Don said:
So working for poverty wages for years builds more character then going through 6 or 8 years of school?
Flying an RJ is super complicated, so much so that 300 hour pilots can't make it through training and get a type rating?
If flying is sooo hard, and computer programming is fairly simple, then why not quit your job, get that easy masters or PhD and work as an application developer or researcher at a university? I get spring break off, a week at christmas, two months of annual leave and I make $75,000.00 a year.
I challange you to enter the IT industry and offer to do that job for nothing! The truth is, you can't! Most people can't. Thats why the job pays so darn well. At the end of the month you'd have nothing to show for your efforts.
I do agree you guys are underpaid, but you need to realize that flying a jet is not all that difficult and the reality is, with a little training most folks can do it.
Oh, Don Don Don,
It's not a case of an RJ being difficult to learn..it's a case of learning it and then going on to fly it (or something like it) for thousands of hours over years and decades through the wx, bouts of fatigue, hassles at home, life-changing events etc etc, without accident, incident, or violation as part of a career. You see Don, there are no "Do-overs" in this game if you fxck up, unlike the IT world where you can try and try again.
And Don, 6-8 years of school? Big deal. Even after that big nursery school known as College, we are constantly being sent through school in one form or another..Initial, recurrent, transition, upgrade, Int'l Ops, Safety training, and that's not even considering the fact that this is aviation.....every time you fly it's part of continuing education. Don, how many times do you sit working IT and an government IT inspector shows up to watch you perform and potentially end your career? Happens all the time here.
Oh, and when the worst happens...when the your tool of your trade "crashes", you kick it, swear a little, and reboot. When ours does, it means those cute little computer thingys you work with that were part of our airplane are strewn about in the bottom of a smokin' hole. It gets to the scene of the crash a lot quicker than your Cessna.
When you've "been there and done that" for a few years and thousands of hours, get back to us, because you'll find that we don't get paid for "flying a jet" per se...the jet is just the tool of the trade. We are paid for exersizing sound judgment and making good decisions when using that tool...every single time we go to work.
Any weenie or fool with the money can go out and buy themselves a jet and get checked out with a few hundred hours.... but that doesn't mean they know how to "fly it", and in fact doing so might indicate they don't know much about flying in general. Any insurance company would surely tell you they don't, as reflected in their premiums for such a person, and looking at the ab initio types at the airlines creates a false impression you've apparently taken hold of. Those 300-hour types operate in the most regimented and standardized womb of aviation under the watchful eye of everyone, and certainly aren't making command decisions, nor will they for a long, long time. All they do is steer, and they aren't even typed.
I won't quit my job for IT work though. I don't think it would be hard to learn, but I do think it would be incredibly, agonizingly boring.
are not up to professional standards with regard to first and second year flightcrew pay. Any of you youngsters who accept a job with said airlines after [insert calendar date here] will be forever brandished to this list, much like the infamous SCAB list. Should you choose to disregard this advice and accept employment with aforementioned airlines, you will have a difficult time obtaining employment with major airlines in the future. As soon as contracts are ammended to an acceptable level, we will remove these restrictions."
