Greatest Threat?

[FlyDeltasJets]

Without getting into a name-calling battle, anyone who proposes that the wage and benefit packages at the lcc's is not having an effect on the legacy carriers is, in my opinion, ignoring reality.

I'll let the rest of you continue with your pi$$ing fight. Before I go, I want to say that I find it extremely disconcerting how many pilots on this board seem to happily accept the demise of our once great profession. One would swear that this is a management board rather than one for pilots. It makes me very worried about our collective future. The race to the bottom has officially begun. I hope you'll pardon me if I am not fighting to come in first in this contest.

 

[46Driver]

If a person's self worth is measured solely with a $ sign, than Allen Iverson and the rest of the NBA are the most respectable people in America.....

 

[Beantown]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Greatest Threat?

. Beantown, we can talk N. Korea all you want once you have served your country!

Are you some kinda of psychic? How do you know I haven't? -Bean

 

[Jeff G]

Without getting into a name-calling battle, anyone who proposes that the wage and benefit packages at the lcc's is not having an effect on the legacy carriers is, in my opinion, ignoring reality.

I'll let the rest of you continue with your pi$$ing fight. Before I go, I want to say that I find it extremely disconcerting how many pilots on this board seem to happily accept the demise of our once great profession. One would swear that this is a management board rather than one for pilots. It makes me very worried about our collective future. The race to the bottom has officially begun. I hope you'll pardon me if I am not fighting to come in first in this contest.

Whatever. I'm pretty tired of this argument myself. But if you think that LCC's would go away if only nobody would work there, you may be the one with the reality problem. Reality is that there's precious little work to be had at any carrier other than LCC's and regionals. Knowing your stance about the growth of regional carriers, and about the growth of LCC's, I imagine you think that pilots should just collect unemployment rather than pollute their souls working for such unworthy employers.

Form a pilots guild and then your problems are solved. Borrow Doc Brown's De Lorean, go back to 1920 and let me know how it turns out. Short of that, I think this is just wishful thinking on your part. I sure don't have any answers for you.

 

[FlyDeltasJets]

Whatever. I'm pretty tired of this argument myself. But if you think that LCC's would go away if only nobody would work there, you may be the one with the reality problem. Reality is that there's precious little work to be had at any carrier other than LCC's and regionals. Knowing your stance about the growth of regional carriers, and about the growth of LCC's, I imagine you think that pilots should just collect unemployment rather than pollute their souls working for such unworthy employers.

Form a pilots guild and then your problems are solved. Borrow Doc Brown's De Lorean, go back to 1920 and let me know how it turns out. Short of that, I think this is just wishful thinking on your part. I sure don't have any answers for you.

Jeff,

I'm sorry if you found insult in my post. None was intended, and you might notice that I never once blamed any pilot for the current industy condition. I know full well that every pilot is doing the best he can do for his family and his future. However, I have attempted to point out that certain benefit and wage packages are putting undue pressure on existing CBA's. I don't have a solution for this, but I do know that one will never be found unless we admit that a problem exists. And it does exist, for all of us, whether people choose to admit it or not. For as soon as mgts are able to compete by undercutting salaries and benefits, other airlines will have no choice but to follow suit (as we are seeing at virtually every carrier as we speak). The race to the bottom has begun, and no one should think that they are immune from participating simply because they had a head start. It is a cycle, and unless we address it, it will continue, and it will affect every pilot at every airline.

Apparently, that doesn't concern many here, and those who it does concern are labled greedy. It's pretty scary.

 

[chawbein]

There are about a million factors making the industry what it is today. If you have a problem with so many pilots willing to "prostitute themselves out", then why don't you pilots as a group (and a powerefull group at that) put Kit Darby and the rest of these "aviation schools" out of business.

I'm dead serious about regulating the number of pilots. Shut down those P.O.S schools, and make your companies make contracts with just a few VERY REPUTABLE aviation schools, raise the standards to get in, make a degree and qualifying test (like the MCAT) a prerequisite. Then all hiring from whatever regionals will come from said schools, you get dudes (both guys and gals) who are motivated, and have worked very hard (not that they haven't now). Now you have just raised the standards for pilots and lowered the demand.

Oh well, what do I know....

 

[Jeff G]

Jeff,

I'm sorry if you found insult in my post.

None taken at all. I only intended to show the futility of taking a "moral" stance on working for a regional or LCC. You can take the "prostitution" theme too far, and that crosses the line. I'm as frustrated as you are, and as I said, I don't have any answers. I can see the writing on the wall, but don't know what can be done differently. No doubt boy wonders like 737G would just have us quit, and tread water at Home Depot (no wait, I'll just jump into a $125k/yr job until it blows over...) until a truly "worthy" job comes along, but that's not reasonable either.

