I can't understand the low pay

[wil]

Maybe we need a one day "Regional Airline Sickout" to bring focus to this issue?

 

[jarhead]

To some degree, the strike did contribute to better pay than before the strike, as well as some other contract improvements in other areas than pay alone.

In my view, a strike now would not be very effective. The 121 carriers (with a few exceptions) are in the toilet. Many are losing money hand over fist. When airlines are furloghing pilots in the thousands, the union is not going to be able to negotiate from a position of any power at all.

As posted previously in this thread, DAL has learned something from the 356 million dollar loss it took as a direct result of the Comair strike. DCI carriers are begining to be spread around with overlapping routes, so that if one regional carrier should strike, the other overlapping routes of other regional connection carriers simply would pick up the pax that were another carriers bread and butter before such strike. As I understand it, this would not be flying "struck work" if a route was already established by another carrier in the umbrella.

Times have changed, and the market will more and more dictate what contract terms can be reached. You see the concessions now being asked for by the majors, just to avoid bancruptcy. You can't get blood out of a turnip, and you can't get a big dollar contract, where the airline is trying just to stay in business.

Many regional pilots no longer aspire to get to a major, using the regional as just a 'stepping stone' to do so. I know many Comair pilots who walked that picket line in 2001 now see that carrier as a career. To give up the seniority to go to a major, just makes them furlough fodder, as being junior on the major's seniority list. It will be years before all the furloughed pilots at the majors are recalled, so unless it's Jet Blue or Southwest............

 

[bobbysamd]

AFTRA

For all of you who are interested, I am a member of AFTRA-SAG, part of the AFL-CIO. I am a writer and have been so fortunate to make over 50k since for the past 7 years . . . .

AFTRA is a strong union. I sure wish I could have had AFTRA representation during the fifteen years that I was employed full-time in radio. There are times that I and others could have used it.

There are a lot of similarities between radio and professional aviation. There is no shortage of people who want to be on the air compared to the available jobs. With few exceptions new radio talent has to start in 250-watt stations in some real G-d-forsaken places. Many work for years in small markets, putting up with unbelievably bad bosses and working conditions before they have enough experience and/or can catch a break. They do it, myself included, because they have ambitions and dreams, and love being behind the mike. Just like pilots who love the cockpit. And there are plenty of broadcasters who work cheap, just to stay in radio.

I think part of the problem is that pilot unions have lost much of their clout during the past twenty-five years. We can thank deregulation and Frank in part for that loss of clout. We've had plenty of discussions on that topic elsewhere on the board. And, once again, Flying the Line Volumes I and II by George Hopkins and Hard Landing by Thomas Petzinger are strongly suggested reading.

 

[pilotyip]

to pilotwife

So you write for a living, you have a special skill and that is why you get paid as much as you do. When you write your contribution to your company is why they have you write and have hired you for that poisitioon. You are unique. Althought you may think a pilot's job is hard, anyone on this board can fly an airplane, but very few, myself included, can write or spell. An airline employer hires at the lowest rate allowed becasue a pilot is a commodity, like corn futures, a comm MEL Inst who can fly is all that is needed. Whe there is an excess of corn, prices go down, when there is a shortage of corn the price goes up.

 

[WrightAvia]

90,000 a year? I don't believe dat **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**

Comair in January of 1997, and was being paid around 18,000 a year as an FO, and sold paint at Sears part time on his days off, to supplement his income. He was not married when he started at Comair. He will be married this month, at the ripe old age of 32. His pay will go from $84,000 a year right now, up to $90,000 at the end of this month. To be accurate, Sim instructors are paid a premiun over a line pilot, so that is why $90,000 may seem a bit high for a CA with 6 years seniority.

and they complain that commuter pilots make toooo little money? Jeeeze. I don't buy it. There is no way in hell that a guy goes from 18K to 90K in 6 years.

 

[Skygod]

Mrs Wife,

The managment at my airline, when asked exactly your question, says "if you don't like it here then leave." The pilots take it as management doesn't care about them. Management takes it as they must like it as they didn't all leave.

At the other end of the pay scales, why do guys and gals making $500,000 a year keep working year after year rather than retire and spend time with the kids or surfing every day? It's not all about the money. It's about power, competation, control. Or the flying.

 

[jarhead]

I guess that's your problem. I don't really care if you believe it or not. Look up the contract for Comair, and read the section on compensation for Captain-Instructors. Then you can apologize for your hostile, and mean spirited post. I have no intention of providing you with my son's W-2 form.

Incidentally, my son has never said he is not paid enough. All the rants about 1st year FO pay is true. You pay your dues, work hard, upgrade, and get yourself recruited into the training department, and life can be good.

Take a pill, and get over it.

 

[WrightAvia]

mean spirited post?

Nobody in real life goes from 19K a year to 90K a year in 5 or six years. If they do, they don't deserve it and should be replaced by freedom air or great sky airlines.

 

[jarhead]

OK, It's all in my imagination. I have no intention of arguing the point. Do you know how to look up the Comair contract? If you can do that, do you think you can find and understand the section on compensation for Simulator instructors?

I will not do your homework for you, nor will I debate the point any more. You just are not that important to me.

 

[WrightAvia]

90,000 a year in 6 years...

Dude, I don't know guys at ATA or Midwest Airlines that get that and they fly real airplanes. Not only that, FEDEX DUDES Don't get that. How can I be sympathetic towards commuter dudes that get 90 grand a year.

If Comair pilots are getting that, then why isn't everybody else?