Is this profession in peril?

[JetFumes]

With oil at 100, and former Fed chairman Greenspan saying that these high oil prices will go on forever, does this spell the end of a once proud profession?

High oil prices means customers will have to pay more to fly. So how does that affect us all?
I guess I am trying to get a sense of where you all think this will end up.

As for me, I keep thinking of doing something else. I just don't know what.

 

[CitationUltra]

With oil at 100, and former Fed chairman Greenspan saying that these high oil prices will go on forever, does this spell the end of a once proud profession?

High oil prices means customers will have to pay more to fly. So how does that affect us all?
I guess I am trying to get a sense of where you all think this will end up.

As for me, I keep thinking of doing something else. I just don't know what.

The "once proud profession" actually ended in the 1980s or '90s. From the mid-1980s onward, the pay, quality of life and prestige of being an airline pilot have rapidly diminished. There was an overabundance of pilots from the late 1970s on, and they were willing to fly more, work for progressively less money, and suffer an array of other indignities through those years. Now, those earning anything close to what the job is worth are greatly in the minority, and the rest have been superseded by pilots of the "B" "C" D" and "F" scales.

Any other true professional endeavor would doubtless be more lucrative than flying commercially.

 

[Andy]

Profession? It's done; gone.

 

[Lear70]

Let's just say I think the professional AIRLINE pilot career is pretty much history. At least, any semblance to its original self.

Corporate pilots and Fractional pilots still seem to have some decent jobs that could be termed a "profession", with pay and QOL commensurate to it, but that's about it.

With $100 a Brl oil, you'd probably have to DOUBLE ticket prices for the airlines to fairly compensate ALL labor AND post reasonable profits consistently year after year instead of this "profit / bonuses / bankruptcy" cycle of the last 20 years.

You do that, and you'll probably lose a large base of your consumer, requiring fewer pilots, causing yet another problem.

Not to mention that I don't think most pilots have the cajones to stand up and demand their worth, thus "taking it back".

If you want a 'profession', go back to Med School (if you can - they limit the number of Docs who come out so the same thing doesn't happen to them).

 

[Pocono Pilot]

After all the mergers, the regional airlines will be the place to be due to the furloughs and such. No more flow backs either. I feel pretty confident, AND I don't have to worry about being some lame gear jerker, either.

I'll leave that to all you guys. LOL

 

[Andy]

Well, I think its safe to say the last few posts have answered the original question.

Elvis left the building years ago. He's worm food now. Some cling to the belief that he's cruising the galaxy with aliens.
You can pray to velvet paintings of the king, but it isn't going to change the fact that pilots are as blue collar as it gets.
We've even got national union representation that'd make Jimmy Hoffa proud. Whenever I see a Teamster, I just laugh in their face and gleefully tell them that my union's more corrupt than their union.

Wow! I must've been drinking some bad moonshine. A half a dozen posts just vaporized. That darned Elvis and the aliens are at it again.

 

[FurloughedAgain]

Let's just say I think the professional AIRLINE pilot career is pretty much history. At least, any semblance to its original self.

Corporate pilots and Fractional pilots still seem to have some decent jobs that could be termed a "profession", with pay and QOL commensurate to it, but that's about it.

With $100 a Brl oil, you'd probably have to DOUBLE ticket prices for the airlines to fairly compensate ALL labor AND post reasonable profits consistently year after year instead of this "profit / bonuses / bankruptcy" cycle of the last 20 years.

You do that, and you'll probably lose a large base of your consumer, requiring fewer pilots, causing yet another problem.

Good post, but don't give away the best kept secret in aviation.

 

[FurloughedAgain]

I don't have to worry about being some lame gear jerker, either.

That's a terrible attitude. If you choose to spend your career at the regional, that's fine. But for a Captain to disparage an entire segment of the piloting community (first officers) is reprehensible. You are no better than the men and women who sit to your right -- you were just hired first.