Besides, all things considered, I really like what I do and the company I work for. I would probably stay even if everyone else was hiring by the bucketloads. That probably makes me weird from your standpoint; it certainly doesn't make me a "prostitute." Will I think differently in ten or twenty years? I don't know. I'll let you know in ten or twenty years. Unfortunately, very few of us are gifted with that kind of foresight, and I'm not one of them.

As far as the "race to the bottom" is concerned, I agree there is currently a lot of downward pressure on wages and working conditions, some of it coming from LCC's, but by no means all. Much of the industry is in survival mode, and emergency surgery is in progress to try to save the patient. But nobody stays in surgery forever (unfortunately some die first), and the dynamics are such that I don't think there will be an accelerating trend downward. There is always upward pressure, but for the moment it's not as critical as survival. When survival is no longer in doubt, then it will reassert itself. This is a deep low, yes, but still part of a cycle. IMHO of course. The details differ every time, but it's still the same pattern.

The trick is timing the cycle. United had lousy timing, and got their raise through methods that utterly alienated their customer base. They're paying for that mistake now. Delta is in much better shape, though it came a year later and was worth more. It's a stronger company, and DALPA didn't cause a summer from hell. In a way, it's a shame that contracts continue in perpetuity until amended under the RLA because in so many cases the timing favors management. After cuts, payback out to be due, but they can string you out for years under cut wages, then claim poverty (after years of record profits!) when they finally get around to negotiating seriously. Naturally, it only makes the pilots look greedy when they want their pay back, especially what times aren't so good anymore. Everyone conveniently forgets past sacrifices. I wonder if the ratcheting down of "real" wages has more to do with this dynamic (long periods of cuts, shorter periods of raises) than anything else. If there was a way to smooth the cycle, or react more quickly to market conditions (with wages somewhat tied to performance instead of locked in for 5-7 years at a time) instead of lagging by several years, that would help a great deal. It would take a lot of trust on all sides to make it work. Just thinking out loud, I could be way off.

 

[mar]

It's an interesting idea

Chawbein makes an interesting point--it might be worth starting a new thread and see how it plays out.

As for the pilot that would *turn down* a $300,000/yr job...well, you're looking at him.

That kind of money is obscene to work 14-21 days out of the month. It's obscene to require that much when you fly the most automated machine in the sky.

Everything has it's price. If you make that kind of money you will pay for it somewhere else.

I remember a discussion on a United flightdeck (I was jumpseating) several years ago after their last big negotiation. The copilot said to the captain, "I wish we would've pushed harder for more work rules and less money."

Ah, I thought. Here's someone who realizes size doesn't matter.

 

[CatYaaak]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Greatest Threat?

My plane only has 12 seats, so what should I be making? $12,000 per year?

Egads! And you have one more engine on your Falcon than I do on my Falcon, so that means I should only be making...uhhhhummm....hold on a sec <furiously hammering numbers into my calculator>....(gulp)..

$8,000 per year!

But wait a second, standby to hold short....if you take my REAL salary and divide it by the number of Falcon seats, and then multiply that $$amount by the seats in a Delta 777 and compare it to a Delta 777 Captain's salary...hmmm <again with the calculater taptaptap>...well, there you have it, plain as day, no doubt about it,.....

..DELTA CAPTAINS..INDEED ALL AIRLINE PILOTS.. ARE LOWERING THE BAR FOR PILOT SALARIES WHEN THEY ACCEPTED A PALTRY 300,000 PER YEAR! They should be making WELL OVER A COOL $3 MILLION PER YEAR!!!!

FlyDeltasJets, what kind of Company Kool-Aid are you guys guzzling over there in the 121 world anyway? Wouldja quit bickering with your brothers and start pulling your weight to preserve the proffesion? We're sick of carrying the entire load.

 

[jstyle13]

Always like this?

As someone who is trying to become an airline pilot and who is also fairly new to the boards...has it always been like this on the forums? Did people b!tch at each other all the time when things were good, or is it just part of the times? I know I don't deal with a lot of the issues you guys are facing with your jobs being that I'm still a lowly CFI and time builder, but I just was hoping that it hasn't always been like this. Seems like any time a new thread is started, it turns into a shouting match between people of different companies. One post mentioned that there is an overabundance of pilots on the market. One way to help stem that is to have them read some of the posts on this forum, might make some of those who aren't as diehard about it choose another profession. The more I read some of these posts, the more depressed I get about a future in aviation, although there's absolutely nothing else I want to do. Thanks.

