Pilots at Southwest Airlines have overwhelmingly approved a new contract that will raise their pay rates by nearly 50% by 2028, becoming the last group of pilots at the nation’s four biggest airlines to score huge raises.
The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association said Monday that the agreement covering pay and other issues for about 11,000 pilots was ratified by a 93% to 7% margin.
Airline labor groups – and pilots in particular – have succeeded in negotiating pay raises over the past year as most U.S. have returned to solid profitability coming out of the pandemic. Pilots have been helped by a shortage, particularly at smaller carriers that act as training grounds for American, Delta, United and Southwest.
The Southwest agreement followed more than three years of bargaining.
Title read like it’ll take 4 years for their incremental pay raises to reach a 50% marginal increase.
30% raise up front though is helpful
They already make over 100k, so they are at minimum jumping up to 130k followed by 5k raises every year after that. Pretty significant.
Damn, us engineers need a union.
Yeah we do. Corporate goons gonna corporate goon regardless of your job title.
My company was recently acquired by another company. The new company has better pay, but more expensive benefits (health insurance). That would be fine, except we get the more expensive benefits, but without the pay bump. Based on their own numbers in job postings online (Thanks Washington, Colorado, California!), I’m being underpaid by $20,000.
Luckily my local management is on our side and trying to get pay raises, but the Chief Bean Counters have been tight lipped.
I’m not sure how (or if) a union would help in my case, but it probably wouldn’t hurt.
A company wholesale ruined by the exit of its operations expert CEO and the entry of a finance guy.
Just say NO to MBAs
I’ve got absolutely no idea what SW pilots make, but I do know a couple pilots (two commercial and one private) and this is, generally not a group of people that, in my limited experience, fall into the “Not making enough money” category.
I’m not saying they don’t deserve more etc… The one person I know who is a commercial pilot works WAY WAY less than I do, and the last couple houses they bought (one at a time) were significantly more expensive than ours. Totally anecdotal and non scientific, and they did not work for SW airlines.
You overlook the cost it takes to get that qualification in the first place… No one can just go up there and fly a plane unless you’re willing to spend every penny in your savings and take out multiple loans to get there…
Or get training in the military for free while getting paid for it, as a lot of pilots do, and have done.
In the 80s, 2/3 of commercial pilots had prior military, today it’s still about a third. (Service branches have a pilot shortage, and require over 10 years on the contract due to the cost of training with their advanced craft, which is likely a big part of why the number is so low today).
That is an option, but it’s not like it’s an easy one. You have to have a bachelor’s already before applying, meaning you’re probably in debt, and then go through all the bs it takes to not only join the military but then meet the vast amount of qualifications to get rated. Then endure years of schooling at a fast pace, get to your first assignment, continue to perform well for 10 years, all while being under the pressure of being in the military and knowing you could get deployed to a combat area. You can also join an academy, but you need to apply before 21 or something, and that along with the requirements needed to get into the academy are a lot too.
Never said it was easy, but it doesn’t spend every penny of your money.
You don’t even have to go into debt for the bachelors degree; you can join with whatever job isn’t likely to deploy you (more jobs than you’d think aren’t really deployed) go to college free while in (doesn’t count against GI bill or anything), and then apply for a rate change to the pilot program.
Sure it means more military, but again, doesn’t spend all your money.
There is even a way to use your gi bill for flight training (you have to have a private pilots license already, but that’s a lot cheaper than a commercial one, and pass a medical qualification) so you could hypothetically serve 4 years as whatever rating, get your private license and then have the rest of your training covered.
