Airline pilot pay

[Green]

You are an airline pilot my friend. You are in charge of a 20-150 million dollar piece of machinery and anywhere from 19-450 lives. DO NOT compare yourself to a desk monkey working on spreadsheets and the like. No offense to your friend, but you need to realize the scope of your responsibilities.

If your friend screws up do people die? If you friend stays out drinking with you and shows up for work hung over does he end up on the cover of USA Today, CNN primetime, and possibly in jail? NO!

Don't sell yourself short.

Just out of curiosity were you an embry riddle/und grad?

 

[Green]

When you consider our daily responsibilities a GLA 1900 fo should be near the six figure mark IMHO

 

[HA25]

You are an airline pilot my friend. You are in charge of a 20-150 million dollar piece of machinery and anywhere from 19-450 lives. DO NOT compare yourself to a desk monkey working on spreadsheets and the like. No offense to your friend, but you need to realize the scope of your responsibilities. Just out of curiosity were you an embry riddle/und grad?

That's what I can't understand... why this is so hard for people to morally grasp. In the end, the amount of work it takes to get to where many of us are vs the guy selling used cars ($100,000 job in many places) is not the same.. and the time we spent "At work" is even worse than the 50hr/week car salesman..

the problem is in my signature block... it's an globalized economy, with corporate managers that don't think in terms of national boundary, but rather in terms of corporate boundaries and they'll take the $10/hr Indian or Chinese pilot and stick him in the right seat of the 747 if they can get away with it.. so why should they not take advantage of the whores we pilots have become?

Truth be told, as long as you can crack open an issue of Flying Magazine or AOPA Pilot and see a picture of a guy (or worse yet, a gal) in a pilots uniform sitting in the right seat of a 747-400 or MD-11, and an 1-800 phone number below that with a "Call now to become an Airline Pilot in 24 weeks" motto, we'll never see an end to it!

 

[PilotOnTheRise]

Guys, I'm not saying that pilots are paid plenty, and should just give this issue a rest. I believe pilots deserve every penny they do make, and more. My point is not that because my friend makes $35K as a computer grad, I shouldn't expect more as an RJ FO. My point is that, regardless of what profession you look at, people are working more, and making less; including pilots, and that we, as American workers, not just pilots, need to stand up and take a stand for what we deserve. By my pointing out what a desk jockey makes, is not my way of saying, see, we make more than them, or the same as them; it is to say that, that desk jockey is working 70 hrs per week, for the same, or less than your RJ CA salary. In others words, management is taking advantage of all workers, and we need to take a stand, as pilots, desk jockeys, or whatever job you are in, or nothing will change. Complaining about it does nothing; taking action does.

That's what I can't understand... why this is so hard for people to morally grasp. In the end, the amount of work it takes to get to where many of us are vs the guy selling used cars ($100,000 job in many places) is not the same.. and the time we spent "At work" is even worse than the 50hr/week car salesman..

the problem is in my signature block... it's an globalized economy, with corporate managers that don't think in terms of national boundary, but rather in terms of corporate boundaries and they'll take the $10/hr Indian or Chinese pilot and stick him in the right seat of the 747 if they can get away with it.. so why should they not take advantage of the whores we pilots have become?

Truth be told, as long as you can crack open an issue of Flying Magazine or AOPA Pilot and see a picture of a guy (or worse yet, a gal) in a pilots uniform sitting in the right seat of a 747-400 or MD-11, and an 1-800 phone number below that with a "Call now to become an Airline Pilot in 24 weeks" motto, we'll never see an end to it!

 

[HA25]

Guys, I'm not saying that pilots are paid plenty, and should just give this issue a rest. I believe pilots deserve every penny they do make, and more. My point is not that because my friend makes $35K as a computer grad, I shouldn't expect more as an RJ FO. My point is that, regardless of what profession you look at, people are working more, and making less; including pilots, and that we, as American workers, not just pilots, need to stand up and take a stand for what we deserve. By my pointing out what a desk jockey makes, is not my way of saying, see, we make more than them, or the same as them; it is to say that, that desk jockey is working 70 hrs per week, for the same, or less than your RJ CA salary. In others words, management is taking advantage of all workers, and we need to take a stand, as pilots, desk jockeys, or whatever job you are in, or nothing will change. Complaining about it does nothing; taking action does.

I agree with you, we've lost the fact that one should work to live, and not live to work.. this whole 6 day a week, 50+ hour a week mentality and the addition of Blackberry and Wireless Internet has turned time off into a thing of the past.. it doesn't help that we're in this "global" economy where we're competing in terms of productivity with India and China, which is total farse!