 

[JediNein]

The greatest threat to aviation and life as we know it is the large coffee producers continually increasing the amount of cheap and bitter coffee beans into their finished product.

The large market of flavored creamers is supported by these producers because it allows them to get away with the poor taste of the cheaper beans.

Certain coffee-only shops have bought into the cheaper beans and the decline in taste of their product shows.

The awful taste of these cheap blend products will cause pilots to drink less coffee. Drinking less coffee is a potentially catastrophic event because there is a trickle down effect. The pilot is tired and makes a bad landing. This makes the CEO in back mad and he fires the pilot. As he also is drinking the sorry excuse for coffee, he immediately goes to his secretary and decides to fire 1/8th of the company. The remaining workers, drinking the only coffee they can afford, the cheap blends, are not as productive. Company profits are down, and the CEO gets ousted by an angry board of directors, whose tempers are short due to the miserable coffee drunk at their meetings. Soon the company has massive losses and their stock price drops. This drop in price changes modest gains in the market to another bear day. Investors are drinking the poor excuse of a cup of coffee and decide not to invest. This keeps the stock market spiralling downward and the economy in a recession, so another company can't get the funds to buy good quality coffee to stock on board their corporate aircraft. The pilot drinks less of the horrible murk and is tired. He makes a bad landing.

However, any producer that advertises 100% Aracabia beans are required to have only the more expensive Arcabias and have paid their growers the appropriate price. The coffees are less bitter and require fewer additives to be drinkable.

Fly SAFE!
Jedi Nein

 

[FlyDeltasJets]

Re: It's an interesting idea

As for the pilot that would *turn down* a $300,000/yr job...well, you're looking at him.

Falcon,

You looking for a master warning on the BS detector? Look no further.

 

[chawbein]

That's life, it ain't all roses. It's just talk...

 

[FlyDeltasJets]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Greatest Threat?

FlyDeltasJets, what kind of Company Kool-Aid are you guys guzzling over there in the 121 world anyway? Wouldja quit bickering with your brothers and start pulling your weight to preserve the proffesion? We're sick of carrying the entire load.

We're trying! You couldn't be more right, we are underpaid! Rest assured that there are plenty of people over here who want to see that corrected ASAP!

(that should get the "we're overpaid" whiners going!)

 

[FlyDeltasJets]

Jeff,

All good points, though I would like to point out that it was not I who ever made the prostitution analogy.

All I intended to do was to point out to a great many people in this industry who sing the praises of the lcc's as the "wave of the future" and mock us as "dinosaurs" is that the vauted "wave" is quite obviously coming with a pricetag. Many don't see that this new business model is putting massive downward pressures on all of our salaries, and the naivete concerns me. Perhaps they will notice the threat when the cycle lowers their salaries as well. Rest assured, that day is coming if we do not act. Denying there is a problem brings us no closer to a solution.

I do agree, however, that the lcc's are not the only pressures we are facing. Thanks for the response. Again, you make good points.

 

[CatYaaak]

Oops

I was so busy before giving irrefutable and ironclad proof that airline pilots are lowering the bar for the rest of us in terms of salary, that I forgot to answer the original question.

The biggest threat to aviation?

A: Accountants

 

[Floyd94]

put Kit Darby and the rest of these "aviation schools" out of business.

I'm dead serious about regulating the number of pilots. Shut down those P.O.S schools, and make your companies make contracts with just a few VERY REPUTABLE aviation schools, raise the standards to get in, make a degree and qualifying test (like the MCAT) a prerequisite. Then all hiring from whatever regionals will come from said schools, you get dudes (both guys and gals) who are motivated, and have worked very hard (not that they haven't now). Now you have just raised the standards for pilots and lowered the demand.

This is an outstanding idea thats probably not possible. As it is now, none of these flight schools have any standards to get in. The only ones that may have any kind of requirements are Purdue, Univ. of ILL., etc. Riddle, and some of these other weekend flight schools only requirements are wether or not you have the $$. With flight schools like that in business there is no way to regulate "who" can go through flight trainning.

 

[wil]

Hey Jstyle13- There is nothing "lowly" about your position as a CFI!!! Standup and be proud! Your probably are at the apex of your stick and rudder skills in a Cessna- enjoy! I got recurrent in a C-152 and it was not pretty, ha,ha!

As for pilot bitching, get used to it! It is part and parcel to the industry. No pilot is ever content, we are always wanting to fly bigger, faster aircraft for more pay- period! It is the people who due not appreciate their current situation that you have to worry about!

Welcome to an elite club of aviators, enjoy your time instructing, be a motivational force to your students and keep looking ahead!!