 

[Cheeta]

Take 100 pax from jfk to anywhere in FLA and it takes 1000 gals.burned. That is 10 gals. a pax or $20 a pax....and each pax paid $139 on avg one way.

Folks you can't drive it for that! People know this and are flying because it is cheaper....and ticket prices are on the rise for 10 months in a row.

 

[jmreii]

With oil at 100, and former Fed chairman Greenspan saying that these high oil prices will go on forever, does this spell the end of a once proud profession?

High oil prices means customers will have to pay more to fly. So how does that affect us all?
I guess I am trying to get a sense of where you all think this will end up.

As for me, I keep thinking of doing something else. I just don't know what.

You make it sound like customers(people) are on a island some where. Guess who else will be paying higher prices for everything that requires petroleum.

 

[easydoesit]

Pessimistic view from more pilots who are the best at painting a bleak picture. B1tch, B1tch, B1tch. Things will be just fine. People are not going to stop flying airplanes.

Just like your wife, everything works in cycles. Quit worrying about the downturns, look at the big picture!

 

[JetFumes]

Pessimistic view from more pilots who are the best at painting a bleak picture. B1tch, B1tch, B1tch. Things will be just fine. People are not going to stop flying airplanes.

Just like your wife, everything works in cycles. Quit worrying about the downturns, look at the big picture!

Pass me some of that koolaid, please. I'm not gonna have an easy time ridin the wife cycles with no job.

 

[pilotyip]

Still a great way to make a good living

This job may not be not as good as it used to be but this is still a great way to make a living. What other jobs are most of the pilot going to go to after they get out of the flying business? If you have been in this business for 10 years starting a new career is tuff and most will never match their airline wages. Too many negative vibes

 

[Andy]

YIP, this thread was a discussion about it being a profession. It's no longer a profession.

There was a classic exchange between poconopilot, tankerclown (always living down to his name), and another user that has been deleted. Complete trailer trash talk.

The pilot business has turned into a dog eat dog world where all professionalism is long gone. We're blue collar bus drivers and our actions reinforce that belief. Hey, let's go picket because we're unhappy with something - yeah, THAT's professional. When's the last time that you saw lawyers or doctors set up picketing or go on strike?

 

[Lear70]

That's a terrible attitude. If you choose to spend your career at the regional, that's fine. But for a Captain to disparage an entire segment of the piloting community (first officers) is reprehensible. You are no better than the men and women who sit to your right -- you were just hired first.

Ignore Pocono. She's a regional CA not by choice, but by multiple failure of interviews. Go back and read some of her posts about interviewing at CAL, how it was the best thing since sliced bread, then she gets turned down and trash-talks it for a few months before she got over it.

She's immature for her age, probably due to the fact that she *IS* cute (according to a guy I know over there who knows who she is - someone was going to out her on here but we talked him out of it), and never realized that looks alone aren't going to cut it in life. She might be starting to see the light, but doesn't know when to stop talking trash still (as evidenced in this thread).

And don't worry, the airline folks aren't going to start beating on the corporate doors anytime soon. The airline life is too easy at the regional and major level for most experienced CA's to bail out of... I'm back at this level by force, not by choice, but seriously considering staying (stuck for 3 days in Napa - I've discovered the absolute BEST wine bar that serves INCREDIBLE wines at only $1-$2 per glass above what you'd pay in the store for - what a heck of a nice way to spend your work week and NOTHING you'd ever see at ANY airline).

Andy, you don't have to argue with YIP. He'll be the first to tell you that pilots need to realize they're not white collar executives anymore.

My point for YIP is that my "happy place" for income and QOL is about half again as high as what most companies pay these days, simply because pilot pay has not increased with inflation the last 20 years and more pilots are happy to work more days for the same pay (a.k.a. whores). That has eroded the "profession" away to near-extinction.

