flyguppy
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- Joined
- Sep 25, 2003
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http://deseretnews.com/dn/view2/1,4382,635198635,00.html?textfield=pilot
Don't put Joe Blow in the cockpit
[FONT=Verdana,Helvetica,Arial]By Doug Robinson[/FONT]
Call me silly, but when I step on an airliner, I like to know that the guys in the cockpit are the best, the cream of the crop, the cool Harrison Ford types who could land a plane on a postage stamp blindfolded in a snowstorm over the Atlantic while telling us, "Off to the right side of the aircraft, you can just make out Iceland through the fog."
So when I read that Delta Airlines is getting chintzy with the pilots, that they are demanding that they take another huge salary cut and the pilots are going to strike, I get nervous. Go ahead, hold the peanuts, eliminate the meals and the pillows but don't give me the second-string in the cockpit. Who wants Jon Kitna running the team when Carson Palmer is available?
"People look at pilots like we're prima donnas," says Joe, a Delta pilot (not his real name). "But they've never been through a white-knuckle flight. They don't have a clue what goes on out there or they'd freak. Ninety-five percent of the time your flight is going to be uneventful. The problem is when you get in a sticky situation, who is up front?"
Is Chuck Yeager available?
Delta has lost thousands of pilots in recent years because of declining pay and benefits. Now Delta is asking pilots to take a 19 percent pay cut (the pilots countered with 14 percent), which, combined with the 32.5 percent pay cut they demanded and received 18 months ago, would add up to 51 percent.
http://servedby.advertising.com/cli...1b9,5465120144,689761^313460,1_/bnum=84136536
"The last time they asked us to do it, their theme was — Do it once, do it right,'" says Joe.
Joe is making about $100K per year now. That sounds like a good wage until you realize what it took to get in the cockpit. His education is about as rigorous as a doctor's. Four years of ROTC and a college education. A year of pilot training, where only 17 of his 34 classmates made the cut. Six years in the Air Force as a fighter pilot. He required 1500 hours of flying time just to get an interview with Delta.
"It's a highly skilled profession," says Joe. "I thought it was bulletproof; I couldn't be replaced fast. I guess I can. I made it against impossible odds and now I'm making what my plumber makes. The sky marshal makes 80 thou, and he's there just in case terrorists rush the cockpit. We face wind shear, storms, zero-zero visibility on a regular basis. Air traffic controllers make more than some of us."
Joe has flown Delta for more than a decade, not counting the three years he was laid off and forced to sell real estate. Besides the educational requirements, Delta pilots must undergo a rigorous medical exam each year and flight simulator tests annually — "screw those up and you're gone," he says. Then there is the lifestyle.
Joe is gone 15-20 nights a month.
"It's not worth it anymore," he says. "These (Delta pilots) are bright guys, and this is a horrible lifestyle. They've seen this coming. They're getting master's degrees or going to law school. The profession has zero glamour anymore. It's a race to the bottom. If management had their way, they'd hire some guy for 20 bucks an hour."
He and the other pilots say they have to pay for management's mistakes — and yet it was management that rewarded itself with $42 million in bonuses and pension trust payments in 2002 after a year of huge losses and cuts. When is the last time a CEO negotiated wind shear?
When Joe returned from his last trip he was stunned to see that most of the pilots had cleared their lockers for the strike. It saddens him. In the '80s and '90s, almost all the best pilots signed with Delta. Many are gone. Joe thinks his flying days might be ending.
"(A pilot's skills) are hard to tell back where the passengers sit, but it's obvious in the cockpit," says Joe. "They can't tell if someone is screwing up, but we sure can. They could find a ton of guys out there who would do it for the pay and benefits they're offering now, but it wouldn't be the same caliber that's in the cockpits now."
Don't put Joe Blow in the cockpit
[FONT=Verdana,Helvetica,Arial]By Doug Robinson[/FONT]
Call me silly, but when I step on an airliner, I like to know that the guys in the cockpit are the best, the cream of the crop, the cool Harrison Ford types who could land a plane on a postage stamp blindfolded in a snowstorm over the Atlantic while telling us, "Off to the right side of the aircraft, you can just make out Iceland through the fog."
So when I read that Delta Airlines is getting chintzy with the pilots, that they are demanding that they take another huge salary cut and the pilots are going to strike, I get nervous. Go ahead, hold the peanuts, eliminate the meals and the pillows but don't give me the second-string in the cockpit. Who wants Jon Kitna running the team when Carson Palmer is available?
"People look at pilots like we're prima donnas," says Joe, a Delta pilot (not his real name). "But they've never been through a white-knuckle flight. They don't have a clue what goes on out there or they'd freak. Ninety-five percent of the time your flight is going to be uneventful. The problem is when you get in a sticky situation, who is up front?"
Is Chuck Yeager available?
Delta has lost thousands of pilots in recent years because of declining pay and benefits. Now Delta is asking pilots to take a 19 percent pay cut (the pilots countered with 14 percent), which, combined with the 32.5 percent pay cut they demanded and received 18 months ago, would add up to 51 percent.
http://servedby.advertising.com/cli...1b9,5465120144,689761^313460,1_/bnum=84136536
"The last time they asked us to do it, their theme was — Do it once, do it right,'" says Joe.
Joe is making about $100K per year now. That sounds like a good wage until you realize what it took to get in the cockpit. His education is about as rigorous as a doctor's. Four years of ROTC and a college education. A year of pilot training, where only 17 of his 34 classmates made the cut. Six years in the Air Force as a fighter pilot. He required 1500 hours of flying time just to get an interview with Delta.
"It's a highly skilled profession," says Joe. "I thought it was bulletproof; I couldn't be replaced fast. I guess I can. I made it against impossible odds and now I'm making what my plumber makes. The sky marshal makes 80 thou, and he's there just in case terrorists rush the cockpit. We face wind shear, storms, zero-zero visibility on a regular basis. Air traffic controllers make more than some of us."
Joe has flown Delta for more than a decade, not counting the three years he was laid off and forced to sell real estate. Besides the educational requirements, Delta pilots must undergo a rigorous medical exam each year and flight simulator tests annually — "screw those up and you're gone," he says. Then there is the lifestyle.
Joe is gone 15-20 nights a month.
"It's not worth it anymore," he says. "These (Delta pilots) are bright guys, and this is a horrible lifestyle. They've seen this coming. They're getting master's degrees or going to law school. The profession has zero glamour anymore. It's a race to the bottom. If management had their way, they'd hire some guy for 20 bucks an hour."
He and the other pilots say they have to pay for management's mistakes — and yet it was management that rewarded itself with $42 million in bonuses and pension trust payments in 2002 after a year of huge losses and cuts. When is the last time a CEO negotiated wind shear?
When Joe returned from his last trip he was stunned to see that most of the pilots had cleared their lockers for the strike. It saddens him. In the '80s and '90s, almost all the best pilots signed with Delta. Many are gone. Joe thinks his flying days might be ending.
"(A pilot's skills) are hard to tell back where the passengers sit, but it's obvious in the cockpit," says Joe. "They can't tell if someone is screwing up, but we sure can. They could find a ton of guys out there who would do it for the pay and benefits they're offering now, but it wouldn't be the same caliber that's in the cockpits now."