By the way, our POI in ATL will renew our CFI certs for line Captains because in his words, "if you are not teaching/mentoring your FO for the left seat you are not doing your job!"

Fly safe- Wil

 

[chawbein]

The AMA does it for doctors. Have some pride, you are a unique group of professionals, just as much as a doctor.

Use the bargaining power of your union to create an accreditation for certain schools who meet the standards that you lay out. Use the bargaining power of you union to make sure that your airline only takes pilots from an accredited system (flight school, military). Possibly since you have union shops at your airline, make it a requirement to become a member of ALPA to come from an accredited system.

IT CAN BE DONE, RAISE THE OUTSIDE PERCEPTION OF YOUR GROUP FROM GLORIFIED BUS DRIVER TO CERTIFIED PROFESSIONALS.

 

[CatYaaak]

I'm dead serious about regulating the number of pilots. Shut down those P.O.S schools, and make your companies make contracts with just a few VERY REPUTABLE aviation schools, raise the standards to get in, make a degree and qualifying test (like the MCAT) a prerequisite. Then all hiring from whatever regionals will come from said schools, you get dudes (both guys and gals) who are motivated, and have worked very hard (not that they haven't now). Now you have just raised the standards for pilots and lowered the demand.

I dunno, man. I think Aeroflot had this very same, basic setup.

 

[Floyd94]

Beleive me, I would be the first to vote for this. However, there are too many people, including Union people that have all received their tickets through these "POS flight schools" and would never even consider this as something worth voting on. Unfortunately, very few of us think this way, hell half these guys don't even have undergrad degrees.

 

[Jeff G]

Jeff,

All good points, though I would like to point out that it was not I who ever made the prostitution analogy.

Indeed, you did not. Still, I don't want you to think that LCC pilots are intentionally causing downward pressure, or that there's no awareness that this is taking place. FWIW, as far as upward pressure is concerned, I am quite certain that if and when the economy turns around, a number of pilots at JetBlue and others will desert for Delta, etc. if pay and working conditions are not satisfactory. That is a strong upward force that always exists in a recovery. Maybe I'm a hopeless optimist, but I don't think the race to the bottom is an ever-accelerating slide, just the downstroke of a cycle. Give it time. Thanks for your comments.

 

[Jeff G]

The AMA does it for doctors. Have some pride, you are a unique group of professionals, just as much as a doctor.

Use the bargaining power of your union to create an accreditation for certain schools who meet the standards that you lay out. Use the bargaining power of you union to make sure that your airline only takes pilots from an accredited system (flight school, military). Possibly since you have union shops at your airline, make it a requirement to become a member of ALPA to come from an accredited system.

IT CAN BE DONE, RAISE THE OUTSIDE PERCEPTION OF YOUR GROUP FROM GLORIFIED BUS DRIVER TO CERTIFIED PROFESSIONALS.

This is a good idea in theory, but I don't know how to get there from here. Union support alone wouldn't do it. You would have to make it illegal to fly airliners without such board approval just as it's illegal to practice medicine without it. A century ago, doctors were hacks, by and large, but strict board requirements raised standards (and pay) which had enormous impact for the public good. An airline pilot licensing board would be a hard sell precisely because we're already very good at our jobs without it. I'm not sure you want to make the case that we have a lot of hacks flying airliners.

 

[ACWild]

As a company grows, all salaried employees get raises, not just pilots. As costs go up, companies have to find bigger markets to support them. Southwest and many of the regional carriers have stated that their biggest competition is cars. If ticket prices cross a fine line that people are willing to pay, then the company will lose passengers. No passengers = no salary.
Maybe salaries should be tied to the CEOs salary. If the company can afford to give him a 30% raise, then they can afford to give everyone the same percentage.
There are alot of well-paid senior pilots out there who would expect a pay raise at the cost of losing many of the junior pilots during hard times. How is it preserving the profession when their airlines go belly up?
Is a furloughed USAirways pilot going to make more if he flies for JB or if he waits to get a recall? Maybe he should be a martyr and stay unemployed until a high salary airline gives him a call, I'm sure his family will understand. God forbid if someone will take a job with 15 days off a month for less than 150k. (I'm being sarcastic).

 

[chawbein]

What percentage of airline pilots are ALPA members?

 

[flywithastick]

You're on the right track. Engineer's (barely) protect themselves with state licensing. Accountants do a little better, etc. ALPA and others interested should lobby the gubment to create a super ATP or just make ATP's harder to get.

Work smart and change from the top.

Here's another take on the salary perception issue. It's healthy for an employee to believe they're worth more than what they're being paid. If you ever think you're making enough, then you're probably getting too much.