Good for management, bad for employees. Only way to fix it is to become management and start your own company, just to find that the margins are so thin in most segments of the industry that you can't afford to pay your employees more. Raise your prices, your customers go somewhere else. Nasty little circle but, eventually, things will tip back towards employees and management will gnash their teeth and wail (already happening in many segments are the only people to hire are VERY low time pilots and finding qualified CA's is getting VERY difficult for the "margin operator").

Between that and the FACT that airline pilots are no longer respected as professionals (until something goes wrong) by the majority of the flying public = loss of the status/title of "professional".

This in NO way means I don't still conduct myself as such. Whether or not this is truly a "profession" in terms of status, pay, and QOL has absolutely NO bearing on how "professionally" I conduct myself.

I dabble in other things to make money, but nothing makes me happier at the end of the day after that nasty blowing snow circling approach into a short field at night, teaching new F/O's something new, learning something new from an F/O, and walking into the hotel realizing that I'm d*mn good at my "profession", and I wouldn't want to do anything else...

Except walking in my door to my wife and kids when I get home; it doesn't get much better than that! I just need more time at home to make that happen.

 

[PAPA FOX!]

It seems that the professon will slowly get back on track. Why? Well new student starts are near an all time low and domestic demand for air travel is projected to increase at over 5%/yr for the next decade.

Yes, it is true that there is no pilot shortage at the majors now. However it IS at the regional level and it will EVENTUALLY trickly up there, just not overnight.

Simple supply and demand show that the pay can only improve from here.

 

[pianoman]

We're blue collar bus drivers and our actions reinforce that belief. Hey, let's go picket because we're unhappy with something - yeah, THAT's professional. When's the last time that you saw lawyers or doctors set up picketing or go on strike?

Ummm.... I believe picketing and going on strike is what brought this profession from basically "bus drivers" but more dangerous in the 30's to what it became in the heyday- a professional career.

Do you think companies just volunteered to pay pilots that much?

 

[CitationUltra]

It seems that the professon will slowly get back on track. Why? Well new student starts are near an all time low and domestic demand for air travel is projected to increase at over 5%/yr for the next decade.

Yes, it is true that there is no pilot shortage at the majors now. However it IS at the regional level and it will EVENTUALLY trickly up there, just not overnight.

Simple supply and demand show that the pay can only improve from here.

I agree with your basic analysis--the statistics indicate a pilot shortage. However, the problem with the theory is that the new-hire pilots are signing on for very low salaries that don't improve much over time. Supply shortages would only raise pilot salary standards if pilots withheld services unless paid at a rate congruent with the job as a "profession" instead of as laborers.

Pilots since the mid-1980s have shown no tendency to withhold services, in fact the opposite. As long as the regional airlines can hire new 250-hour pilots at $18K a year, this won't change. No bona fide "profession" has an entry-level this low on the economic scale.

 

[BOYCAPTAIN]

After all the mergers, the regional airlines will be the place to be due to the furloughs and such. No more flow backs either. I feel pretty confident, AND I don't have to worry about being some lame gear jerker, either.

I'll leave that to all you guys. LOL

hey pocono...pull your big bad RJ over to my airplane ...i need a chock!

 

[Goren]

You've got to be kidding...when the price of gas goes up, the employees (chiefly the non-management pilots) buy the gas...get a clue. (not that it should be that way...but reality stinks)

 

[Andy]

Ummm.... I believe picketing and going on strike is what brought this profession from basically "bus drivers" but more dangerous in the 30's to what it became in the heyday- a professional career.

Do you think companies just volunteered to pay pilots that much?

So picketing and striking is all it took for pilots to turn this into a professional career? Well then, that should fix everything - let's all go down and picket. That'll get things turned around.
Picketing and striking are tools that should only be used sparingly. To pull them out of the toolbag on a monthly (or even annual) basis, as is happening now, reduces their effect to zero. That's old school.
But you dodged my original statement. When's the last time that you saw doctors or lawyers picket?

 

[Occam's Razor]

Yes, it's dead.

Now move along. Nothing to see here...

