The union that represents about 3,100 NetJets fractional-share pilots— NetJets Association of Shared Aircraft Pilots (NJASAP)—said a survey of its members indicates that 40 percent “expect to leave the company within a year due to the breakdown in negotiations to secure a fair and competitive contract…” The survey also showed that “two-thirds of pilots no longer view NetJets as a career destination…and 20 percent of pilots expect to leave the company within a year, regardless.”
For its part, NetJets said it has offered pilots a compound 52.5 percent wage increase through the current union collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that ends in 2029. “The percentage base wage increases included in the Company’s latest proposal exceed those that were in the recently ratified CBAs at Delta, American, and United Airlines,” NetJets wrote in a fact sheet about this issue.
In a statement about the survey, NJASAP said that while airlines have raised pilot pay significantly, “NetJets has steadfastly refused to do so.” It added that NetJets pilots “will earn approximately 60 percent of what their peers at carriers like JetBlue, United and Delta will earn during a 30-year career.”
The latter point is essentially the key issue facing NetJets pilots, according to Paulette Gilbert, a NetJets Challenger 350 captain and vice president of NJASAP. The new contracts that now cover U.S. airline pilots are “putting tremendous pressure on pilots who have airline transport pilot [ATP] licenses because basically you can go anywhere and make a lot of money right now,” she told AIN. “Working under a contract that doesn't allow for that is just increasing the number of people that are leaving [NetJets]. That means all of our experience is going to the airlines because we're no longer competitive.”
While the current CBA has three years to go plus a three-year extension that takes it to the end of 2029, NJASAP asked NetJets for an interim bargaining scenario to try and help members catch up to their airline counterparts. In 2018 and 2020, NetJets and NJASAP successfully concluded two interim agreements, according to Gilbert. “We've always been trying to be proactive and make gains where we can and address each other's concerns and help the pilot group and help the company move forward with whatever their new plans are. When we negotiated this last deal in 2020 it was a good deal for the time, but now it has fallen woefully behind.”
For NJASAP members—and many pilots starting their careers—the important consideration is not just about quality of life and flying cool jets but about lifetime earnings. Airline salaries and work-life balance have outpaced business aviation, especially at NetJets, Gilbert explained. Just looking at salary, it would take a compounded raise of 60 percent for NetJets pilots to catch up to the airlines, she said.
NetJets disagrees and provided a chart showing that its offer included a base wage increase of 23 percent effective December 21 plus annual increases of 6 percent in 2024 and 4 percent each subsequent year through December 2028. The offer includes a flight pay increase to $200 per flight hour from $150 in 2024 plus a signing bonus of $15,000 to $30,000 per pilot based on tenure. “Under the Company’s proposal, the average estimated overall compensation of a NetJets pilot in 2024 would be $288,000, a year-over-year increase of more than 26 percent,” according to NetJets.
“NetJets willingly and voluntarily negotiated with NJASAP throughout 2023, despite the fact there are several years remaining on the current [CBA],” said Brad Ferrell, executive v-p, administrative services, in a statement provided to AIN. “In November, we made what we believe was an extremely generous offer to NJASAP, which included 52.5 percent cumulative base wage increases and other enhancements, without any additional duration to the current CBA. However, NJASAP rejected the Company’s offer, never offering their members a chance to vote on the proposed terms, and instead, electing to continue under the terms of the current agreement.”
The union didn’t bring the NetJets proposal to a vote, Gilbert explained, because it isn’t a formal contractual offer. “What we currently have is basically a wish list from the company where they offered some brief talking points without the language that surrounds them. And unfortunately, that's not a complete offer. You can't vote on that. The company has yet to produce something with actual contractual language because the devil is always in the details when we get into these types of negotiations. And until we have that there is no possibility of a vote.”
Addressing what NJASAP wants for its members, Gilbert said NetJets needs to be able to retain experienced pilots and attract new ones. Unlike airlines that fly to the same airports, NetJets operates “to the most demanding airports in the country and across the world,” she said. “That requires a high level of experience, and you need to retain those experienced aviators to make sure that [owners are] getting their money's worth.” NJASAP is concerned that, it claims, NetJets has lowered new-hire requirements to 1,000 hours flight time (with a restricted ATP certificate). The union also disagrees with the NetJets numbers on attrition, which is 7.3 percent of the approximately 3,100 pilots for the 12 months through November 2023 or 213 pilots. “Our number is 275 pilots that have left,” she said, “and we expect it to be close to 10 percent for the year. If it's not competitive, then we think that people are going to leave. There's been a lot of people that were waiting to make their decision whether to stay or go based on us getting a new deal here at the company. The company's been very clear that they wanted to negotiate, that they came to the table willingly. Yet [they] have failed to deliver a product that can go out for a vote.”
For Gilbert and NJASAP members, quality of life is also important, and the union wants NetJets to address work-life balance. “We work very long tours, seven days on typically, and where our airline peers work about four days on average, we work 12- to 14-hour days pretty much every day. We're worried about duty start times and circadian rhythms…What we're really trying to address with that is pilot burnout and fatigue. We want to make sure that our people are well rested and able to do the job for which they're paid to do; we don't have the federally regulated rest periods that the carriers do.” Also missing at NetJets, Gilbert said, is paid maternity leave, indicating that support for pilots who want to raise a family is lacking.
Gilbert has been flying for NetJets for 22 years but she is also aware that the attraction of flying modern business jets may not be enough for a new pilot looking at career earnings and comparing business aviation to the airlines. “I think everyone sits down with their family and decides what works best for them,” she said. “There's obviously pros and cons to each job. My view is probably a little slanted but it depends on where you live, what your family dynamic is, and what you want out of your career. I enjoy the type of flying that we do. But is that enough to keep me here if I'm gonna make 40 or 60 percent less than my peers over a 30-year career? that's a struggle when you’re…just starting out if you're willing to give up that kind of money and…lifestyle just because you like to fly cool jets.”
Bottom line, Gilbert said, is that “Netjets has done fairly well but the business aviation industry right now is facing fairly strong workforce issues because they're finding out that if they're not paying well, people are gonna leave, and that's what's happening.”
NetJets provided information about its pilot workforce and working conditions, such as captain upgrades averaging 19 months; more than 200 bases that give pilots more flexibility than airlines for where they live; 2.5 times the daily rate for flying voluntary extended days; an average duty day of 9.9 hours; and ancillary benefits including the ability to retain hotel, airline, and credit card points and FBO fuel incentives as well as allowing family members to fly on NetJets aircraft “as a nontaxable benefit under the Company’s ‘ferry flight’ program.
NetJets has made significant orders of new jets recently, and the company explained: “In response to our planned fleet growth and the aforementioned departures, the Company has hired 649 pilots and has received nearly 5,000 applications from qualified candidates. NetJets will meet its pilot hiring target in 2023 and is confident it will do so again in 2024. As a result, the number of pilots NetJets employs for each aircraft in its fleet is fully sufficient to meet operational needs.”