted verbally and physically by passengers, Jack says. ALPA confronted Comair management about the announcements and instructions to gate workers, and both were rescinded.
About two weeks after the injunction was issued, Lackie said, Comair instituted a new way to correlate maintenance discrepancies with individual pilots. Discrepancies always were able to be traced back to the pilot because he or she must sign the maintenance log and record his or her pilot's license number. But now, in addition to that, whenever a pilot called maintenance he or she had to provide an employee number.
"Personally, if the company wants to make it more efficient to document (the discrepancies), it only benefits everyone," Lackie said, adding that he's not aware of any pilots who have been found to be documenting an abnormally high number of maintenance discrepancies.
Now pilots feel damned if they do and damned if they don't, Jack says, when documenting maintenance discrepancies.
But Lackie gives pilots credit for maintaining professional attitudes and offers them the same advice he always has: "Do not ever compromise the safety of yourself or your passengers."
What's a pilot worth?
Jack says he and his colleagues feel that, because of Comair's excellent financial position, they're entitled to a few concessions -- especially when the pilots directly contribute to that position. But, he says, Comair has given the pilots the impression that the company, being a regional airline, can't afford to give them everything they want.
That's laughable, Jack says, because a browse through Comair Holdings Inc.'s 1999 Annual Report shows a very profitable company. It's also laughable, he says, that the company considers itself a regional airline in the first place.
Airlines are grouped into three categories based on operating revenues, said Kit Darby, owner and president of Aviation Information Resources Inc. According to Air Transportation, an industry guidebook, a "regional airline" operates with revenues not exceeding $100 million. A "national airline," a rarely used term, operates with revenues between $100 million and $1 billion. A "major airline" operates with revenues over $1 billion.
For fiscal year 1999, Comair Holdings' operating revenue was $763,291,180, with 95 percent of that coming from the airline itself. According to that figure and industry definitions, Darby said, Comair is technically a national airline and three-fourths of a major airline -- hardly a regional.
During fiscal year 1999, Comair carried 6,401,852 passengers, flying to 89 cities in 32 states with more than 750 flights on 75 jets. The company posted a 23 percent profit margin with a net income of $132,934,735.
"How 'regional' is 89 cities in 32 states?," Jack asks.
For comparison, Trans World Airlines, a major airline, flew to 100 domestic and international cities and carried 25,800,000 passengers in 1999.
According to Comair's Miller, the company does indeed consider itself a regional airline, though he wouldn't say why the company views itself that way.
Comair is growing so rapidly that it requires a four-fold expansion in office space. The company broke ground in April 1999 on a new 165,000-square-foot headquarters facility across the street from its current 38,000-square-foot office in Boone County.
Concourse C, Comair's freestanding terminal at the Greater Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport, has expanded since opening in 1994, with passenger volume doubling in that time.
"Comair is the first regional airline in the world to have its own concourse," said Ted Bushelman, the airport's director of communications. "There's so many flights, what are you going to do?"
Bushelman said Comair is the single largest carrier at the airport, even bigger than Delta, and accounts for half of all flights.
Jack contends that, because Comair is 75 percent of a major airline, it should afford its pilots 75 percent of the pay and benefits of what major airlines provide.
Darby said that, from the looks of Comair's financial picture, it probably could afford at least a few concessions to the pilots.
The company does compensate some of its executives for its successes, which included January's buyout by Delta Connections Inc. in a $1.91 billion deal. Previous to that, Comair provided connector service for Delta by feeding it passengers from smaller markets in a relationship that dates back to 1984. Now Comair is a subsidiary of Delta.
David Mueller, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Comair, and David Siebenburgen, former Comair president and chief operating officer, were provided with lucrative golden parachute packages -- retirement plans guaranteed to certain executive employees if the company was taken over or sold. According to the Securities & Exchange Commission, Comair Holdings Inc. amended its employment agreements to spell out golden parachute packages with its top executives effective last August.
According to the amended contract, Mueller and Siebenburgen are to receive lump-sum payments of $2,014,370 and $1,802,400, respectively. They'll receive additional payments under their contracted deferred compensation plans, and their stock options and interest in Comair's Deferred Incentive Compensation Plan will be fully vested.
