PHXFLYR
USAir by default
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2003
- Posts
- 2,177
OK, first off, no, I didn't have the same opportunity. Got all the way to medical for Marine Corps aviation program out of college and got medically disqualified - no one bothered to tell me 2 pins in an ankle from a snow-skiing accident as a teenager was a problem, even though I was running 3-5 miles a day. So no, we don't all have the same opportunities.
Second, I don't begrudge our military aviators anything... as long as they don't make life harder on everyone else through their post-military choices.
3rd, your last statement above is self-defeating. Of COURSE there will always be jobs that pay less... UNTIL the bar is raised. That's the whole POINT. That experienced and qualified aviators are taking jobs that start with such insultingly-low pay.
How do you RAISE the bar, if people keep doing it? The answer is, you don't. It stays put, and we keep spiraling down the crapper, just as you pointed out, UNTIL THERE AREN'T PILOTS TO TAKE THOSE JOBS.
Unfortunately, just as the supply is drying up at the regional level which MIGHT eventually put some upward pressure on things, we have Open Skies which will kill U.S. airline growth in terms of pilots jobs at about the same rate the supply of pilots is shrinking.
Incidentally, sorry for the earlier rant. This whole pilot contract stuff over here at AAI combined with that liberal USA today full-page article re. deregulation has gotten me pretty P.O.'d in general at where this profession has gone.
Didn't mean to insult anyone, just irritated that guys who could just as easily get an interview with a decent-paying Legacy or Cargo airline will take these kinds of salaries.
p.s. AirTran's 1st year pay is solidly middle of the pack at $45 an hour, not $28 or $32. Not that $45 is worth raving about, but it's not poverty level wage, either. Get your facts straight.
$45 per hr isn't poverty level??? For flying a gussied up DC-9 ? And you have the balls to jump all over that Lear 135 pilot for taking that job at UA??? Buddy, YGTBSM !!! Neither hourly rate is any thing to write home about. Nor do I think you have the right to complain about the bar not being raised when you call $45/hr "solidly middle of the pack" Talk about someone who needs to "get your facts straight".And beside Fed Ex or UPS,who today would you consider a "decent paying legacy or cargo carrier?" Seems to me that today that term is nothing more than an oxymoron,no?
PHXFLYR