Is this profession in peril?

[easydoesit]

Pessimistic view from more pilots who are the best at painting a bleak picture. B1tch, B1tch, B1tch. Things will be just fine. People are not going to stop flying airplanes.

Just like your wife, everything works in cycles. Quit worrying about the downturns, look at the big picture!

 

[JetFumes]

Pessimistic view from more pilots who are the best at painting a bleak picture. B1tch, B1tch, B1tch. Things will be just fine. People are not going to stop flying airplanes.

Just like your wife, everything works in cycles. Quit worrying about the downturns, look at the big picture!

Pass me some of that koolaid, please. I'm not gonna have an easy time ridin the wife cycles with no job.

 

[pilotyip]

Still a great way to make a good living

This job may not be not as good as it used to be but this is still a great way to make a living. What other jobs are most of the pilot going to go to after they get out of the flying business? If you have been in this business for 10 years starting a new career is tuff and most will never match their airline wages. Too many negative vibes

 

[Andy]

YIP, this thread was a discussion about it being a profession. It's no longer a profession.

There was a classic exchange between poconopilot, tankerclown (always living down to his name), and another user that has been deleted. Complete trailer trash talk.

The pilot business has turned into a dog eat dog world where all professionalism is long gone. We're blue collar bus drivers and our actions reinforce that belief. Hey, let's go picket because we're unhappy with something - yeah, THAT's professional. When's the last time that you saw lawyers or doctors set up picketing or go on strike?

 

[Lear70]

That's a terrible attitude. If you choose to spend your career at the regional, that's fine. But for a Captain to disparage an entire segment of the piloting community (first officers) is reprehensible. You are no better than the men and women who sit to your right -- you were just hired first.

Ignore Pocono. She's a regional CA not by choice, but by multiple failure of interviews. Go back and read some of her posts about interviewing at CAL, how it was the best thing since sliced bread, then she gets turned down and trash-talks it for a few months before she got over it.

She's immature for her age, probably due to the fact that she *IS* cute (according to a guy I know over there who knows who she is - someone was going to out her on here but we talked him out of it), and never realized that looks alone aren't going to cut it in life. She might be starting to see the light, but doesn't know when to stop talking trash still (as evidenced in this thread).

And don't worry, the airline folks aren't going to start beating on the corporate doors anytime soon. The airline life is too easy at the regional and major level for most experienced CA's to bail out of... I'm back at this level by force, not by choice, but seriously considering staying (stuck for 3 days in Napa - I've discovered the absolute BEST wine bar that serves INCREDIBLE wines at only $1-$2 per glass above what you'd pay in the store for - what a heck of a nice way to spend your work week and NOTHING you'd ever see at ANY airline).

Andy, you don't have to argue with YIP. He'll be the first to tell you that pilots need to realize they're not white collar executives anymore.

My point for YIP is that my "happy place" for income and QOL is about half again as high as what most companies pay these days, simply because pilot pay has not increased with inflation the last 20 years and more pilots are happy to work more days for the same pay (a.k.a. whores). That has eroded the "profession" away to near-extinction.

Good for management, bad for employees. Only way to fix it is to become management and start your own company, just to find that the margins are so thin in most segments of the industry that you can't afford to pay your employees more. Raise your prices, your customers go somewhere else. Nasty little circle but, eventually, things will tip back towards employees and management will gnash their teeth and wail (already happening in many segments are the only people to hire are VERY low time pilots and finding qualified CA's is getting VERY difficult for the "margin operator").

Between that and the FACT that airline pilots are no longer respected as professionals (until something goes wrong) by the majority of the flying public = loss of the status/title of "professional".

This in NO way means I don't still conduct myself as such. Whether or not this is truly a "profession" in terms of status, pay, and QOL has absolutely NO bearing on how "professionally" I conduct myself.

I dabble in other things to make money, but nothing makes me happier at the end of the day after that nasty blowing snow circling approach into a short field at night, teaching new F/O's something new, learning something new from an F/O, and walking into the hotel realizing that I'm d*mn good at my "profession", and I wouldn't want to do anything else...

Except walking in my door to my wife and kids when I get home; it doesn't get much better than that! I just need more time at home to make that happen.

 

[PAPA FOX!]

It seems that the professon will slowly get back on track. Why? Well new student starts are near an all time low and domestic demand for air travel is projected to increase at over 5%/yr for the next decade.

Yes, it is true that there is no pilot shortage at the majors now. However it IS at the regional level and it will EVENTUALLY trickly up there, just not overnight.

Simple supply and demand show that the pay can only improve from here.

 

[pianoman]

We're blue collar bus drivers and our actions reinforce that belief. Hey, let's go picket because we're unhappy with something - yeah, THAT's professional. When's the last time that you saw lawyers or doctors set up picketing or go on strike?

Ummm.... I believe picketing and going on strike is what brought this profession from basically "bus drivers" but more dangerous in the 30's to what it became in the heyday- a professional career.

Do you think companies just volunteered to pay pilots that much?

 

[CitationUltra]

It seems that the professon will slowly get back on track. Why? Well new student starts are near an all time low and domestic demand for air travel is projected to increase at over 5%/yr for the next decade.

Yes, it is true that there is no pilot shortage at the majors now. However it IS at the regional level and it will EVENTUALLY trickly up there, just not overnight.

Simple supply and demand show that the pay can only improve from here.

I agree with your basic analysis--the statistics indicate a pilot shortage. However, the problem with the theory is that the new-hire pilots are signing on for very low salaries that don't improve much over time. Supply shortages would only raise pilot salary standards if pilots withheld services unless paid at a rate congruent with the job as a "profession" instead of as laborers.

Pilots since the mid-1980s have shown no tendency to withhold services, in fact the opposite. As long as the regional airlines can hire new 250-hour pilots at $18K a year, this won't change. No bona fide "profession" has an entry-level this low on the economic scale.

 

[BOYCAPTAIN]

After all the mergers, the regional airlines will be the place to be due to the furloughs and such. No more flow backs either. I feel pretty confident, AND I don't have to worry about being some lame gear jerker, either.

I'll leave that to all you guys. LOL

hey pocono...pull your big bad RJ over to my airplane ...i need a chock!

 

[Goren]

You've got to be kidding...when the price of gas goes up, the employees (chiefly the non-management pilots) buy the gas...get a clue. (not that it should be that way...but reality stinks)