I can't understand the low pay

[Brett Hull]

4 year degree

I don't have one (but I'm working on it) and I've had three job offers and declined an interview with Comair (because of the pay), all since last July.

 

[bobbysamd]

What?

see that is why a 4 yr degree is so improtant in a pilot's career.
Why without a 4 yr degree he might not have gotten the job.

Objection, Your Honor, irrelevant.

Perhaps the degree doesn't help a pilot get a job in an overt way, but maybe in more subtle ways, such as just being able to list it on a resume. It probably was noticed and it gave you the edge over other applicants. Not to mention that having an education might help you present yourself well.

I second Thomas Petzinger as more suggested reading for WifeofPilot.

 

[328dude]

I'm going to guess he/she fly's for Airways which did not request furlughed pilot's to give up senority if they came to a wholly owned. I don't have a clue about Delta or the other majors and how they worked out senority. I think the affiliates did, which begs where your husband/you are flying a RJ at if he is flying at Airways.

Heck, I have a two leg commute to and from work that take's me 6 hours each way on a good day, don't give me this crap about being to busy. It's not as bad as you make it sound.

 

[wifeofpilot]

Nope not Airways... guess again!


Two leg commute--yikes! I'm glad the commute doesn't bother you.

And this is wife of pilot logged in under her own log in.
Home computer defaulted to my husbands.

I am new to the board.

 

[328dude]

I'm not guessing anymore. If you want people to know then just tell us. Enough of these games. I hope it's not Eastern.

I never said the commute didn't bother me.

 

[JohnDoe]

quote from 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. "



saabcaptain and others hit the nail on the head..........As long as people are out there willing to work for 19k a year, they (employers) are going to pay 19k a year. If you don't like it, you have a choice not to do it.


P.S. I agree with your response to pilotyip's post about 4 year degrees....he tends to ramble on about them for some reason.

ifly4food....you need to relax a little.....md80 automatically equals Delta??

 

[wifeofpilot]

Why should my husband, who's flown since he was 17 and done nothing else, HAVE to resort to "SOMETHING THAT PAYS BETTER?"

DOESN'T THAT SOUND RIDICULOUS! THAT'S MY POINT!!!! YOU GUYS ARE HIGHLY SKILLED AND SHOULDN'T HAVE TO LEAVE YOUR CAREER BECAUSE THE PAY IS IN THE TOILET.

MY POINT IS BEING MISSED HERE. IT'S NOT ABOUT FINDING A JOB THAT PAYS BETTER...IT'S ABOUT GETTING A "FAIR" WAGE FOR DOING A JOB YOU ARE TRAINED FOR.

Actually he would be a stay-at-home dad if he didn't take
the RJ job because I fortunately make good coin in a great union job. But at 33 years old, he isn't quiet ready to throw in the towel for 8-10 years until recall.
Also, why can't people who are hired into a regional try to make the changes? Meaning , they may not agree with the money, take it, and hope to be part of a change.

 

[Wats]

I have been off for a while so I hope you are still keeping up with this thread. A big part of the problem is the scope clause that the major guys negotiated back in the 80's. They told mgmt we will let you farm out the small plane flying. That's not the problem. The problem came when they failed to stipulate that the flying could only be farmed out to ONE connection partner. Mgmt can have as many affiliates as they want so when a group starts to get big enough to have some negotiating power, mgmt gets another group and plays them against each other. Can that problem be fixed? ALPA is currently talking about brand scope so maybe, but until that happens (and it will require negotiating capital from the majors) you can expect the downward pressure on compensation for everyone to continue. Jmho.

 

[hyperboy]

seeing is believing

The pilots are getting screwed as many managements take advantage of us in some tough times. How do they sleep at night? Just as a shakespaerean plays HERO has a tragic flaw so does a pilot. They display their flaw on this website day in and day out. Our flaw is we love to fly. Management knows it but many pilots (usually the younger or lowtime) don't care for themselves and choose to be stupid and use....... What do we do if we stand and lose our jobs?
What lil' whiners!!! Why don't you think for yourself and do something for a change rather than you letting management determine how well you can feed yourselves. There are other jobs out there that pay better like the ramp agents, and customer service agents who make more money than you and certainly will continue to do so for a long, long time if you keep this up. Why don't they take more pay cuts like pilots continue to do? THEY DON'T HAVE TO, THEY DON"T LOVE TO FLY, LIKE YOU DO!!!! Management knows this......Shocked are you?
I decided to go back to Flight instructing. This is one option if you love to fly. $21-$30 an hour, I average 37 hours a week...You do the math.. For now it'll serve a purpose. If you don't love to fly....certainly you are not doing it for the money?! So why wouldn't you stand up and fight.
Most of us have a college degree and flight training let's say that the avg. pilot has $35,000 in debt for the above mentioned. You will never be debt free going backwards in wages. We deserve a better wage ask PAX's they believe we are underpaid. Handle your business. We should be able to get along, but we try and blame others for our own decisions. Choices have consequences make the right choice. Be responsible rather than creating a scapegoat. I'm out!!!!!


