Declining Glories: The Airline Career

[jonjuan]

You all make it sound like if you get out of aviation.....WHAM! You will be making 200K. It's amusing. I know people that make more money than I do and I know people that make less. The majority of the people I know that make more either work their a$$ off or do things that would make me want to shoot myself. In any case, to each his own.

Bingo. The averge person with an MBA will top out at $125k a year and more than likely will hate their job. What percentage of major airline pilots quit their job to do something else? I guarantee the percentage is miniscule as compared to a professional in any other industry.

 

[jonjuan]

The CEO of Home Depot just got fired for doing a bad job . . . and he got $200 million dollars severance. Corporate greed has run amock in this United States, aided by their friends in the Democratic and Republican Parties. Just look at the huge payouts that the elite managers at American Airlines are opening their bank personal vaults wide to receive.

If CEOs didn't make obscene amounts of money and made more like $500,000, WN, FDX, DAL, UPS pilots wouldn't be making 1/2 of what they do.

 

[VABB]

The avaerge person with an MBA will top out at $125k a year and more than likely will hate their job. What percentage of major airline pilots quit their job to do something else? I guarantee the percentage is miniscule as compared to a professional in any other industry.

In most other professions, one is usually able to change jobs/careers while not sacrificing much, if any of their current income in the process. Also, there may be a high number of careers/positions availabe for someone with a particular degree. i.e., a person with a CPA isn't relegated to only doing taxes for the rest of their careers.

On the other hand, most pilots don't have many skills outside of the cockpit that can be utilized in a different, but lucrative career. Some do, but most do not. There are many doctors, lawyers, CPA's, etc. who fly as a hobby and could enter the profession, but you find very few pilots who practice medicine, law, or accounting on the weekends.

In other words, the reason a lot of us don't just pick up and leave flying is because most of us are "stuck" in it and don't have much of a choice. I also very much agree that many of the office drones with MBA's and good salaries dislike their jobs as well. I think it goes without saying that most of those folks are just in it for the money and view their jobs as just jobs.

 

[Black Hawk]

The pilot profession is a top down structure. It is not the bottom and those entering the business that have ruined it. The bottom can not be controlled. The top can. ALPA has no control over pay for train, requirements of types of get the job, or non-union companies.

What ALPA does have control over is NWA, DAL, US Air, CAL, UAUA, Pinnacle, XJT, Mesaba, MESA, Air Wisky, Alaska, and the others who should be commanding the standards. The profession's standards are not determined from the bottom but the top of these ALPA controlled companies.

ALPA, under REZ, failed to hold the line, and make the sacrifices needed. If one or two of those companies needed to fail to keep the standards at the others so be it. Instead ALPA aligned everyone with the lowest common denominator. We will see if the new ALPA leaders make the tough decisions needed.

Leadershiop from the top is the only hope. ALPA is top down organization. There will always be a bottom but its the top standards that define the direction of the profession.

Good post! It's about time someone got it right here.

 

[jonjuan]

I interpreted your original post, below, as stating that pilots are high pay. You will have a hard time convincing others that you meant otherwise.




I may like flying airplanes, but I'm sick and tired of people accepting lower wages just because it's a job that they enjoy. There are plenty of professions where people enjoy their jobs. I enjoy my current job. It doesn't mean that I'm going to whore myself out for low wages just because I enjoy the job. That is scablike behavior.

Uh uh, and when you were flying that KC135 around as the PIC, you were making what, $75K? You did this in the military becasue it was a job that you enjoyed, no doubt, yet you took it in part knowing that it was a means to an end and this low paying experience was invaluable in getting the ultimately higher paying career. How is this any different?

 

[VABB]

I may like flying airplanes, but I'm sick and tired of people accepting lower wages just because it's a job that they enjoy. There are plenty of professions where people enjoy their jobs. I enjoy my current job. It doesn't mean that I'm going to whore myself out for low wages just because I enjoy the job. That is scablike behavior.

I think the IRS refers to that as a hobby. Good post Andy.

 

[FlyinScotsman]

Huh

If CEOs didn't make obscene amounts of money and made more like $500,000, WN, FDX, DAL, UPS pilots wouldn't be making 1/2 of what they do.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. Is it.... that we need CEO's making obscene amounts of money to run said companies? That is the only way of attracting the best and brightest. Or does it justify the pay of the pilots....because my CEO makes 2,000,000 a year and I being the super sharp captain that I am must be worth a quarter of that? I am not sure I follow your logic

 

[ferlo]

..............

 

[jonjuan]

I am not sure what you are trying to say. Is it.... that we need CEO's making obscene amounts of money to run said companies? That is the only way of attracting the best and brightest. Or does it justify the pay of the pilots....because my CEO makes 2,000,000 a year and I being the super sharp captain that I am must be worth a quarter of that? I am not sure I follow your logic

Nope, just simple supply and demand economics in a capitalistic society. You don't have an environment in which management can make a ton of money, you don't have an environment in which labor can make decent money.