The executives also will receive a fully paid-up term life insurance policy, disability policy with premiums pre-paid for the remainder of their lives and family medical insurance coverage and benefits comparable to the insurance coverage provided to Comair's executives for the remainder of their and their families' lives. Or they could elect to take a lump sum in cash equal to the present value of the medical insurance coverage.
And, of course, the executives benefit from lifetime travel privileges for their families on all Comair flights and lifetime access to 50 hours per year of chartered jet service at Comair's expense.
Such packages are more the norm than the exception, Darby said, because it ensures the company will keep its top management.
"Sure it upsets the pilots, but this person is not protected by the union," he said. "The pilots all benefit from these guys."
What upsets Jack more than the executives' compensation, he says, is his memory of a 15-year Comair veteran who was diagnosed with stomach cancer. After using all of his sick leave, the employee received nothing from the company. To raise money for him, Comair employees passed the hat through the Comair Angels program.
Complicating the issue of how much a pilot and an executive are worth to Comair in relative terms is the fact that the regional airline industry is a somewhat new phenomenon.
In 1978, the airline industry was deregulated, thereby taking the government's hand out of determining routes and prices. While regulated, it was the government's responsibility to ensure that air service was distributed evenly across the country.
That service proved too costly because, at times, service to a particular community had to be subsidized through a private company. Some airline companies took advantage of these subsidies by providing inefficient service, meaning that large planes would be used to service small markets at the government's expense.
"Deregulation let the market determine what level of service would be sustainable," Lackie said.
Thus, smaller crafts would service smaller markets. And so began the evolution of commuter carriers, which have since evolved into today's regional airlines.
Comair pioneered the growing industry by being the model for efficient operations, Lackie said. Many carriers failed because the small planes couldn't generate enough revenue to sustain the companies. But Comair concerned itself with the bottom line, he said.
The start was slow, but as the commuter carriers grew into regional carriers Comair grew with them, Lackie said. Initially, the company couldn't afford to pay competitive salaries and benefits, but as soon as Comair found its niche -- catering to the business class -- more money began coming in and employees felt they were directly responsible for their company's success.
Comair signed its first pilots' union contract in 1984, marking its transformation from commuter carrier to regional airline and also the point where it was big enough and in business long enough to allow labor to organize.
In the 1980s, the regional airline industry was in its infancy, Lackie said. Now, just four contract negotiations later, Comair pilots still are struggling to figure out what they're worth. In contrast, major carriers have been around longer and their benefits and compensation are the result of contracts that have built up slowly during the past 60 years.
In 1993, Comair became the first regional jet operator in North America, which only added to its efficiency and profit margin, Lackie said. The company had such an economic impact on the airline market that pilots began to view jobs at regionals as career paths instead of career builders, he said.
Comair pilots are especially sensitive to that attitude, Lackie said, because their sense of participation in the company's success is highly developed. But that causes a unique situation, he said, because management reasons that the pilots can't expect too much because not enough time has passed.
"I find that shallow, because if that's true, it's a universal truth," Lackie said. "They also shouldn't expect the level of revenue they take in."
Delta pilots hope their regional counterparts work out a better deal for themselves, said Karen McGuffey, spokesperson for ALPA's Delta pilots, adding that wages should be proportional to productivity.
"From the union's perspective, anything another pilot group does that improves the quality of life benefits everyone," she said.
When a group negotiates, it always tries to do better than the best existing contract, McGuffey said. Comair has one of the industry's best contracts, she said, so whatever they do to better that will become almost an industry standard.
Comair pilots also feel an obligation to their company because many of them have invested more than their time and expertise -- they've also bought more than $100 million in stock, according to Lackie. That represents a scant 2.5 percent of outstanding stock but works out to almost $83,000 per pilot.
Negotiating for a 'better life'
Besides what's happening at Comair internally, Delta's recent buyout adds some interesting complexities. Major airlines buy smaller airlines to fill service gaps in the market, Lackie said. A few years ago, major carrier pilots didn't worry about having to compete with their own regional carrier pilots, he said, but with the regional carriers acquiring jets that seat more people and fly farther, some major carrier pilots feel their job security threatened.
