regionalhell
Active member
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2003
- Posts
- 28
In almost any other industry when the costs of producing a product are greatly increased across the board, those additional costs are passed on to the consumer.
So why is it, that the airline industry can bleed the additional costs out of its employees?
The answer is, WE LET THEM!
An Airline Pilot's financial future and quality of life are solely dependent on retaining a career at a single carrier. If a pilot is forced to change carriers half way through their career, due to a bankrupcy, furlough or termination, it can be devastating.
Because of this, Pilots will do just about anything to avoid having to change carriers, including taking massive pay cuts.
And when one group of pilots is willing to work for 50% less then the rest it won't be long before we are all working for peanuts.
One way to stop this downward spiral would be to tighen up the huge range in pay scales. Having a new-hire pilot make 30K a year so a senior guy can make 300K a year is killing our profession.
It gives pilots to much incentive to stay where they are, and takes away any leverage they would have in negotiating because management knows you are screwed if you have to start over.
We need to shrink the pay ranges in contracts to say 70K a year for a new hire to 120K a year for a senior guy. I didn't do the math on that, but we need something that would average out to cost the carrier the same so it doesn't increase overall labor cost, and over the course of a career (maybe even bouncing around between several carriers) it wouldn't decrease a pilots overall career compensation.
That way Pilots could still have the same career earnings but also be able to negotiate their next contract without the fear of taking a 90% paycut if things go bad.
Unfortuneately, the only way this could work is if Pilot Unions actually had some UNITY, and worked together on contract reform.
And we all know that won't happen, so I think we are all F"CKED.
See you all at the bottom!
Sincerely,
Regionalhell
So why is it, that the airline industry can bleed the additional costs out of its employees?
The answer is, WE LET THEM!
An Airline Pilot's financial future and quality of life are solely dependent on retaining a career at a single carrier. If a pilot is forced to change carriers half way through their career, due to a bankrupcy, furlough or termination, it can be devastating.
Because of this, Pilots will do just about anything to avoid having to change carriers, including taking massive pay cuts.
And when one group of pilots is willing to work for 50% less then the rest it won't be long before we are all working for peanuts.
One way to stop this downward spiral would be to tighen up the huge range in pay scales. Having a new-hire pilot make 30K a year so a senior guy can make 300K a year is killing our profession.
It gives pilots to much incentive to stay where they are, and takes away any leverage they would have in negotiating because management knows you are screwed if you have to start over.
We need to shrink the pay ranges in contracts to say 70K a year for a new hire to 120K a year for a senior guy. I didn't do the math on that, but we need something that would average out to cost the carrier the same so it doesn't increase overall labor cost, and over the course of a career (maybe even bouncing around between several carriers) it wouldn't decrease a pilots overall career compensation.
That way Pilots could still have the same career earnings but also be able to negotiate their next contract without the fear of taking a 90% paycut if things go bad.
Unfortuneately, the only way this could work is if Pilot Unions actually had some UNITY, and worked together on contract reform.
And we all know that won't happen, so I think we are all F"CKED.
See you all at the bottom!
Sincerely,
Regionalhell
