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Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

virgin.com

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Re: Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

#51

Post by bdunbar »

geuis wrote: post #7

I haven't heard anything about the pilot strike mentioned in the article. That aside, I have the following to say which is oriented more towards flight attendants than the pilots whom you don't normally interact with. Of any airline I have ever traveled on, the Virgin lines (Atlantic and America), have been my favorite. This ranges from the very basic things like more leg room than their competitors to wifi in the sk…

Somehow they heard there were 3 passengers (us and another fellow) who had missed the flight. They all ended up getting off and giving us their seats.

They heard you were there because the gate agent went aboard and told them (nicely, I am sure) to get off the plane.

Employees flying standby are always at the mercy of late arriving paying passengers.

And, sure they had no compunction about getting off because

1) they were told to

2) employees are keenly aware that grousing in front of the customers is a Bad Idea.

I'm sure they were actually in good spirits about it: flying non-rev you know you can be bumped and after all it's in favor of people paying your salary.

Re: Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

#52

Post by jterce »

asmithmd1 wrote: post #44
jterce wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- "Its utterly ridiculous" "They well deserve it." Why? You seem to be forgetting the basics of economics. It really doesn't matter what you think they "deserve" or how hard you or they think it is to deal with the general public. What matters is how many people could/would be willing to do their jobs. And the answer is quite a few, whereas there are many fewer people who could manage a McDonalds. Thus demand is low…

You seem to think the market for jobs operates with something approaching market economics. If this were true then we should be running PSAs to encourage people to become investment bankers because the incredibly high salaries paid are indicating a severe shortage. Instead I see commercials encouraging people to become teachers - if there were really a shortage wouldn't salaries rise by market forces? The truth is ec…

You're right. You're also slightly wrong.

Yes, labor is not exactly comparable in market terms to other products--more sticky prices, more difficulty in estimating value, etc.--but the principle and its consequences remain.

We DON'T HAVE to run PSAs to encourage people to become investment bankers precisely because there are high salaries. The salaries are the advertizement and they're incredibly effective.

As far as teachers, we don't have a shortage. We don't need more teachers, we need better teachers. How to attract those better teachers is unclear--a strictly higher salary would attract more of all caliber of teachers which would not help. I suppose commercials are thought to be one way and I think it's likely better compensation will have to be a part of it as well.

Re: Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

#53

Post by yid »

temphn wrote: post #47
geuis wrote: post #7

I haven't heard anything about the pilot strike mentioned in the article. That aside, I have the following to say which is oriented more towards flight attendants than the pilots whom you don't normally interact with. Of any airline I have ever traveled on, the Virgin lines (Atlantic and America), have been my favorite. This ranges from the very basic things like more leg room than their competitors to wifi in the sk…

> Its utterly ridiculous that some of the nicest, caring people in the airline industry have to deal with such people as the general public (myself included, of course) and yet make less money than a manager at a McDonalds franchise. Day in, day out. If you want to give them more of your money, or start a company that pays them better, or take up a collection for them, nothing is stopping you. The airline is paying t…

What a vapid comment. GP is perfectly within his rights to gripe about people performing a stressful job admirably while receiving less money than they deserve. Saying "start your own airline" hardly advances the conversation. As a counterpoint, you could have linked to median wages for all flight attendants and pointed out a systemic issue.

Re: Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

#54

Post by justincormack »

willyt wrote: post #40
justincormack wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty widely discussed that as a business it has never broken even as a whole. Eg http://www.johnkay.com/2005/09/27/airlines-and-the-canine-fe...

Is that true for other forms of transport too? Probably true for trains. Cars as well? all the road construction and maintenance costs are eaten by the taxpayer.

I would be fairly sure that the canal business (eg in the UK, not later ones like Panama) was generally unprofitable as a general transport business, being mostly replaced by railways before paying back its build costs.

The railways are less clear, the build costs were huge, and written off many times by bankruptcy, but the impression you get from say http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1947/dec/30/transport.uk was that in the first half of the 20th century in the UK they were competing well against road transport, efficient and profitable ("they were conveying more passengers than the whole of the United States railroads put together"). Other countries may vary though.

The car business does not have a very good long term profitability record, I am sure if you lump in the cost of road construction you will probably end up at a loss, although that is not exactly fair as that is not the way the market was structured.

Re: Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

#55

Post by shpxnvz »

gte910h wrote: post #38
lucasjung wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but this same logic applies also to pilots. The key difference is that pilots are very expensive to train and therefore more difficult to replace, whereas flight attendants are relatively easy to train and replace.

On the high end (why pay a pilot 200k a year, etc) that argument may hold, but on the low end, it causes sleep deprivation as pilots struggle for workable living conditions close to work, etc. I'm fine paying $10 more a ticket if the low end pilots make 40k or more a year and can afford a good nights sleep. They're someone I don't want many mistakes from.

Pilot rest time is regulated by the FAA in the U.S., regardless of salary. The regulations specify minimum rest-opportunity time prior to flight duty, as well as maximum hours of flight duty per day, per week and per month.

Does the U.K. have similar rules?