Major carrier pilots have "scope" clauses in their contracts to specify what the scope of their work is. Delta's scope clause, for instance, reads that all Delta flights are handled by Delta pilots except on jets with 70 seats or less.
Delta has a pretty lenient scope clause, Lackie said, adding that most other airlines have huge restrictions on aircraft size and destinations.
Comair exists under Delta for a very specific purpose, Lackie said -- to cut costs. It's cheaper to have Comair connect passengers to Delta flights than it is for Delta to make those connections itself.
"Comair is cheap labor relative to Delta pilots," Lackie said.
Delta's average annual growth is 2-3 percent, McGuffey said, a drop in the bucket compared to Comair, which experienced 30 percent growth between the third quarter of 1998 and the same period in 1999. She said that Delta pilots want to make sure their regional subsidiary does what it was designed to do -- feed the main line.
"Delta pilots are negotiating a contract now, and one of the issues is that they want better scope language," McGuffey said. "That will ensure that growth is not just happening at the regionals. It will protect Delta pilots' jobs and permit shared growth."
Regional airlines typically have acted as a springboard for entry-level pilots to gain flying hours and then be picked up by a major airline. But now, with major airlines quickly acquiring regional airlines, coupled with a changeover from turbo-propelled small aircrafts to jets, the paradigm is shifting, said David Walsh, associate professor of management at Miami University with a specialized interest in airline labor relations.
When carriers operated the smaller aircrafts, they could pay the pilots less and work the pilots longer because they usually didn't have enough experience to fly for a major airline, Walsh said. With regional airlines acquiring jets and experiencing record growth, some pilots are staying at the airlines longer, he said. But with more of a commitment comes a desire for better compensation.
The companies still want to save money, Walsh said, and that's usually why a major airline will purchase jets for its subsidiary instead of itself -- because it can pay those pilots less.
Pilots working for the regional airlines and their unions still are trying to figure out what they're worth. Unionization of the regional airlines is a relatively new phenomenon, Walsh said. Most are in the second or third term of contract negotiations, and with this structural shift, unions still are feeling their way, he said.
In addition to customers preferring to travel on the quicker and roomier jets over the turboprops, Walsh said buying jets for the regional airlines usually is a way to shrink the bottom line.
Major airlines across the board have a similar, very complex formula on which to base pilot salary, including relating pay with the weight of the craft and the number of passengers it holds. If a major airline buys jets for itself, it has to pay its pilots at the established major airline level. But if a major airline buys jets for one of its regional airlines, Walsh said, it doesn't have to pay those pilots any more money.
Interestingly, Delta just made the largest regional jet order in history for up to 500 aircraft over the next decade. The deal with Bombardier Aerospace in Montreal, worth $2 billion, means that Comair, which already operates 93 50-seat Canadair Regional Jets, will get 17 50-seaters this year and 20 70-seaters next year.
Pilots want compensation to be relative to their work and the economic productivity of the jets they fly, Lackie said.
"(That) doesn't assume that they want the same pay," he said. "(That) is saying that they want it on a scale basis."
Cooling off?
The union contract for Comair pilots came up for renegotiation in June 1998. Informal contract negotiations began just two months prior.
Although sympathizing with the pilots he represents, Lackie said that seemingly late negotiation commencement is not uncommon in the airline industry, and neither are lengthy negotiations.
Still, he realizes the frustration of his pilots like Jack who continue to work under a "stale" contract that keeps their wages and benefits frozen.
For the past two years, ALPA has been at the bargaining table with Comair management trying to get a better deal for the pilots. Jack and ALPA contend that a company as prosperous as Comair should share the wealth.
Airline labor contract negotiations fall under the auspices of the Railway Labor Act of 1926 and therefore don't expire -- they simply become "amendable." Comair's contract, like almost all other airlines', becomes amendable every four years.
