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Another sad day for our profession

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irapilot

lurking
Joined
Dec 27, 2001
Posts
109
Phirang pilots flock to fly desi airlines


For a man who is in the midst of starting a new airline, M Thiagarajan looks a remarkably calm man. Till a few months ago, most CEOs across India’s thriving aviation industry were found worried stiff about one factor that could disrupt their business: shortage of trained pilots.

But the MD of Paramount Airways — like some of his counterparts at Sahara, Jet Airways and Air Deccan — has quickly cottoned onto a new secret. The answer lies in a big pile of resumes on his table at his Coimbatore office.



These are applications from pilots from across the world — primarily US, Europe and Australia. Grounded by the severe downturn in the civil aviation business, these pilots are desperate to find employment, with some willing to take salary cuts and work at wage levels lower than their Indian counterparts.

The India Times
 
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This is just pilots collectively tying a cinderbrick to their neckties and diving off the top of the building. It'll keep happening until ... well, I don't know when it'll stop.

Say "hi" to us computer technicians when you hit bottom - We all did this 4 years ago. (Toward the end, we couldn't even afford the brick anymore, we just jumped and tried to keep pointed head-down.)
 
aviation is for people who love to do it and strive to keep it in their blood. Pay is a secondary issue and wouldn't even be an issue if things like food and child support didn't cost money.

Really?

hahahahahaha...screw them and anybody else that sells their soul for nothing.
 
dseagrav said:
This is just pilots collectively tying a cinderbrick to their neckties and diving off the top of the building. It'll keep happening until ... well, I don't know when it'll stop.

Say "hi" to us computer technicians when you hit bottom - We all did this 4 years ago. (Toward the end, we couldn't even afford the brick anymore, we just jumped and tried to keep pointed head-down.)
Yeah, I bought some software from a start up company, it worked, they were working on upgrade. I talked to the CEO, and he said he had people sending resumes who would work for free, just for the intellectual stimulation.

The only stimulation I expect from work is a pay check.
 
sky37d said:
I talked to the CEO, and he said he had people sending resumes who would work for free, just for the intellectual stimulation.

That's a common bullshit line. They want a line to put on their resume to show they didn't sit around and do nothing while searching for a job. It proves they were keeping their skills current. (Or it means they want to beg for handouts after being "hired".) Either way, it's career suicide, especially now that the Indians can do our jobs for so much cheaper. Employers will just string you along as long as they can until you go bankrupt and lose the ability to get to work, and then they'll throw you away like so much garbage and "hire" the next fool in line. Pilots are just now getting to this stage. You guys have the benefit of certification and smaller numbers to raise the minimum bar, though - In our case, any moron who can go down to B&N and buy a few books can call himself a technician and get hired, and there's a lot more idiots than you can hope to educate.

My pet theory is that eventually the industry cost-of-living will go so far below the subsistence line that people start starving to death, and the gradual decline in software quality will go below the point acceptable to customers. The customers will start demanding real programmers/technicians and a market for those with decent skills will return. But that also means I can expect to never make more than my current pay for at least the next 25 years. (It's possible, but not real likely.) The variation from normal in my case is that I've been working with the owner of this company for a good 8 years now, and I have a lot of skill and experience built up. The company can't throw me away for a disposable worker because the money they save won't pay for the decrease in quality. I'm reasonably "safe", until I make a major mistake or suffer a major injury/illness.

In the case of pilots, I guess that a similar thing will happen - Pilots making minimum wage or nothing at all flying smaller jets will take over all but the long and international routes, but the decrease in skill will cause a drastic increase in incidents and deaths until the passengers are too scared to fly, the bottom falls out of the market, and all of the smaller airlines die out. The big boys will go bankrupt (moreso than they are now) or die too, but air travel is the only cost-effective, fast way to get overseas or long distances, so a demand for that will remain. The customers will demand skilled pilots to fly the routes, and those who survive the crash and keep their skills will have a job.

Drastic changes in automation or outsourcing invalidate both predictions.
 
That is exactly who I want to work for. A company thats in some forsaken foreign land where 90% of the population is eating dirt, doesn't work, and whom worship rats, monkeys and cows. What kind of airworthiness aircrafts and regulations do you think they have?You know that whether you are flying a plane in Pago Pago or United States, after a few trips a plane is a plane is a plane.
 
Well, personally, I'm tired of calling Tech Support, only to get someone who doesn't speak ENGLISH. I had our phone system quit working after an electrical storm. Called TS, which, incidentally means exactly what you think it does, and get someone who I could not understand. I got fed up, said, look I got 24 x 7 x 4, get someone in here. They did, and that person, the one they put out in the public, actually spoke english.


maybe that's the key. Only do business with companies who hire people who actually speak the language of the market they are dealing with.

Oh, yeah, BTW, I really want to go work in India, a country where toilet paper hasn't been invented yet. KMA. Yeah, that means what you think it does, too.
 
sky37d said:
Well, personally, I'm tired of calling Tech Support, only to get someone who doesn't speak ENGLISH. I had our phone system quit working after an electrical storm. Called TS, which, incidentally means exactly what you think it does, and get someone who I could not understand. I got fed up, said, look I got 24 x 7 x 4, get someone in here. They did, and that person, the one they put out in the public, actually spoke english.
We end up having to call the same numbers the end users do. When they send me out on service calls, I have to clear the call with the manufacturer's call center in India or Pakistan or wherever - It takes a good 30-90 minutes to get through (We are placed behind customer calls in the queue, because we are costing them money instead of paying them. Makes sense, doesn't it?), so I have taken to placing the call when I am close to finished that way the call will complete shortly after I'm done. Then I get to repeat myself 3-5 times on everything to get the Indians to type everything into the computer (and they still get it wrong) before I can go. I hate them too.
maybe that's the key. Only do business with companies who hire people who actually speak the language of the market they are dealing with.
The problem here is that (right now), for every 1 person who hates the call center enough to stop doing business with them there are 99 more who don't give a shoot. Not enough of a margin to keep a company afloat or justify paying US workers' wages. Your competition will gladly murder you on margin if you try.
Oh, yeah, BTW, I really want to go work in India, a country where toilet paper hasn't been invented yet. KMA. Yeah, that means what you think it does, too.
That's OK. The Indians don't hire foreigners anyway. They're well aware of what they're doing to the economy of other countries, and they aren't stupid enough to let it happen to them.
 

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