Re: Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

#56

Post by lucasjung »

shpxnvz wrote: post #55
gte910h wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the high end (why pay a pilot 200k a year, etc) that argument may hold, but on the low end, it causes sleep deprivation as pilots struggle for workable living conditions close to work, etc. I'm fine paying $10 more a ticket if the low end pilots make 40k or more a year and can afford a good nights sleep. They're someone I don't want many mistakes from.

Pilot rest time is regulated by the FAA in the U.S., regardless of salary. The regulations specify minimum rest-opportunity time prior to flight duty, as well as maximum hours of flight duty per day, per week and per month. Does the U.K. have similar rules?

The problem is that there are plenty of ways to undermine these rules. For example, most junior pilots commute to work because your duty station is a function of seniority and they don't want to live in the shitty places they have been assigned to. So, such a pilot might start his day in the city where he actually lives, catch a ride in the jump seat from there to his duty station and then begin his work day, which is allowed to be up to 16 hours long (the actual hours of flying allowed is less than 16, but the time from when he shows up to work to when he has to stop flying is 16 hours unless the airline imposes a more conservative limit). Depending on how long his commute was, he might make his final landing after being awake for well over 20 hours.

Re: Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

#57

Post by rvkennedy »

jterce wrote: post #33
geuis wrote: post #7

I haven't heard anything about the pilot strike mentioned in the article. That aside, I have the following to say which is oriented more towards flight attendants than the pilots whom you don't normally interact with. Of any airline I have ever traveled on, the Virgin lines (Atlantic and America), have been my favorite. This ranges from the very basic things like more leg room than their competitors to wifi in the sk…

- "Its utterly ridiculous" "They well deserve it." Why? You seem to be forgetting the basics of economics. It really doesn't matter what you think they "deserve" or how hard you or they think it is to deal with the general public. What matters is how many people could/would be willing to do their jobs. And the answer is quite a few, whereas there are many fewer people who could manage a McDonalds. Thus demand is low…

If demand is low, no-one will miss them much when they strike. If they are missed, basic market economics dictates that they should get paid more. Further, there are two sides to the demand curve. There is supply - how many people are prepared to do the job, and there is demand - how much those who pay them, directly or indirectly, appreciate what they do. Now, clearly there is some variation in the demand - you perhaps have little demand for their services, whereas some commenters value them more highly. So I guess in the fullness of time, perhaps with the aid of a strike for clarity, we'll see who's in the majority.

Re: Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

#58

Post by Klinky »

whyleyc wrote: post #34
Klinky wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He has already agreed with the evil corporation. He _is_ the evil corporation. A wolf in sheep's clothing. I doubt he's inviting any of the pilots with him the next time he jet skis with a naked model clinging to his back. Let's just say becoming friends with a billionaire because you've been invited to meet him due to the fact that you're on strike at one of his companies is unlikely.

I'm sure this is true if you have a blanket mindset of "all corporations are evil" but you're doing a Branson a disservice - he's one of the few progressive modern CEO's around. Check out the "Employees First" section here - http://www.hrh.ch/whoiswho/bransonr/br_page4.html

My usage of of "evil company" was in relation to the post I was replying to.

Also your article is 13 years old. It sounds like things have changed & Branson has a more hands off approach with the airline now.

Re: Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

#59

Post by encoderer »

shpxnvz wrote: post #55
gte910h wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the high end (why pay a pilot 200k a year, etc) that argument may hold, but on the low end, it causes sleep deprivation as pilots struggle for workable living conditions close to work, etc. I'm fine paying $10 more a ticket if the low end pilots make 40k or more a year and can afford a good nights sleep. They're someone I don't want many mistakes from.

Pilot rest time is regulated by the FAA in the U.S., regardless of salary. The regulations specify minimum rest-opportunity time prior to flight duty, as well as maximum hours of flight duty per day, per week and per month. Does the U.K. have similar rules?

And what compounds the reply Lucas made just above (below?) mine here is that you've got entry level salaries for pilots often as low as $20-30k and senior pilots making $150-250k. (Philip Greenspun has a great write-up on this if you care to google for it).

So when you've got that kind of disparity, you're going to have guys who are quite ambitious and willing to sacrifice long hours to move up into the more livable parts of the salary range available in their profession.

Re: Richard Branson's open letter to all Virgin pilots

#60

Post by o1iver »

tomlin wrote: post #49
geuis wrote: post #7

I haven't heard anything about the pilot strike mentioned in the article. That aside, I have the following to say which is oriented more towards flight attendants than the pilots whom you don't normally interact with. Of any airline I have ever traveled on, the Virgin lines (Atlantic and America), have been my favorite. This ranges from the very basic things like more leg room than their competitors to wifi in the sk…

I'm the kind of person that will pay a little extra for quality. I do it with food, personal products, and travel. I don't fly Virgin because its cheaper, though it often is. I fly them when I can because I enjoy the experience and don't want to be stressed out when I get to where I'm going. If it means that I pay an extra $10 $20 to fly Virgin so that their employees directly benefit, that's something I would do gla…

Proof of that is the success of airlines like Ryan Air. The CEO (don't remember his name) said something like: people don't care about drinks and pretty stewardesses, they care about getting cheaply from A to B (even if it means shitty seats, no food, earlier boarding times, etc...).
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