 

[clr4theapch]

Its the same thing in the dispatch community, in fact its worse....we are stuck in an office....the pay rates have fallin off the edge of the world....there are less than 2500 dispatchers working for part 121 airlines, only the top 5% earn over $60K....most of them have taken hugh cuts.....the regional airlines are a joke anymore...My son recently got his dispatch license and was offered several interviews..According to him Skywest and ASA pays the very best at $14.92,hr to start...he was offered an interview with Mesa as well, they pay a whopping $10.89 an hour...how in the heck can anyone even live on that these days, needless to say he has not accepted any work as of yet, he is furthing his education with an MBA and other industry in mind....I have been dispatching over 10 years, and have taken cuts, I saw the writting on the wall in 2000 and I have been looking ahead to get out of the business by going in to other business ownership ....I will miss aviation...but as the original poster stated, the glory, the fantasy and love of the airlines has been gone for a long time....we are all just now realizing it.....I for one hope to be out this year.... rent a 182 once in awhile to scratch the aviation itch.

 

[learflyer]

Bingo. The averge person with an MBA will top out at $125k a year and more than likely will hate their job. quote]


The pay might top out there, but usually, they have year end bonuses that come into play. Sometimes, even more than there salary.

 

[pilotyip]

Correction Andy

"This is still a great career, to be paid in the upper 5% of US income earners to do something you like. Most people will never experience that.
Now if you do not like flying this is a terrible job".
This post was incomplete. According the US Census Bureau Individual Income for the highest paid group published in Oct 2002 on page 26. White Non Hispanic Males upper 5% was $150K/yr, upper 10% $116K/yr, upper 20% $82K/yr. This is counter Andy's claim of household income versus my posting of individual income.

 

[800Dog]

"This is still a great career, to be paid in the upper 5% of US income earners to do something you like. Most people will never experience that.
Now if you do not like flying this is a terrible job".
This post was incomplete. According the US Census Bureau Individual Income for the highest paid group published in Oct 2002 on page 26. White Non Hispanic Males upper 5% was $150K/yr, upper 10% $116K/yr, upper 20% $82K/yr. This is counter Andy's claim of household income versus my posting of individual income.

First, your data is old. Second, looks to me like the average airline pilot in the US is in the top 20% as 82k is about the average pay for US pilots. Am I missing something yip? By the way, you sound like a broken record.

 

[Tejas-Jet]

Leadership from the top is the only hope. ALPA is top down organization. There will always be a bottom but its the top standards that define the direction of the profession.

ALPA is not a top down organization. It is structured so that the line pilot has input into how the organization works. Ever heard of Resolutions? It is resolutions that are brought forth at LEC meetings that make their way to the MEC level and eventually to the ALPA BOD level. Of course, some resolutions get voted down at the LEC level too. You find out real quick if you are on the right path....or wayyyyy out in left field when your peers get to vote on your resolution.

In the recent past we saw lots of complaining about Duane Woerth's pay on these boards...but did anybody bring forth a resolution at their local LEC meeting? Nahhhh, they just complained about it....or didn't think it was important enough to commute in on a day off to even participate in the discussion much less, vote on it.

Leadership doesn't start at the top. It comes from within....either you are a leader...or you are a follower, waiting for someone else to show some leadership because the individual is either afraid....or wayyyyy out in left field...only one way to find out....jump in there and take control of your association...

Hoping for leadership from the top?....sheesh....no wonder the contracts look the way they do...too many Pilots looking for others to be leaders.

Tejas

 

[luckytohaveajob]

ALPA is not a top down organization. It is structured so that the line pilot has input into how the organization works. Ever heard of Resolutions? It is resolutions that are brought forth at LEC meetings that make their way to the MEC level and eventually to the ALPA BOD level. Of course, some resolutions get voted down at the LEC level too. You find out real quick if you are on the right path....or wayyyyy out in left field when your peers get to vote on your resolution.

In the recent past we saw lots of complaining about Duane Woerth's pay on these boards...but did anybody bring forth a resolution at their local LEC meeting? Nahhhh, they just complained about it....or didn't think it was important enough to commute in on a day off to even participate in the discussion much less, vote on it.

Leadership doesn't start at the top. It comes from within....either you are a leader...or you are a follower, waiting for someone else to show some leadership because the individual is either afraid....or wayyyyy out in left field...only one way to find out....jump in there and take control of your association...

Hoping for leadership from the top?....sheesh....no wonder the contracts look the way they do...too many Pilots looking for others to be leaders.

Tejas

So if I proposed a resolution at my LEC meeting to stop the age 60 eduction campaign because the issue has already been decided by the 2005 vote and it was seconded and passed at my LEC meeting, ALPA national would fall in line with the wishes of my LEC?