It almost seems hopeless unless we are able to hold our elected officials accountable.

 

[RemoveB4Flght]

If you can come up with a way to get people to pay for something they are too lazy/busy/inept to do themselves, you can make money. If you think about it, many professions are backwards in the amount we pay for various services. We tip a bartender sometimes 20-50% (varies directly with clevage) for pouring us a glass of overpriced alcohol. We tip our kid's 2nd grade teacher nothing. Doctors make a ton, but go through years of residency (what some might consider instructing and time in a right seat) and make good money becuase they are responsible for lives just like we are... lawyers are rich becuase the rest of us can't play nice in this big sand box and are unable to work problems out on our own.

If outsourcing wasn't bad enough... now many companies are finding ways to profit from the angst of those fed up with the thick accents of tech support from half way around the globe... Some companies are now charging a premium if you wish to only have an american answer your questions about how to program your ipod or defrag your dell.

The out most doctors have is that if a hospital tried cutting their pay as much as they do pilots... the option exists to go to private practice. If pilots followed suit, there would be no airlines, just a ton more fractionals and one/two man 135 ops. Ambulances would drive around trying to find the doctor's office that wasn't closed sundays... and the "pilot" section of the yellow pages would be 2 inches thick

 

[HA25]

.... and the "pilot" section of the yellow pages would be 2 inches thick

I we had it all over to do again, we should have had a national seniority number, and a single pilots "Guild" that all Commercial and above rated pilots must join to work.. then you would have had the tables turned around on the managers and the free market would have been working in our favor.

 

[PilotOnTheRise]

If you can come up with a way to get people to pay for something they are too lazy/busy/inept to do themselves, you can make money. If you think about it, many professions are backwards in the amount we pay for various services. We tip a bartender sometimes 20-50% (varies directly with clevage) for pouring us a glass of overpriced alcohol. We tip our kid's 2nd grade teacher nothing. Doctors make a ton, but go through years of residency (what some might consider instructing and time in a right seat) and make good money becuase they are responsible for lives just like we are... lawyers are rich becuase the rest of us can't play nice in this big sand box and are unable to work problems out on our own.

If outsourcing wasn't bad enough... now many companies are finding ways to profit from the angst of those fed up with the thick accents of tech support from half way around the globe... Some companies are now charging a premium if you wish to only have an american answer your questions about how to program your ipod or defrag your dell.

The out most doctors have is that if a hospital tried cutting their pay as much as they do pilots... the option exists to go to private practice. If pilots followed suit, there would be no airlines, just a ton more fractionals and one/two man 135 ops. Ambulances would drive around trying to find the doctor's office that wasn't closed sundays... and the "pilot" section of the yellow pages would be 2 inches thick

You are right, and even doctors don't make as much as they used to. Both of my parents work in the healthcare industry. Most doctors today, unless they are a specialist of some kind (heart, etc.) do not make more than even a junior captain at American or Delta, yet go through 10+ years of medical school. And, the average med. school grad is in $200K of debt.

A lot of times, we like to focus on those very few in various professions pulling in large salaries. If you ever do a little research, you find that average salaries across America, in almost every career field, is significantly lower than what is often thought, and it is a growing problem.

 

[pilotyip]

25K entry level

Pilot don't make $25K for their entire career, it is an entry level wage. Making $100K/yr is this business is very doable, and much more than this at many upper level companies. As supported by pilotonrise, it is in the upper level of income in the US. To be able to do something your really like and be in the upper income of the US is a dream very few people will ever realize.

 

[tie1on]

if the pay is so bad quit and do something else,,,,or you can't do anyting else


ha

 

[RP170]

How about these numbers for some statistics.

In the United States...

Average income per household: $46,325
Average income per household with two income earners: $67,348

Average income, males 25 or older: $33,517
Average income, females 25 or older: $19,679

Average salary with high school: $26,505
Avereage salary with bachelor's degree: $43,143
Average salary with some college: $31,04
Average salary with masters degree: $52,390
Average salary with PhD: $70,853

Since 2004, salaries are down 4%

Source for these numbers?

 

[gnx99]

As much as it sucks to hear some of the payscales at some of the regionals, everything breaks down into supply and demand. Big supply of pilots, not very high demand = low pay. Unfortunately it's economics 101, and people DO have the option of not flying.

And as for the big supply of pilots, can people really be blamed? It is (was?) a VERY desirable profession. How many other jobs can someone with no college fly a 20+ million dollar jet, and realistically make $70,000+ and have 16 days off a month? There's thousands of more crappy jobs out there.

I guess the only way pay will really change (for the better) is if the supply of pilots REALLY dries up. From what I hear many flight schools are hurting for business, so maybe we're inching closer to that?

