Are regionals really worth it...something to ponder

[Clyde]

I did..........and I have a wonderful job. Something that I never dreamed of, and I'm not in an office....I'm still flying, but at my convenience......with a decent savings account.

Again....I just want us to think...be an advocate for your career....write to congress....FAA.....don't let ALPA do all of your work. It won't get better if you have pilots willing to accept lower and lower pay. When you're not flying spread the word about conditions at your airline. Become more knowledgeable in the corporate/economic system. I have not run across many pilots pounding the pavement on their off days advocating for higher wages. There is some job security in your seniority number, RIGHT.

There is only one way to get the wages you want and that is through negotiations. As I said before on another thread, you don't earn what you think you are worth, you earn what you can negotiate.

The FAA and Congress could care less about anybody's salaries, so I don't know what a letter-writing campaign would accomplish. If ALPA isn't working out for you, tell them to pound sand and form your own in-house union.

Bottom line is this: nobody but the wage-earner cares about how much pilots are getting paid.

 

[SkyBoy1981]

Okay...why is it that some of you who decide to change careers at mid life are now all pissed off that you're stuck in an RJ flying for nothing? I mean, come on, did you not plan or do any research before you got into this business? Is it everyone else's fault that you're 35 years old in the right seat of an RJ and you can't be home every night, getting weekends off, and making 100k a year? The way I see it, if you decide to change careers and start into aviation older than 25 then its your own fault if you're not living the life that you want in your 30's. If your act had been together at an earlier age perhaps you wouldn't still be living at the bottom end of the industry. There may be some out there that truely started at an early age but due to bad circumstances are still stuck at the bottom. For those people I do have compassion, but it seems that a large majority who complain so often about pay and being away from home didn't start working towards a flying career until their late 20's or early 30's. Flame away..but I just call it how I see it.

 

[PoorJetDriver]

There are lot of guys I am flying with that were hired by majors in their 20's and are still flying RJ's. They had their "act" together and look what happened when their employer started circling the drain.

 

[falcon20driver]

Don't you hate it when reality just completely f$$ks your argument?

Those numbers arn't very realistic Ralgha, apparently you haven't seen a railroad engineers W2. My brother pulls in 100K a year easy, and that's from year 1, a 1 year engineer makes the same as a 30 year engineer, you get paid for the job you do, not how many years you've been doing it.

 

[100LL... Again!]

We are in a time warp.....blinded by our focus on short-term goals (Will I hold a line next month? Will we get 20 shiny-new jets? Will I upgrade in 6 months or 6 years?)

But 10 or 20 years from now, it will become clear that the "Regional Airline" days of glory were borne out of a mirage that promised young aviators a start in a career with a happy ending that never came....

Ain't that the truth. Americans used to think longer term - now it is me, me, me, I want it now, now, now.

 

[100LL... Again!]

What does it say a CFI makes?

 

[FN FAL]

There is only one way to get the wages you want and that is through negotiations. As I said before on another thread, you don't earn what you think you are worth, you earn what you can negotiate.

The FAA and Congress could care less about anybody's salaries, so I don't know what a letter-writing campaign would accomplish. If ALPA isn't working out for you, tell them to pound sand and form your own in-house union.

Bottom line is this: nobody but the wage-earner cares about how much pilots are getting paid.

You can negotiate all you want, the real clincher is how many customers are there going to be for your product and are they willing to pay for it.

N.O. alone furloghed over 3,000 municipal workers...yea, it's Katrina related, but there's 3,000 or more vacations that won't be happening this year. Detroit laid off a bunch of municipal workers, MKE county is laying off a huge chunk of municipal workers.

Georgia Pacific is laying off a ton and a lot of those are jobs that were once considered vouchsafed against even the worst economic times. Detroit is scaling back and letting people go.

Raise the airline ticket costs to cover fuel increases, pay the airline workers what they deserve and you'll still see layoffs industry wide...because the market for the product is shrinking. Analysts were predicting an overcapcity in the airline industry two years before 9/11, by the way.

 

[SkyBoy1981]

There are lot of guys I am flying with that were hired by majors in their 20's and are still flying RJ's. They had their "act" together and look what happened when their employer started circling the drain.

Yes, and that is why I made a statement in my post regarding those people. I wasn't referring to them at all. They just had a truely bad set of circumstances.

 

[Ralgha]

Those numbers arn't very realistic Ralgha, apparently you haven't seen a railroad engineers W2. My brother pulls in 100K a year easy, and that's from year 1, a 1 year engineer makes the same as a 30 year engineer, you get paid for the job you do, not how many years you've been doing it.

Tell that to the U.S. Department of Labor, which is where I got the numbers.

One person's earnings from one company does not affect the validity of my numbers. Must I remind you that what I posted are AVERAGES and PERCENTILES. Obviously there are going to be people above those numbers, AS WELL AS BELOW.

 

[Ralgha]

What does it say a CFI makes?

They don't have a seperate category for a CFI that I can find. Therefore I think they are grouped in with "Teachers and Instructors, All Other" with a mean annual wage of $33,100.

Actually, they might be included with "Commercial Pilots" which is described as "Pilot and navigate the flight of small fixed or rotary winged aircraft, primarily for the transport of cargo and passengers. Requires Commercial Rating. Include aircraft instructors with similar certification"

In that case the mean annual wage is $62,290.

Before you bitch and moan about how inaccurate it is, realize how broad that category is.