What dream world are you living in? ALPA national tells ALPA MECs what to do. And the ALPA MEC sure do not follow what the LEC want much less the individual pilot.

ALPA national sets the tone of what ALPA business gets done. ALPA national has allowed the pattern bargaining of lowering contract standards. ALPA national has allowed age 60 to fester into a possible civil war.

Our only hope for the future is what John Prater and his cohorts are going to do next.

 

[pilotyip]

Still a great career

800dog, latest I could find, $82K is low for a career pilot, and maybe average at a regional, but top 10% is very doable in this business. BTW I am a broken record when is comes to being enthusiastic about this career, it is still a great career and the money is good by the standards of the rest of the wages earners in the US, thne on top of it to be blessed doing something you like. Like I have said before, if you want to be filthy rich, don't be pilot.

 

[800Dog]

800dog, latest I could find, $82K is low for a career pilot, maybe average at a regional, but top 10% is very doable in this business.

Yip, I would be willing to bet that the average pilot in the US makes around 82k. Sure, there are some making 300k but, they are by far the minority and most will never see that kind of income. We could start an our own poll and see what most folks on this board made in 2006. I have been flying over 17 years with 11 years in the airline business and made 96k in 2006 working for a major airline. I think you will be surprised how little the average guy is making. Please stop doing a disservice to young people considering a career in aviation by telling them the pay is something it is not. They need to get all the education they can no matter what path they choose. By the way, your previous quote stated top 5%. Now you are saying top 10%? What gives? Finally seeing the light?

 

[BOOZENEWS]

it would take you 10 years and quite a bit of luck. For every one of these jobs, 50 people started the journey.

God I absolutly love the deep seeted apathy and self loathing that I see here as well as by many others on this thread as if events in ones life are based largely on luck and pure chance. This attitude resembles stockholm syndrome and is reminicent of many battered women!!

With A VERY FEW EXCEPTIONS most of peoples career accomplishments are anything but luck!! They actually got off their butt and did something to chance their life unlike many here who yell into the dark and whine like a 6 year old kid who can't have a lollipop!!

 

[BOOZENEWS]

On the other hand, most pilots don't have many skills outside of the cockpit that can be utilized in a different, but lucrative career. Some do, but most do not.

Wait I thought over 90% of all pilots at the majors have a 4 year degree, yet you make this statement. Start a side business on the internet that can be run on your days off, not to mention from your hotel room!! While you probably won't get rich, you will likely add a decent suppliment to your airline salary that you could set aside for a furlough fund. C'mon people see the trees for the forest!!

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

So if I proposed a resolution at my LEC meeting to stop the age 60 eduction campaign because the issue has already been decided by the 2005 vote and it was seconded and passed at my LEC meeting, ALPA national would fall in line with the wishes of my LEC?


What you are suggesting is that one pilot can change the entire course with one document at one meeting. If that were so then nothing would get done because everyone would be counter-resolution-ing each other.

Can you go to the floor of the House or Senate and introduce a bill? No, but yet you can do it at ALPA and effect change.

The kicker.. you have to politically savvy and well organized.

What dream world are you living in? ALPA national tells ALPA MECs what to do. And the ALPA MEC sure do not follow what the LEC want much less the individual pilot.

Well they certainly don't follow radical pilots or aloof pilots that show up to meetings with a shotty resolution looking to effect massive change from minimal effort.

Do you really want to belong to an organization where pilots can implement radical or even moderate change instantly?

Look if you want to change something it will take a lot of work. Basically before you bring a resolution to a meeting you have to know how the vote will go down. So, to do so, you have politick the vote. You have to get as many people as you can on your side of the fence. That takes alot of work. because in order to get pilots on your side you have to ensure your resolution is water tight.

If you want it to carry on, then you need to work the other LEC's and get them to work the resolution at thier Council. Are you getting exhausted already thinking about all the work it involves?

Gee, maybe the volunteers aren't so bad...



ALPA national sets the tone of what ALPA business gets done. ALPA national has allowed the pattern bargaining of lowering contract standards. ALPA national has allowed age 60 to fester into a possible civil war.

Who is ALPA National? I can tell you the four guys don't have the power, time or skills to make sweeping changes as you state. The BOD makes direction on a macro level to the EVP's and National.

Age60 dosn't have to be a civil war, unless you make it one. Can you focus on the issues and not get emotional or personal?

Our only hope for the future is what John Prater and his cohorts are going to do next.

So you have it all pinned on Prater. Sorry, Prater is one man. If we are going to get this career back it is going to take alot more than one guy. The entire membership is going to have to stop putting it all on one guy, except themselves.

Putting it all onto Ptater is simply sitting in the stands watching your career playout. You are a spectator to your own career.

But the choice is yours YOU CAN be a player!