 

[Rip Vanwinkle]

I think we're missing Pilotontherise's larger point in the clamor of people screaming "we're underpayed" and "no way this job rocks!" College may not be necessary for a shiney jetjob, but I think middle school still is, so I imagine that everyone is familiar with the concept of supply and demand, and needs no remedial education. Agreed, yes, the issue is not "what we deserve", but what we're able to negotiate. On a micro scale, that holds water. However, in a labor market that is completley controlled by political considerations, free market aphorisms do not apply. If the company can abrogate its contracts more or less at will by utilizing the RLA after a shell-game sham bankruptcy (Mesaba), or create an alter-ego at will towards the same goal (TSA/GoJets), the natural balance of powers in a free-market economy is crippled.

This is what makes me beat my head against a wall when people say "get another job". The stratification of incomes in the United States has been increasing for decades, but only now are we seeing the result of this stratification. The working class are becoming destitute "droogs", of essentially no redeeming social value at all, other than being warm bodies in the seats of wal-marts and burger-kings. Formerly middle class jobs (like, say, ours) are becoming working class "cash the check to make the mortgage and buy the groceries" wage-slave positions. And then, at the top, absurd salaries for "talent players" are more and more the norm. Even the polticos do not in essence dispute this. Read the numbers of H-1s issued for jobs which Americans really CAN'T do. They simply lack the will to do anything about it (or some would say the ability, given that they are beholden to the same idiot electorate that failed 5th grade and votes based on ridiculously vague "statements of purpose" and the ability to "feel their pain".) All of these problems are chickens that were hatched thirty, forty, and fifty years ago, and are only now coming home to roost.

This is why it is inane to blame "teh boosh" for the latest round of economic stratification. You might just as well blame Clinton. Or Bush. Or Reagan. Or Carter. Like all national crises, it occured in small increments, largely on ground given to win back ground lost.

What IS clear is that radical steps are required to dope-slap america out of the rapidly escalating cycle of economic self-destruction in which we find ourselves. And not just politically or economically, but morally. My own preference would be that the "moral" angle not be religiously affiliated, but rather a simple re-affirmation, from the grassroots level, that there is more beautiful and sacred about life than being able to afford (on credit, of course) the latest flat panel big screen or Lexus. If that makes me a hippie, spray me tie-dye. That's not to say that pilots oughtn't be paid well, but that what qualifies as "paid well" often has a lot more to do with quality of life than with raw numbers.

For those who believe that we live in a free market (if any of you made it this far), read DeTocqueville, a classic (and deservedly so) on the nature of our Republic. Pay particular attention to the necessity of a vibrant and thinking middle class. Then ask yourself whether, if current trends continue, the future is likely to hold more or less of one.

 

[Rekks Inbound]

Rip,

Wow! Awesome post!

Finally, someone who gets it.

Peace.

Rekks

 

[HA25]

Good post Rip.. in the end, the fact that a free market is operating doesn't make it a moral outcome. Adam Smith also wrote of the "Tyranny of the Free Market" ... there is a balance.

Also, as long as the profession is being peddled by the likes of the AOPA, AirInc, ATA, and other alphabet soup aviation lobbies/interest groups as easily attainable so long as you've got $75,000 to throw at buying the privilege of dawning a pilots uniform, we'll always get bottom dwellers that either switch careers as they're board or frustrated with their current one, or directionless wonderers that decide "I can fly and make a lot of $$ at UAL one day cause my Uncle did.." as an old CFI I worked with said was his reason for going into aviation.. and these incremental additions to the supply of pilots will keep wages depressed.

 

[PilotOnTheRise]

Source for these numbers?

I got those numbers from here, who's source was the US Census Bureau

 

[ex j-41]

Marxist thought that the purest form of communism will happen in a capitalistic state. ie: walmart world

And i don't think Mesa or other regionals are much different than walmart. Rock bottom prices, crappy service and employees that are paid poverty wages.

 

[HA25]

Marxist thought that the purest form of communism will happen in a capitalistic state. ie: walmart world

And i don't think Mesa or other regionals are much different than walmart. Rock bottom prices, crappy service and employees that are paid poverty wages.

Nothing like calling a spade "a spade".

 

[RP170]

I got those numbers from here, who's source was the US Census Bureau

Thanks for the info.

 

[pilotyip]

Flying for a profession is still a good paying job, the average airline Captain income is solidly in the middle class. As stated here, the $100K range is doable, it is in the upper 10% of all incomes. I would dare to guess that the vast majority of those flying as Captains would be hard pressed to make the same income in some other field.