hmmm

[CatYaaak]

"
No it doesn't; college teaches you to think critically, organize and prioritize your thoughts and actions. It also helps if your writing and math skills are developed above the high school level.

And sometimes 4 years of college even brings writing and math skills on a par with the high school level. And I heartily agree with you on the thinking, organizing, and prioritizing thing you learn there......

"Ok guys it's almost last call, who wants another pitcher?"

"Maybe we should go over to the River's Edge, I just remembered it's ladies night and everyone's probly pretty wasted"

"We'll never make it in time, hey we're out of beer back at the house and the stores are gonna close!"

"&$@#!"

"%#*x!!"

"%#$#@!!!"

"Ok", (thinking quickly...critically... through the beer fog, organizing and prioritizing) "You two get over there and tell every girl you see we're having a party and find a ride back. We'll head out right now and get a keg, wine coolers, and some Everclear. We'll meet back at the house in an hour. Yeah....Paaaaarty!"........

 

[RegionalFA]

REGIONAL FA:

Do me a favor.

Read my last posting again. Then ask someone to come in and read your response to my posting.

If that person agrees that you make any sense at all, then I promise I will try to understand what you're talking about.

you're right, you used two FO's and I just managed to process FO vs. captain. That is, by all means, my mistake.


The $1.62 makes sense, except as I said, the person taking money from passengers in a regional field isn't the person paying the crews.


(and unfotunately, the ones in the back think that their $250 is insanely high. I had a pax throw it in my face that they paid $200 round trip and that they deserved more than what was offered. YOu'd be suprised how penny pinching they are even when it's just another $1.50. They'd start doing the math and come up with "That's $100 a flight more that they're making, they don't spend that!!!!" even if you showed them the crew and handed the pilot the money in front of them...

there's theory and there's reality.

In theory, communism is an ideal form of government. In theory...

 

[CatYaaak]

And BTW, just as we might infer that someone with no education does not value it,....

Of course if you do indeed infer this, it's wholly your own (not "we" as you put it), and an inference that has certainly not been supported via any logical means. You have no facts to base this on. Now, if you charge ahead and try and bolster what has now essentially become a false premise through the use of yet another unproven inference by pretending the aforementioned is axiomatic...well....now you've just compounded your anti-Aristotlean sins! So if I let your primary statement pass by unchallenged, the danger is that you won't be able to resist the temptation to create and put forth a hypothesis based on false premises that in the end amounts to nothing more than a enormous heap of Ivory Tower horsesh1t.

 

[MJG]

Ok. let me try this again........how does everyone feel about the current path of the industry????? Does anyone have any suggestions on what might help the industry in the right direction??????

Current path of the industry = SCARY

Disclaimer: This is only my opinion, flame away if you must but it's just my worthless opinion.

What might help this industry??? Couple of things in my opinion. Let United and USAir die already. This is a very harsh thing to say and even harsher for the govt to do. But......It would help the industry out tremendously, there are too many airlines producing the same exact product right now, not good for supply and demand. Finally get rid of the JetBlue's, Airtran's and Southwest's of the industry. While making nice profits right now each one is single handedly bringing down the rest of the industry slowly but surely. For Christ's sake JB is charging $79 one way from JFK to FLL. $79 !! It would cost more if you rode Greyhound. How can anyone, majors or regionals, compete with this???

 

[Doggiepaddle]

How about a tip jar at the front of the aircraft. The announcement can go something like this,

"....and if you enjoyed the flight and safe landing, please don't forget to show your gratitude to the starving crew. It will be greatly appreciated."

I'd say we can easily get the $1.62, and maybe even more. Truth is, we are in great supply, and there are D!PSH!TZ that will fly for nothing. Until we fix that , nothing will change. The public does need to be educated!!!!!

 

[acaTerry]

The FMS is MUCH easier. And yes I have managed to listen to ATIS, get a clearance, read it back AND put the flight plan in ALL at the same time.

Where? I'll bet it wasn't at PIT, IAD, JFK, EWR, LGA, PHL, ORD, etc. You are conspicuously quiet about the other tasks at hand in my challenge.....

And something else I ask you Mr. Intelligencia Computer Man, How can you compare the task of computer programming in a free-time environment to SCHEDULED airline flying? Or to the guy flying boxes in a half-fixed old crate of an airplane in hardball IFR all alone?

I have a working knowledge in C, C++ and C#. It is mathematically logical how code is entered. My brother in law has a curriculum vitae of languages and code that make you look like a TRS 80 student and he is the first to admit that not only is advanced flying (something you aparrently have yet to experience) more demanding, but also that it takes a more level-headed type of approach. If you are having a tough time with your programming, you go and take a break or even call it a day. If we are having a tough time with storms, ice or whatever, we can't just take that break and wait until we feel ready to face it.