__________________

 

[pilotyip]

4 yr degree thing

I have nothing against the 4-yr. degree, but this board has a narrowly defined success role for new entrants into the market. It is a one-course track that leads t o major with a 4-yr. degree. I am only trying to present what I have seen that defines success in my eyes outside of that track. Chief pilot for a fortune 500 company at over 100K/yr, company car, stock options and a 2 yr. degree is not failure I have know him for years, he worked his butt off, made friends easily and is great pilot. Captains at AirTran and Spirit who were former employees of USA Jet made it without a 4 yr. degree, I wish I was younger I would have followed them. I know the recruiters at both airlines; they could care less about a 4-yr. degree. If you were working toward a clear goal when others were in college most companies hiring pilots will give you a shot. If a guy wants be a pilot and not go to college, who on this board has the right to tell him he will not succeed. We have become somewhat of an elitist society that measures someone by degrees they have and not what they can contribute to society. My brother in law is a high school graduate, no college, but he went to a trade school became an auto mechanic, owns his own muffler shop makes over 200K per year, lives in neighbor hood with Doctors, lawyers. Etc. Is he a failure because he doesn't have a college degree? I meet on a regular basis pure morons with college degrees from out of the way places; they wasted their time and money. The major predictor of the person's ability to be a good pilot is the intelligence test, (we give like a mini SAT to judge this) if a pilot candidate scores high that test, they have a high percentage of being a great Captain, the college degree has nothing to do with this. As I said before I have nothing against a college degree, I only want to present an alternate view to potential pilots reading this board.

 

[R8J]

Low Pay

Although I agree with you in principal, I would say that your husband accepting the $19,000/yr job is also contributing to the low pay. Hence the delima that we find ourselves in. Some have families to feed some have no expenses and can work for nothing, if not paying for a job. It's a $hitty deal, there's just no unity to stop it.

 

[DarnNearaJet]

Three words: GET OVER IT!!

Sorry, Kit. Didn't know you were reading this.

 

[metrodriver]

The major predictor of the person's ability to be a good pilot is the intelligence test, (we give like a mini SAT to judge this) if a pilot candidate scores high that test, they have a high parentage of being a great Captain, the college degree has nothing to do with this.

high parentage.... What has raising kids to do with college education, or an intelligence test????

Yip pilot seems to have a tendency of writing weird cryptic messages like the first one about the 4 years college. I once got a pm that said "you've never been scared to death". Up to this day I don't know what that was supposed to mean.

If I look over this board there seem to be very few people with a college degree. Unless they don't teach english writing anymore.
There/their, sight/site.

All this degree stuff however has nothing to do with the lousy pay. I think Alpa needs to come up with a formula that gives a certain amount per passenger seat, based on what the majors now use. So that a 90 seat RJ pays the same as a 90 seat mainline plane (like DC9, F100, B717) and not 1/3 of that. If that would be the case I don't see some airlines farming all the flying out to their regionals

 

[ifly4food]

WRONG AIRLINE!!! IFLYFORFOOD... GUESS AGAIN!

AND I am on my own log in.

I just happen to be logged onto our home computer at the time
and it defaulted to his log in. You are very bitter. You obviously
didn't get the fact that I support you pilots and have a lot of
sympathy for your cause. And you didn't get the point I made that times have changed since 911, so it's time for contracts to change.


My husband is too busy commuting to even read this message
board!

Fine, I'll take your word for it. I deleted my previous post. Sorry for jumping to conclusions.

First of all, I'm not bitter. I'm actually very happy with my job, though I'd like to make more money. My strong initial response was a sign of the resentment I felt to hear someone from outside the industry, who has a clear lack of understanding of how the industry works, criticize us regional pilots for not standing up for higher pay.
Make no bones about it... your husband is lucky to have a flying job, and even more lucky to have one that let him keep his mainline seniority number. There are thousands furloughed pilots who would like to have his job right now.

You say you work in another industry that is unionized. What indusrty is that? Telling us might show what frame of reference you're speaking from. In most unionized industries, the national union sets a national pay scale. ALPA is not like that. It should be, but it isn't. ALPA is strong at the local level, but weak at the national level, which makes for a patchwork of little fifedoms. This is probably ALPA's critical flaw.
Because of this pilots at each airline get paid only what they can negotiate. Pilots at a regional airline are easily replaceable because of the numbers of pilots trying to get into the industry. Also, management still thinks they're doing us a favor by letting us build time to move on. Because of this, we have very little negotiating power. Witn little negotiating power, there isn't much we can do to make a significant improvement in pay.
The Comair strike was evidence of this. Despite the good intentions and unity of that pilot group, management clearly said that they would liquidate the airline before they would pay what the pilots were asking for as it would be a cheaper option in the long run. This forced the pilots to settle and end the strike. Now that this mold has been broken, airline managers know exactly how to hold a pilot group hostage and will do it again.