In April 1998, ALPA filed on the Comair pilots' behalf to begin the process of negotiating a new contract. Both sides entered into interest-based bargaining, Lackie said, which allows them to try to identify a common goal instead of identifying separate goals. But it can only go so far. Currently the bargaining focuses on compensation and quality of life issues, which historically presents uneven ground for both management and labor.
In August 1999, both sides agreed to bring in a federal mediator from the National Mediation Board (NMB) to try to help them see eye to eye, and the first mediated bargaining session began the following month. Bargaining sessions initially lasted one and a half to two weeks each month, Lackie said, but in the first quarter of 2000 they dropped to one week per month. Now, the pace has picked up again.
Negotiations are coming to a crossroads, Lackie said. Eventually the contract will be amended and voted on, or the NMB will release management and labor for a 30-day "cooling-off" period -- an oxymoron, he said, because that's when negotiations become intense.
If an agreement isn't reached by the end of the cooling-off period, the parties can seek "self-help," Lackie said, a euphemism for any kind of economic action taken by labor or by the company. At this point, labor can strike and management can impose work rules and replace workers.
"Nobody wants a strike," Lackie said. "That's thermonuclear war."
A strike, while putting intense pressure on management, creates an ironic situation for labor, Lackie said, since attempting to achieve better wages and benefits while threatening economic damage to your own company is like playing Russian Roulette. But Comair is a vigorous company with enormous growth potential, he said, and no airline has ever been put out of business by a strike.
Although Lackie couldn't speculate on how far contract negotiations were from a cooling-off period, he did say at this point the mediator is attempting to narrow the issues as much as possible in the event the sides are released.
The NMB's No. 1 concern is to prevent a work stoppage, Lackie said, because if it comes to self-help a contract still would need to be negotiated, as would a back-to-work agreement.
Should Comair's summer travelers be making back-up plans? No, Lackie said, not until both sides are released from mediation.
Heated labor negotiations are typical of the industry, according to airline industry experts.
"It's the pilots' and union's job to get the best deal," Darby said. "On the other hand, it's the company's job to keep costs down and return the best profit to its shareholders. If they're not fighting, you have to wonder if they're doing their jobs."
Long labor negotiations result from simple economics, Lackie said and management has no economic incentive to negotiate quickly. When the economy is booming, it's in management's best interests to delay negotiations, he said. In times of labor surpluses and recession, he said, labor typically delays negotiations because they could result in fewer benefits and a smaller paycheck.
Pilots need to separate emotion from their profession, Darby said. But it's typical for young pilots to get wrapped up in these issues.
"Pilots should know the issues, participate, vote and go play golf," he said. "Leave the negotiations to the professionals."
Labor negotiations are a roller coaster by design, Darby said. They're physically and emotionally wearing so both sides will settle, with each side making concessions to the other.
At least most pilots have passed the frustration point, Lackie said. That's not to say that they're backing down, though. Because they've experienced so much frustration, the pilots have hardened their position, he said, adding that they'd like to reach the cooling-off period.
Jack moves on
Ultimately, despite the struggle, the frustration and the long hours Jack has experienced -- or perhaps because of them -- he's decided to begin searching for different skies to fly.
"For me, personally, the best thing to do is to get out of this company as soon as possible," he says. "How long does it take? In spite of the great revenues and theory that compensation should be a function of those revenues, it's still going to take a very long time for this compensation to come around to where it should be. But it didn't take long for the executives to write themselves a couple-million-dollar deal."
Jack insists he doesn't have that kind of time, since he's 35. Sure, he makes enough to support himself, but in his eyes it's not enough in return for the life he leads. His goal is to get to a company where the battle has already been fought.
"I want to be somewhere where I'm recognized for my skills, experience and investment that I've made," he says. "The 'our people are our No. 1 asset,' it's all talk."
Jack pauses to reflect on why he wanted to get his story out in the first place. It wasn't to stick it to the company, he says, but out of his sense of obligation to the people he really works for -- the public, whose continuing decision to fly Comair has helped keep him in a job and keep the company's profit margin growing.
"You know, ultimately, they're the ones who are going to get screwed by all this," he says. "People have been misled and comforted into complacency that everything's going to be fine." ©
