I can't understand the low pay

[trainerjet]

No one said it couldn't. I'm just saying it won't. I've been in this business a fairly long time, and there has NEVER been a shortage of pilots willing to accept these substandard wages. That's simply the reality. It's supply and demand. As long as I have been even remotely involved in aviation, there has always been an ample supply of eager pilots that will accept virtually ANY wage to fly. And that's especially true now, when the lure is a regional jet, and not just a piston twin or 19-seat turboprop.

 

[Freight Dog]

Nice post Wife. But in this industry, nothing gets handed to you. You can only get what you negotiate. As long as you have zealous and anxious low time pilots willing to work for peanuts, you'll have poverty-level regional airline pilots.
Think about it... you are busting your a$$ for an hour of multiengine time and you even fly for free just to get that hour.

So now, you send off a resume to a regional airline with jets!!

"WooHoo!!! And they'll pay me $19,000/year to fly it. Holy cow!!! It's jet time!!!!! I need this kinda time to get ahead. But wait... who's hiring at the majors?? Ahh, that's OK, I need to fly and get that flight time because SOMETIME, they'll be hiring."

That above seems to be a prevalent attitude at regionals. I can guarantee you that if EVERY regional pilot was willing to walk away from their job unless the pay/work rules/retirement package improve significantly, they would get it. However, you can't expect a single pilot group to change things. It takes the whole industry. Comair pilots got the ball rolling, Air Wisconsin pilots carried it through, and Mesa pilots low-balled it and sabotaged the effort successfully unfortunately.

It's kind of like ticket fare hikes at majors. Say UAL raises prices, NWA and Delta match it, and American won't go with it, the prices come right back down.

Hope your husband gets recalled soon.

 

[bobbysamd]

Agreed, but . . .

It's ashame you guys don't think a situation could change for the better. Maybe that kind of attitude has left your wages in the toilet.

You also would be surprised to know that I bet a lot of people
would care that their pilot makes less than their flight attendant and rampy.

I agree with your sentiments. Airline pilots have awesome responsibilities and are not always paid commensurate with their responsibilities. That's because there's always someone who's willing to work cheaper and/or longer. You can thank a number of people for that, particularly one with the first name of Frank. And there are those who are willing to pay for their training with an airline, simply for the perceived privilege of flying for it.

Suggested reading: Flying the Line, Volumes I and II by Hopkins.

I, too, hope that your husband is recalled soon.

 

[SDdriver]

You guys keep talking about the overwhelming amount of guys that will accept 19,000 a yr...How about the wonderful people out there that pay 19,000 for the job and are working for absoulutly nothing...

I agree with you all, I have been in the industry a long time also and like you all said there is always plenty of people out there that will work for these low wages, but worse, there are a ton of crack addicts out there that will pay that insane amount just to get the job, or sell there family, T.V., car, house, cat, dog..whatever you get the point. Crack addicts..

As long as you have people that will do it, it will never change. Gosh, I think my blood presure is to high, I must go now..haha..

FLy Safe, that is if you are flying.

SD

 

[saabcaptain]

Your husband is furloughed from a major right? He went back to a $19,000 a year FO seat regional job right? Why didn't he get a non-flying job that paid better until he got recalled? Maybe it is because he loves to fly so much the very thought of not flying, even if he made more money by not doing so, got him to take that $19,000 a year job?

If what I said is accurate then there goes your whole argument. As long as people won't walk away from flying because of the low pay there will always be the low pay.

You sound very angry in your tone and I understand why, many are suffering horribly in this industry today. I wish you and your family the very best.

 

[rice]

WifeofPilot

I was gonna write a long response explaining my views about this but........

