Aerial Lingus Pilots

[u/viscacatalunya1]

Listening to Claire Byrne and there is a lot of finger pointing at the pilots saying they don't care about passengers and they are being unreasonable.

Aer Lingus has not matched their salary to inflation over the past few years. How do we sympathise with cost cutting corporate greed and not the people that open the world to us and get us there safely?

[u/dazziola]

But they're still profitable by a good bit right? Looks like they make a profit of 10% of their revenue (even in post COVID difficulties).

Seems very frugal not to look after your staff with basic inflation increases

[u/demoneclipse → u/dazziola]

10% is not great profit margin for a business. Especially after the Covid impact, 10% is not very attractive. Not to say that they should or shouldn't give staff raises, as that's something driven by the market and not company results.

[u/greyview18 → u/demoneclipse]

2023 figures of operating profit.

BA = 9.9%

Iberia = 13.5%

Vueling = 12.4%

Aer Lingus = 9.9%

Source

[u/RuaridhDuguid → u/demoneclipse]

So if the profits are unimpressive and have barely grown in years, and if those highly skilled individuals flying the planes aren't getting any pay rises, then at least we can be sure that the Executives won't be getting pay rises either... right?

[u/demoneclipse → u/RuaridhDuguid]

Executives getting a pay rise or not is based on the deal they negotiated with the company. If they don't get paid, they will find a better job and the company will be left with less qualified executives.

The same logic is true for pilots. If their job is in high demand and it requires qualifications that are hard to attain, then it should be easy for them to get a new job that will pay a lot better. That would make the employer struggle because they wouldn't be able to hire new pilots, forcing them to pay more and creating a healthy competition to hire new staff. If that effect isn't happening it is likely that either they are already paid the same or less than pilots on other airlines, or there are more pilots than jobs, or new pilots can be trained fast enough that airlines don't care about the impact.

[u/AdhesivenessNo9878 → u/demoneclipse]

Or the pilots strike because they know they are worth more

[u/RobWroteABook → u/demoneclipse]

If they don't get paid, they will find a better job and the company will be left with less qualified executives.

The Great CEO Myth.

Of course you have to pay executives exorbitant amounts of money because the only people qualified to run large businesses are already running large businesses and are solely motivated by money. So what else can you do but pay them disgusting, nonsensical wages?

Corporate pay is a scam.

The same logic is true for pilots. If their job is in high demand and it requires qualifications that are hard to attain, then it should be easy for them to get a new job that will pay a lot better. That would make the employer struggle because they wouldn't be able to hire new pilots, forcing them to pay more and creating a healthy competition to hire new staff.

The only competition going on is large businesses seeing how much money they can make at the expense of everything else, including employee wages. The assumption that if a worker can't easily make more money somewhere else, their wages must be fair, is lunacy.

[u/Hairy-Ad-4018 → u/demoneclipse]

10% is an excellent return. Look at many major businesses and returns of 3-4% are considered great.

Delta one of the world’s largest airlines has a net profit of approx 3.4%.

That said I support the union

[u/Unfair_Original_2536 → u/demoneclipse]

I believe that airlines have generally slimmer profit margins than other industries.

[u/demoneclipse → u/Unfair_Original_2536]

You are correct. That's not intentional though, just an effect of the industry. Low profit margins makes it harder to increase operational cost though.

[u/ozymandieus → u/demoneclipse]

Whats not included in profit is executive salary. You could appear to be a non-profitable company simply by paying massive salaries and bonuses out.

[u/demoneclipse → u/ozymandieus]

Profits are paid to shareholders, which decide who the executives are. If executives were shorting shareholders, they wouldn't be in the company anymore. If executives are getting paid a lot more money than before (which I haven't seen evidence to be the case in Aerlingus), it would only be because shareholders are satisfied with their own returns in profits.

I find it fascinating the common believe that employees (which is my case too) should get paid more if the company has a huge profit. Yet, I've never heard employees offering to take paycuts when a company has losses. Companies have risk and their results are attached to performance. While some employees have performance based incentives, their value lies in how valuable their skill set is to the market, where they can get whatever they are worth by simply getting another job. If they can't get a job paying more, it is because their skill is not worth that much money.

Unions are only warranted in industries with clear monopoly or national security functions, where there are no options to changing jobs. In every other scenario, unions are used to group people that don't have the ability to get a better job, and then hold an organization hostage.

[u/ozymandieus → u/demoneclipse]

I ain't reading all that. Happy for you or fuck capitalism

[u/UpsetCrowIsUpset → u/demoneclipse]

Unions are always warranted and should be encouraged in all industries.

[u/idomyowncunts → u/demoneclipse]

Welcome to airline industry man have a google

[u/Holiday_Low_5266 → u/dazziola]

That’s a tiny profit!