Got this speech from one of my first bosses when he handed me my raise for that year. He had an excellent point, but I still thought the raise sucked. All this is of course secondary to market forces.

 

[CatYaaak]

The AMA does it for doctors. Have some pride, you are a unique group of professionals, just as much as a doctor.

Use the bargaining power of your union to create an accreditation for certain schools who meet the standards that you lay out. Use the bargaining power of you union to make sure that your airline only takes pilots from an accredited system (flight school, military). Possibly since you have union shops at your airline, make it a requirement to become a member of ALPA to come from an accredited system.

IT CAN BE DONE, RAISE THE OUTSIDE PERCEPTION OF YOUR GROUP FROM GLORIFIED BUS DRIVER TO CERTIFIED PROFESSIONALS.

Just a couple counterpoints, chabein:

1) Are you aware that approximately 40,000 people UNNECESSARILY die each year die in hospitals (those are those big buildings with doctors)? I don't think pilots want to be that unique as a group, nor would I be proud of it.

2) Instead of using this "accredited system" moniker for your union-approved-and-enforced, utopian pipeline to the airlines you envision, let's just call them what they are; "Re-education camps". Sure, Pol Pot, Mao, and other illustrious standard-bearers of similar socialist brainchilds used this label, but they're dead so they can't sue you.

Of course, to be true to the ideal (and to history), you will have to "purge" those current members of ALPA who came through a pipeline that lacked the filtering system you describe. After all, they are obviously suspect and could well be regarded as contaminants. As the saying goes; "If you mix clean water with dirty water, all you get is more dirty water".

3) This last one is a toughie...."Raise the outside perception of your group..etc..". Unfortunately, outside perceptions are often driven by the actual VERY FEW bad apples that exhibit VERY REAL STUPIDITY. For instance, how many pilots have been caught reporting for work airline-legal-drunk since 9-11? 4 or 5? more? I quit counting, but every incident shows up in the media. Who caught them?...pilots, monitoring their peers in the interests of safety? Nope, the friggin TSA caught them. Government screeners. Digest that for a moment...some pilots have actually succeeded in making government employees look good!

Trust me, even if you had cadres of spit-polished, "best and brightest" ALPA-larva marching in parades down every main street in America, it would do nothing to heal the damage the repeated gut-punches to the imagine these drinking incidents inflicted. Ufair? Possibly. Has ALPA done enough PR to engage this issue to the public's satisfaction..showing that they are maximizing their efforts to solve this internally? Its seems to me that there are more statements issued, more interviews, and more copy given to salaries, cuts, furloughes etc (INSIDER stuff)....than addressing this perception outsiders may have.

Returning to your physician analogy, a lot of outsiders would say in answer to your complaint about image; Dr., Heal theyself.

 

[chawbein]

1. That arguement does not apply.

2. I'm not sure why you have linked the idea with dictators' death camps, but to counter that I'll try to be more clear. If you are going to have schools that take people from zero to hero, they should have some sort of accreditation. When someone goes to a college that is not an accredited institution they've gotten a worthless shingle for alot of money. These "schools" are pumping numerous pilots with minimum qualifications who are willing to do anything to get into a flying job including PAYING FOR THE TIME. This oversupply of pilots brings down the price (compensation). By making the process to get into one of these schools higher, you limit the amount of people who will pass through therefore lowering the supply and raising the price. The whole process I'm talking about is for your "Airline Academies".

Outside of that I suppose you could require an ATP to fly for the airlines, and change the process for getting your ATP to include attending an accredited course. Do you see what I'm getting at?

3. I agree that ALPA has sh!t for P.R., I kind of digressed earlier.

That's about all I can answer for now, I have to get back to work.

 

[metrodriver]

Do pilots have to make $300.000/ year? no. $200.000? no. less than $40.000 no. The high end is way too high, yet there are way too many pilots working for peanuts. There is no reason why an f/o should be paid less than$20.000 a year, or even what first year pay is at most majors. I have some friends working at some high tech companies. They spent the same amount of time in school, are sitting safely behind a desk, and bring home at least $60.000 a year and didn't put themselfs in deep debt for flight training. If I tell them how much I make (about a third of their salary) they shake their head in disbelief. (maybe I should have gone into electronics, but I just like to have an office that moves).
And the problem with aviation now is caused by high salaries. It's caused by the airlines not collectively charging enough for the product they offer. Raise the $200.- ticket price by a hundred dollars and suddenly everybody is out of the red. No reason to see major airline tickets being cheaper than SWA or jet blue

 

[chawbein]

What happens to demand with that $300 dollar ticket? Will the same amount of people fly for a higher price? I dont' know.