4 ms·

It would never happen because FAA. Taxis on the other hand are regulated on a state by state and even town by town basis. Anyway, not much blood to squeeze out

It would never happen because FAA. Taxis on the other hand are regulated on a state by state and even town by town basis. Anyway, not much blood to squeeze out of that stone. A 747 fits about 400 passengers and only needs 2 pilots. Doubling or halving the pilot salary will not make a noticable difference in ticket prices. I'm not sure what the main costs of air travel are, but unlike taxis, it ain't the drivers. I would guess fuel?

userbinator 9y ago
Fuel and maintenance. Airline margins are already extremely thin.
sho 9y ago
> A 747 fits about 400 passengers and only needs 2 pilots It needs many more than that. Depending on the workload it could be 10 or more per plane. Consider a daily shuttle between LAX-NRT, a 11h40m flight. This will usually require 3 pilots, as pilots cannot legally fly more than 8-9 hours per day. When they arrive, the plane is turned around in a few hours and comes back - but the original crew needs rest, so at least 3 pilots have to be waiting at the other end, ready to go. And when the plane arrives back in LAX, who's going to take it back to tokyo? Those 3 are resting! So straight up that's 9 required, at an absolute minimum, with no margin for sickness or holiday. Longer segments can require 4 pilots, so again that's 12 at an absolute minimum. Realistically speaking, depending on a whole bunch of factors, airlines would aim to actually have about 15-20 pilots per plane in a long haul heavy scenario. And we haven't even mentioned cabin crew, which would be 12 or so on our hypothetical 747. So again, multiply that by 3 at a minimum and you've got something like 40 cabin crew per aircraft. So 15 highly paid pilots (say 150k/yr) and 45 slightly less paid cabin crew (50k/yr) - that's close to $4.5m/yr just on crew. For ONE airplane. You've got to be making $12k/day on that plane just to pay flight staff, let alone ground staff and everything else. In the world of narrowbodies the economics are even more brutal. If a plane's on the ground it's not making money, so say you try to have the plane in the air 10 hours a day. Due to flying limits over extended periods you would need 8 pilots to fill that with no margin, and probably 8 or so crew for a 737 with 4 active. Realistically you're looking at a crew bill of $2m/yr, or ~$35 per seat per day. Even if you manage to squeeze 7 segments out of the plane per day with 100% load factor that's $5 per ticket just on crew in a market where every single dollar counts. Now obviously I'm grossly oversimplifying and pretty much every number I mentioned can vary - but not by all that much. I'd say those numbers are at least in the ballpark for a full service carrier and if anything the long haul estimate is probably too low - I've heard up to 24 pilots per plane for long haul carriers like the ME3. So finally the point is, crew wages absolutely make a difference!
- galdosdi 9y ago
  WHOA. Outstanding comment, thank you. This was not obvious to me. I had no idea pilots got paid rest. Taxi drivers are required to rest too, but at their own expense.
  - sho 9y ago
    Well thank you but actually you are right. Pilots are NOT paid rest. Per regulation they can work 1000 hours per year and they will ensure this is fully utilised. Airlines cannot just hire and not use pilots or, of course, they will jump ship to someone who can. It's a pretty interesting industry.

userbinator 9y ago

Fuel and maintenance. Airline margins are already extremely thin.

sho 9y ago

> A 747 fits about 400 passengers and only needs 2 pilots It needs many more than that. Depending on the workload it could be 10 or more per plane. Consider a daily shuttle between LAX-NRT, a 11h40m flight. This will usually require 3 pilots, as pilots cannot legally fly more than 8-9 hours per day. When they arrive, the plane is turned around in a few hours and comes back - but the original crew needs rest, so at least 3 pilots have to be waiting at the other end, ready to go. And when the plane arrives back in LAX, who's going to take it back to tokyo? Those 3 are resting! So straight up that's 9 required, at an absolute minimum, with no margin for sickness or holiday. Longer segments can require 4 pilots, so again that's 12 at an absolute minimum. Realistically speaking, depending on a whole bunch of factors, airlines would aim to actually have about 15-20 pilots per plane in a long haul heavy scenario. And we haven't even mentioned cabin crew, which would be 12 or so on our hypothetical 747. So again, multiply that by 3 at a minimum and you've got something like 40 cabin crew per aircraft. So 15 highly paid pilots (say 150k/yr) and 45 slightly less paid cabin crew (50k/yr) - that's close to $4.5m/yr just on crew. For ONE airplane. You've got to be making $12k/day on that plane just to pay flight staff, let alone ground staff and everything else. In the world of narrowbodies the economics are even more brutal. If a plane's on the ground it's not making money, so say you try to have the plane in the air 10 hours a day. Due to flying limits over extended periods you would need 8 pilots to fill that with no margin, and probably 8 or so crew for a 737 with 4 active. Realistically you're looking at a crew bill of $2m/yr, or ~$35 per seat per day. Even if you manage to squeeze 7 segments out of the plane per day with 100% load factor that's $5 per ticket just on crew in a market where every single dollar counts. Now obviously I'm grossly oversimplifying and pretty much every number I mentioned can vary - but not by all that much. I'd say those numbers are at least in the ballpark for a full service carrier and if anything the long haul estimate is probably too low - I've heard up to 24 pilots per plane for long haul carriers like the ME3. So finally the point is, crew wages absolutely make a difference!

galdosdi 9y ago
WHOA. Outstanding comment, thank you. This was not obvious to me. I had no idea pilots got paid rest. Taxi drivers are required to rest too, but at their own expense.
- sho 9y ago
  Well thank you but actually you are right. Pilots are NOT paid rest. Per regulation they can work 1000 hours per year and they will ensure this is fully utilised. Airlines cannot just hire and not use pilots or, of course, they will jump ship to someone who can. It's a pretty interesting industry.