Thus far, you've made a lot of blanket statements, but given little advice. Tell us what we should do to improve our pay instead of chiding us for accepting it. You tend to keep repeating the same argument over and over too, even though people tell you you're missing the point. I think you could learn a lot about the industry if you browse here for a while before coming out with a very contraversial topic for your first post. It's unwise to jump into a debate unarmed.

Regardless, good luck to you and your husband. He's probably going to be a regional pilot for the next 5 to 10 years, so maybe he can work to change things for the better. Yes, the money sucks, but by trimming expenses and living efficiently, a family can still have a decent quality of life.

 

[Ben Dover]

wifeofpilot,

My wife asks me the same thing. Lots of reasons, and lots of opinions as you can see. One of the biggest reasons, though, is that the largest pilot advocacy group (ALPA) want's things the way they are. In my latest ALPA magazine, Duane Woerth (president of ALPA) is quoted as saying express carriers are the "backstop" with respect to wages. He goes on to say, "In this segment of the industry, we must try to hold the line and continue the improvements of the last few years."

So the good news, wifeofpilot, is that if ALPA has anything to do with it, your husband won't have to take a pay cut. Isn't it reassuring to know that your husbands union dues pay for such good representation?

In all fairness, it's a complex issue. But to just settle for the current conditions is a cop out. Personally, I don't think pilots are the best businessmen. On top of that, our industry is handicapped by scores of industry executives whose brilliant minds are stunted by their greed.

Did you know that there are entire industries in our economy whose players manage to get along? In fact they find that they can make more money that way. And did you know that many of these industrys have found other ways to compete than simply lowering wages and prices to undercut their competitor. Shocking to some, but it's true.

Unfortunately the airline industry is not one of these. Our industry is still in the economic stone age. "Hey Egor, how can we make more money?"
"Gee Kahn, looks like we need to cut wages, and lower prices, then maybe more people will overlook our stinky airplanes, bad food, long lines and cramped seats."

But hey, what do I know. In a few more years, I'll be a bitter old pilot who had to walk up hill in the snow both ways. And after finally making it to the majors I won't give a crap about anything except making my $300,000 a year to make up for all those years of poverty.

 

[saabcaptain]

wifeofpilot:

you keep saying things like your husband at 33 doesn't want to throw in the towel etc. you say things like "YOU HAVE THE POWER, YOU HAVE ALWAYS HAD THE POWER" to the pilots on this board.

the reality is the ONLY way we can change the pay situation is to walk away from the pay situation. if no one was willing to fly an airplane for $19k a year then would have to pay more. here is the problem, your husband (and others) are willing to "not throw in the towel" and go back to $19k a year jobs. As long as that continues it is worthless to argue.

i understand your frustration and the burden this places on your marriage (the commuting) and finances (the $19k.) i wish you and your family only the best.

 

[JJJ]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and call BS on wifeofpilot

I'm sure her husband could answer all of the questions that she has. She also says that she has a good union job with good pay, so her good pay (maybe 30K) plus her husbands 19K makes a decent household income.

On the low pay issue, if there is anyone out there holding out for 35K first year to fly an RJ, they are foolish. It's like a bum holding out for an executive position... it just not going to happen. I probably came from the same background as a lot of people on this board, flight instructing. I was making about 10K flying cessnas, and got offered almost double the pay to fly a turboprop 121.

Like it or not, low initial pay at regionals is here to stay. If you don't take the job there are hundrends of pilots who will.

 

[wifeofpilot]

A sincere thanks to all of those who replied.

First off, posting the thread has really helped me in this frustrating situation. You all have provided incredible insight.

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. I look at my job and say, gees it's so easy why can't a pilot, whose job is far from easy, get a decent pay. I am in an industry with a voice and wish I could do something for you all.

I understand a lot of what is in place took place before 9-11. My hope is with the incredible hit the industry is taking , management will take a good look at the disparity in pay. I do believe that unity can make a difference.

Did the Comair situation occur before or after 9-11? Can someone give me the details of that and what can be learned from it.

 

[jarhead]

to wifeofpilot

If you are refering to the "Comair Situation" being before or after 9-11, as the 89 day strike, then yes, the strike started in late March of 2001, and ended in late June of 2001, prior to 9-11-2001

Incidentally, a perspective of history on pay at regional airlines. My son is currently a Captain and Simulator instructor at Comair. He joined 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.

My son had a fairly rapid upgrade to captain, of about 3 years, during the rapid growth years at Comair. Although Comair is still growing, and hiring, it is not at the break neck speed prior to the events of 9-11

 

[wifeofpilot]

Great news about your son. Is that good salary a result of the strike? If so, I would think that a strike "POST 9-11" would be even more effective for negotiating better pay... any input?