My point exactly!! Unless you are a mainline Captain, you cannot afford what could be considered appropriate accommodations for an airline pilot in NYC. Unless you are lucky enough to find a woman who is stupid enough to be with a guy in which she must become the breadwinner since you can't as a pilot. That is of course as I said earlier, you are a mainline Captain. And yes, the airlines sure do benefit from commuters. Without commuters, where would they find the people to take these jobs at current pay. So you are forced to endure a grueling commute for a company that has absolutely no appreciation for what you do, because they refuse to pay a livable wage for the city you are based in. But I am sure you will come to the rescue of management and defend this abuse of the labor force.
Let me ask you this. Do you not feel that as an airline pilot, regardless of seniority or seat, you should at least be paid a wage that allow you to buy an average priced home in the city you are based in? Or do you support the statement made before congress by that dirtbag lowlife Peter Bowler from Eagle who after being questioned by a senator about pilots needing to commute due to the low pay said that the gate agents and baggage handlers live in NYC so the pilots should be able to find a way. Gee, I didn't think as a pilot I should have to live like the gate agents and baggage handlers. How do you think the CEO's would feel if we told them they should live hand to mouth and paycheck to paycheck like the pilots? And by the way, many of the baggage handlers, gate agents and fuelers earn more than many of the regional FO's. I can't imagine anyone with any kind of moral compass at all, could possibly justify this.
OK, I understand now! You have Battered Woman's Syndrome (except more like Battered Employee Syndrome). What you'll need to do is leave your relationship with management and seek an Employee's Shelter. If your state doesn't have one, write your governor or maybe even the president. Also go to your local court house and file for a restraining order against your management. I'm truly happy you haven't had any children with management yet! One less person to suffer the abuses of management. Then seek some counseling. This is a critical step, if you skip this one, the cycle will continue and you'll just be molested by management again. If you can, google "Dr. Phil", write him, maybe he can help you and bring your plight to a large public audience. Who knows you might actually help millions with your story of abuse, neglect and molestation from the hands of management...:erm:
Where is YOUR responsibility in this? How come you surrender all of the control you have in this situation to management. It's management's fault the pay me crap. It's management's fault I'm based in BFI. It's management's fault that my career isn't going the way I wanted it to. Geez, it seems like you expect management to do everything FOR you. Did they refuse to wipe your as$ after you $hit? Grow the fu(k up!
So I am not factual? In other words I am just simply wrong and you are right? Simple as that. I don't accept the status quo, and you do. How short sighted of you to completely dismiss the opposition. You speak as if Karl Marx was this big bad evil person because he fought for the rights of and spoke in support of labor. Workers in a capitalistic economic system become trapped in a vicious circle because the harder they work, the more resources in the natural world are appropriated for production, which leaves fewer resources for the workers to live on, so that they have to pay for their own livelihood out of their wages. When the very means of subsistence are commodities along with labor, their is no escape for the "wage slave."
When there are many airline pilots that have to work 200 to 300 years to earn what the CEO's and other members in the executive offices and upper management are given in just one year, then I say our current capitalistic system is broken! How can you possibly justify that kind of inequity? In the 1970's the average CEO earned 40 times that of their average labor, so basically you had to work a lifetime, 40 years is about an average working lifetime. Today, the CEO's are given 400 times the compensation that their average labor earns. So now we must work TEN working lifetimes to get what these crooks and pigs steal from us in just one year. There is absolutely no way any moral human being with any kind of conscience or sense of right and wrong can justify this. So compared to the bourgeoisie in our society, I am dirt poor! So I do know what it is like to be poor. Most of us do. If some of these CEO's were suddenly forced to live like some of their regional pilots, I guarantee it would drive some of them to suicide! Which wouldn't be a bad thing at all!
What are you smoking when you read my posts? Do you actually read them? I didn't say anything bad about Karl Marx. All I said is that he would agree with you. You must feel that he's bad and that the association I made with your thoughts and his writings is somehow bad? I don't know, I don't care.
You don't know poor. You have a computer. I don't know to many poor people that have access to a computer and internet. Let alone to money to afford the ratings you have.
What?? Now you are going to blame the industry and not these people that should be so far superior to us peons, after all they are being compensated 200 to 300 times what we are, they should be able to use their superior mental acumen, the same acumen that they feel qualifies them to be paid 200 to 300 times that of an airline pilot, to fix the industry. Gee, if they can't charge the fares necessary to earn a profit for the company and not just themselves, how about cutting capacity until we can see an average fare of $400 bucks roundtrip where it should be in this day and age. It is not societies God given right to be able to afford air fare. Being Mr. Capitalist as you are, you should agree with that. If it meant half of us would lose our jobs, so be it! Supply and demand after all. I can fully support being told that my services are no longer needed and find something else to do. What I cannot accept is being told that my services are indeed needed and then being paid a pittance for the professionalism, performance, competence, and just about near perfection that is expected from me in this job.
And you want to blame the government as well? I have a feeling you are very young, and have not truly researched and come to your own conclusions on some of these things. You just regurgitate the status quo that the Rush Limbaugh's and Sean Hannity's spew out. I will admit, I grew up an ultra conservative and a fan of the above types, an avid Ditto Head(if you are a Rush fan you will know what that means) but no more. It all changed when becoming involved in this profession and becoming intimately familiar with what should be considered the blatant criminal activity that corporate America gets away with, and the horrendous way they treat labor.
Quality of life is based on among other things, how much time you spend on the job and the pay you receive for doing said job. Not too mention the difference in treatment we receive today as opposed to our predecessors, which has profoundly changed from the 1970's. As I said earlier, we have CEO's telling us that we should live lives similar to that of gate agents, baggage handlers and fuelers. If I knew that was how I'd be expected to live in this profession, I could have just dropped out of HS and saved a great deal of time, money, and effort, and just put in for one of the more menial and unskilled jobs. Silly of me to think I would receive a significant premium above and beyond what the other labor groups are paid.
I have already done my research on the above issues. And that is why I am so irate in how far our unions and our fellow pilots have sold out everybody that followed them in creating this disastrous industry and profession we now have today. A profession with no movement, no opportunity, and not much of a future. Unless you consider flying 35 to 100 seaters at a regional airline a successful outcome to this journey we all embarked on. Oh, and not being able to upgrade until we are in our 40's which is just the final insult. So much for enjoying ones youth. Living paycheck to paycheck is not what I had planned for. Adjusted for inflation a widebody captain would need to earn over 400 grand a year to equal what they were earning in the late 70's, and a first officer well over 200 grand. Even compared to the 1990's we are well short. Plus back then, only about 10% of the flights were regional flights, while today they make up 50% which means most people will be stuck at these miserable regional airlines. I can tell you have not done any wage comparisons to years past, because if you had, even you might be a little perturbed. I am well versed, thus the extent of my anger.