Suffice it to say, RJ pilots are paid poorly cause they were extremely foolish in their youth and accepted the shiitty pay just to have a flying job that might parlay into a job at a major one day.
No one ever bothered to negotiate their pay back then and now their worth is nearly zero. This biz is cyclical and in a few short years as the RJ's become more dominant in the system and the RJ pilot cadre carries more weight I have no doubt that they will negotiate their pay structure to fall more in line with the LCC's.
Okay, let the flames begin fellas. Remember its just an opinion.

 

[SDdriver]

No flame here RICE, just thought I would compliment you on the Avatar! Nice..

SD

 

[328dude]

PilotofWife:

After your husband got furloughed, didn't he tell you what he would be making as a RJ FO? Did you support his decision? Did he even want your advice?

I agree, 19,000 a year aint much, but you mentioned rampers, why didn't you ask him to do that instead?

Is this about the money or something else?

 

[avbug]

Pardon me for being the dissenter, but this is rubbish. It sounds like an echo of A Knights Tale. You can change your stars if you want to. You just have to want to badly enough. It's like a melody that sounds nice, but just doesn't work in practice.

Years ago I was working air ambulance. I was doing it in remote locations in some tough conditions, lots of unimproved airfields, flarepots at night, and some hazards. I had been promised a probationary wage upon hiring, that would be brought up to a still less than livable wage after three months. At the three month mark, I was sent to a station where I worked for three days without food, in the rain, chaning engines on an airplane. Cold rain, too. On the third day, the owner of the company approached me to check on my work.

As he was there, I asked him when I could expect the promised wage. I told him I couldn't live on what he was paying.

"What are you saying?" he asked.

"I'm saying I want the money that was promised me. Clearly I have earned it, and we both know I do a good job."

"I see your lips moving, but I don't hear you saying anything. You wouldn't go to your college professor and ask him to lower your tuition because you can't afford it, would you?"

"I don't know," I replied. "I never went to school. I started flying when I was fifteen, and this is all I know."

"Well, you wouldn't. You should consider this your education, right here. By all rights, you should be paying me." He said it difinitively, and turned and walked away. I was increadulous. I couldn't decide weather to clock him in the back of the head with a wrench and then quit, or just walk away.

I had a pregnant wife, no money, no resources, and not enough money to last between paychecks. I couldn't afford to go anywhere else, and didn't have a stick of food in the cupboards. He had me over a barrel.

So we can change our stars? Perhaps I'm the ass responsible for low wages, because I took the job, when it was all I could find, and I was flat broke with no prospects and a pregnant wife in need? Perhaps. Perhaps because we had gone for two weeks without anything, and we were desperate. Perhaps if we all banded together and committed ourselves to better wages, fools like that man would change his tune?

Rubbish. Pure fallacy. It's never going to happen at small 135 operators, and there will always be the ignorant newcomers who are willing to pay for their jobs to cut in below us all and lower the bar. The employer mentioned above constantly reminded us of it. Then again, it's no different today.

I ended up quitting, and taking a job cutting logs and digging ditches in frozen ground on a mountain in the winter. We cooked on a wood burning stove, continued buying our clothes at the thrift shop, and made do in a small cottage on a mountainside where the cost of living was cheap.

Good idea, though. Use that leverage. Make the employers bend with the old standby, "Pay me more, or I'll show you! I'll starve to death, and it will be on your head!" And then the employer will double over with laughter as he rains down the resumes of ten thousand 300 hour wannabes who will pay twenty grand to take your job.

It's the nature of this industry. It's always been this way, and doesn't hold much promise of change.

 

[mckpickle]

It's ashame you guys don't think a situation could change for the better. Maybe that kind of attitude has left your wages in the toilet.

You also would be surprised to know that I bet a lot of people
would care that their pilot makes less than their flight attendant and rampy.

They care to a point. That point is Do they have to pay for higher tickets? Anyone you talk to says the same thing.

"Well your LUCKY to have a job"

If you really want to know the history of the airline industry and how and why this has happened I suggest reading "Hard Landings" by Thomas ahhhhhh Pfitzner? Some one correct me on the author.