(sigh)

 

[PAPA FOX!]

I agree with your basic analysis--the statistics indicate a pilot shortage. However, the problem with the theory is that the new-hire pilots are signing on for very low salaries that don't improve much over time. Supply shortages would only raise pilot salary standards if pilots withheld services unless paid at a rate congruent with the job as a "profession" instead of as laborers.

Pilots since the mid-1980s have shown no tendency to withhold services, in fact the opposite. As long as the regional airlines can hire new 250-hour pilots at $18K a year, this won't change. No bona fide "profession" has an entry-level this low on the economic scale.

I agree with that too but don't you think a large number of those will burn out after a few yrs at the regionals? It seems many will not be happy with the pay and QOL and leave the industry long before they have the hours to be competitive for the majors.

 

[PCL_128]

When's the last time that you saw doctors or lawyers picket?

Doctors and lawyers aren't unionized labor. The AMA strictly controls supply in order to hold up their profession. Lawyers are able to individually negotiate their wages because it's easy to quantify the quality of an attorney, something that is impossible for a pilot or doctor.

 

[Flopgut]

We have a bad union. That's 90% of our problem.

 

[CitationUltra]

I agree with that too but don't you think a large number of those will burn out after a few yrs at the regionals? It seems many will not be happy with the pay and QOL and leave the industry long before they have the hours to be competitive for the majors.

I would think that the pay and schedules alone would drive out many. The question then is whether or not they will be replaced others of the same ilk.

I think the central question is the use of the term "profession" and my point is that the characterization of commercial flying as a profession really ended at the point in time when the relentless assault on pilots commenced back in the 1980s. Company management set out to greatly diminish the stature of pilots, individually and as a a class, and they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They managed to eviscerate the pilot's primary union, ALPA, drastically undermined pilot's perceived value and self worth, and at the same time dramatically decreased the overall costs associated with pilots as a labor group.

Airline management views pilots as but another class of labor--not as a professional group, as in, for example, lawyers or doctors. They have used this to undermine pilots with other labor groups within a given company. All of this results in lower values. Add the fact that pilots themselves have gone along with this and failed to stand up for themselves, and you have a situation with rapidly diminishing returns. OR--put another way--exactly what we have seen in terms of the status of pilots since about 1985.

 

[PAPA FOX!]

Company management set out to greatly diminish the stature of pilots, individually and as a a class, and they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They managed to eviscerate the pilot's primary union, ALPA, drastically undermined pilot's perceived value and self worth, and at the same time dramatically decreased the overall costs associated with pilots as a labor group.

And we only have ourselves to blame for that. They could not have accomplished that against a united pilot workforce.

 

[PCL_128]

We have a bad union. That's 90% of our problem.

No, you have an apathetic, uninformed membership. That's 99% of your problem.

 

[CitationUltra]

And we only have ourselves to blame for that. They could not have accomplished that against a united pilot workforce.

It's true. In fairness it must be said that efforts to counteract this were made. However, and without rehashing the history of it here, those efforts ended with a whimper. They were not successful, and that was noted by senior management throughout the industry--they could win a labor dispute with pilots, because there was no solidarity, either among pilots, or between labor organizations. That was the genesis of the situation that pilots are in today.

 

[800Dog]

So picketing and striking is all it took for pilots to turn this into a professional career? Well then, that should fix everything - let's all go down and picket. That'll get things turned around.
Picketing and striking are tools that should only be used sparingly. To pull them out of the toolbag on a monthly (or even annual) basis, as is happening now, reduces their effect to zero. That's old school.
But you dodged my original statement. When's the last time that you saw doctors or lawyers picket?

I believe the last time I saw doctor's strike was about five years ago in Pennsylvania. Could be wrong on the state. They went on strike to protest outrageously high malpractice insurance. Cannot remember the last time my pilot group went on strike. Thats right, we never have. We continue to give and give! I just googled doctors strke america. Not only have doctors struck, they have picketed as well. You were saying?