You're "howl monkey" or whatever you call it...so you can teach someone to pass a commercial checkride...Big Deal! I've given some 3000 or so hours of dual-given and one of the things I've learned from it is this-----the commercial pilot license teaches NOTHING about being a COMMERCIAL pilot. The commercial pilot checkride is nothing more than an advanced private pilot checkride. I think a better gauge of skill is the pass rate of Instrument students. After all, instrument flying is the heart and blood of professional flying.
Professionalism is something that has to be developed form the outside of flight training, and frankly, it looks to me like you have a long way to go.

I agree with you in theory that we need to make the positions harder to get, but you will not like my reasons why or how. I think we need to make the job requirements higher. Raise not the license requirements with useless things like a college degree (I have one--so stop in your tracks), but rather raise the entry level requirements. 2000 hours to get an airline job. Since we have been seeing 1000 hour pilots coming in and upgrading in 1.5 years, we get things like this high-schoolish message board. Maturity comes through taking your knocks on the way up, not from getting something because you THINK you deserve it. My 5 year old child is capable of that. PROVE you deserve a job and EARN the respect of your peers.

In summary, the reason we get lousy pay, lousy work rules, and less respect for what we do is this: We bring it on ourselves. People like you, Don, who have such wisdom to bestow on people when you are NOT EVEN THERE YET. People who got the job fast and easy, and as a result of this have little self respect or respect for their position BECAUSE THEY GOT IT EASY. They feel that they deserve the equivalent of fry-cook pay to fly a $28,000,000.00 jet. Why? Because they did not EARN that job. They made money in computers, and so they get the job pretty easily compared to the guys who got it by earning it. Who do I have more respect for? The guy who was a CFI and flew his rear-end off at starvation wages, trying to get any little bit of information that he can, then flew freight for a year or two and THEN got into the regionals? Or the guy who made his money in computers, then decided to fly because "it looked like a fun career" and was LUCKY enough to get in the industry while it was in a hiring mode (all the while telling everyone who IS in the aviation profession how stupid and unworthy they are because programming is so hard)? Who do you think LOVES flying more and will do do their utmost to keep the airline profession respectable and lucrative?
I think you know where you fit, Don. Please, try to LEARN about this field before you go and make it worse. You have a few hours, but in terms of being a PROFESSIONAL, you need some work.

 

[vmc-hound]

What about b-pay scales for two years for new hire fo's?

 

[sbav8r]

Educate the newbies before they reach the line. Aviation students should be taght management stradegy and be required to read Flying the Line.

Have programs for pilots to switch airlines without having to start at the bottom. Before you freak over this, allow me to explain. Training costs the company a lot of money. If CA's or FO's are leaving for better pay the employer will be forced to have attractive salaries to keep training costs down. Arrangements could be made between various pilot groups for transfer. It's a potential alternative to a strike.

 

[Don]

Anger issues Terry,

Like I said, maybe its just hard for YOU to listen to ATIS at a busy airport, get a clearence, taxi, load the flight plan and make a call on the PA at the same time. And imagine there is a checklist to complete at the same time! And I suppose you might also find it difficult to keep track of time while you are doing all that, but for me, its not so difficult. You might also find the two to three hours of watching the autopilot on light challanging, but again, a lot of folks don't.

Now we might agree on the hours issue, I think the problem starts with 250 hour CFIs.

But the REAL problem is, any idiot can get a job as a pilot and be successful at it. And like I've said before, 99.99999% of the time, it won't matter that an idiot was at the controls.

 

[BoilerUP]

Educate the newbies before they reach the line. Aviation students should be taght management stradegy and be required to read Flying the Line.

I agree...although I'd say Flying the Line vol. 2 and Hard Landing might be more timely and easier to read. All three are quality books that should be MANDATORY reading for all new pilots.


As long as CFIs are paid $9.57 (my summer wage) to instruct, they are going to bail to a job flying cargo in junk twins for $60/night.

As long as people fly cargo in junk twins for $60/night, people are going to bail to be a 19 seat turboprop FO for $18/hr.

As long as people *think* they might upgrade quickly, people will fly as a 19 seat turboprop FO for less than $21/hr or an RJ for less than $27/hr into their second and third year.

As long as people are willing to fly as an RJ Captain for $45/hr, they are going to bail to be an A320 or B737 FO for $55/hr.


Each step is a jump to better pay and better equipment, but what is the total cost to our profession? MY humble opinion is this - if you want to improve this profession, every level of aviation needs to start paying people a living wage, not a slave wage in the name of "building time".