minimum wage FO job?

[Kent4]

What is the federal minimum wage these days, $5.15/hr? $6.00/hr? Let's assume it's $6.00/hr.

Honestly, how many of you would take a FO job to fly a turboprop for a regional paying minimum wage? Minimum wage, by the hours present on work property, and nothing more (no health benefits, etc.). I ask because I read a post on another website written by a guy questioning the value of "greedy" pilot unions. He basically argued that supply and demand should dictate pilot working conditions and I've seen that argument made here, too.

So, would you take a minimum wage FO job flying a Saab 340, a new Dash 8-400, or a Do328? What if your job was guaranteed and you'd get between 800 and 1,000 turbine flight hours per year?

 

[Treme]

Let's say, for example, that you're an intrepid young 'Embry Rediculous' grad and you flight instruct for all of about 7 minutes before you get drafted straight from a Seminole into your shiny-new regional jet.

You're making $21.75 per hour.

Now, you're pretty junior so you've got, lets say, a 75 hour guarantee.

Thats around $1631.25 per month. But the 75 hours of work isn't really an accurate representation of the work this young man does. He's not, after all, getting paid for things like preflight inspections, postflights, time in transit, flight planning, being on-call on reserve etc. So lets say for every hour he actually blocks, there are about 2 hours of pro-bono work -- I think that is pretty accurate if you consider the time you spend at the airport, at hotels, in vans, dedheading, etc.

So now the actual "work" you're doing in service of the company is around 225 hours per month -- not bad. If we were to equate that to a "normal-person" job that would be anywhere from 7 and a half to 9 hours per day of work. About average for the normal American.

But if we divide that $1631.25 out by the 225 hour month we get a grand total of $7.24 per hour.

Good thing flying's fun and pilots are whores.

 

[ammodawg]

SLAM DUNK FOR TREME

You know I believe I saw the same post you are talking about Kent4 where a guy was complaining that too many slack pilots were getting paid the same as pilots that work hard. My thought is this. No matter where you go there are slakers. To say that pilots are overpaid I believe is very wrong. An athalete getting paid a few million to say "I LOVE THESE SHOES" is being overpaid. To put up with the years of training, getting your time built up, and everything else I believe pilots deserve every cent they get. Its was funny because the guy that had started that post claimed to be a manager somewhere. Lets talk about CEO's getting huge bonuses while their companies were going bankrupt.

Anyways there is my $.02

 

[Citationkid]

The thing is tho there are plenty of pilots out there working for free or even paying to work for a company. I still think that is a dumb idea, but it happens.....

 

[ammodawg]

Yea I understand what you are saying Citationkid. I don't agree at all with paying for a position. Now on the other hand working for free depends on the situation. If a pilot offered me a chance to fly a small business jet somewhere with him trust me I wouldn't start in about how much I was gonna charge. The largest thing I have gotten to fly is a Piper Seminole. But if it was something regular and they kind of expected me to be there then by all means we would be talking about pay.

 

[Skyboss]

Assumes 50 seat RJ:

What if you made $18 per block hour and say $6.35 for the down time? Just curious.

Or,

A flat rate of $2400 a month. 4 days on 4 off. 10 Hours working per day (18 hour a day operation/2 Shifts). Flight Hours irrelivant for counting pay. Gone only two nights in the four days. Rotation is continuous. AM for 4 months, PM for four months.

(For an FO)

Low: $2400
Midpoint: $2808
High: $3369

For Captain:

A 45% increase in the band for starting. The midpoitn being 17% higher and the Peak pay 27% higher:

Low: $3480
Midpoint: $4071
High: $4885

Pay bands are adjusted by 3.5% for cost of living each year. Each person is evaluated on a 5 point scale for raises in addition to the flat increase of the band (low to high). The point average you receive on your evaluation is added as a percentage increase to your annual COLA on your anniversary hire date. In theory, if your a good pilot, you would average 3.5% each calendar year and can tack on an additional 4-5% per year for performance, if your a non performer it's 1-2%.

 

[whereamI]

Cut & Paste Job Skyboss?

Where did ya cut and paste that info from Skyboy? Perhaps dipsomania has clouded my vision, but what do your numbers prove? I personally agree with the math done by Treme. Changing his simple calculation to $18/hr with a 75 hr guarantee you will be recieving $6/hr considering 225 of actual work per month. This means many of us are being paid minimum wage to fly airplanes. Is this wage acceptable compensation for the job performed, I say no. Did I accept a job at that wage, yup. The pay sucks at this stage in the game, but it sure beats working for a living.

 

[bobbysamd]

You bet I would have . . . .

Honestly, how many of you would take a FO job to fly a turboprop for a regional paying minimum wage . . . .

Someone else computed the effective per-hour wage. And, no, it doesn't work out to much. It never has. 12-13 years ago, first-year pay was something like $12K-$14K. Insulting, especially considering the responsbility involved, but . . . .

That is first-year pay. After the first year, things start to improve.

I look at it in terms of opportunity. I, for one, would have been happy beyond belief just to be invited to class. Despite what Kit and others might feed you, regional class dates don't grow on trees. Also, you're building experience that will be valuable in the long run when hiring improves. I say "when" because it always does.

Having said all these things, yes, the pay issue turns very much on responsibility. Regional pilots have all the same responsibility as the pilots at the majors. They should be paid accordingly. I never see that part of the issue addressed. In my $0.02 opinion, responsibiity is the threshold issue.

 

[I.P. Freley]

Hmmmm... As an Embryo-Rydell Flying place grad who didn't instruct for seven minutes, but, ummm, about 175,000 times that many minutes, I wonder why it is that Treme apparently has a problem with Riddle grads.

 

[Treme]

Dear I.P. Freely,

You instructed for over 20,000 hours?

I think you may have missed the point of my post. I have nothing against ERAU grads -- in fact you could have filled that line with virtually any pilot-factory. Comair Academy, Florida Tech, Pheonix East, Flightsafety, etc...

As for the instructing for 7 minutes part, I was just expressing my opinion that flight instructing in light single and multi-engine airplanes does not provide a pilot with adequate experience to make the jump directly into the cockpit of a jet -- regional or otherwise.

I'm from the old school when people would instruct until they had a few thousand hours, then fly freight or charter in cabin-class twins for a thousand or so more. Then they could try and compete for the ever-competitive minimum wage job as copilot on a Metro or a Jetstream (the really lazy guys flew Saabs)

When I started out in this crazy business Eagle, Piedmont, Allegheny were all the "place to be". They required 3000+ TT and quite a bit of multi.

I wish that people whould not bypass these very important building-blocks and instead choose to hop right into a comfortable, air-conditioned, RJ seat.

I'm just jealous of course. Wish I could've done that!

 

[bobbysamd]

Experience

I'm from the old school when people would instruct until they had a few thousand hours, then fly freight or charter in cabin-class twins for a thousand or so more. Then they could try and compete for the ever-competitive minimum wage job as copilot on a Metro or a Jetstream (the really lazy guys flew Saabs)

You sound as if you're out of the late '80s, just like me.

I don't think it is a matter of consciously bypassing experience blocks, though. Most of my peers were flight instructors, just like me. They could get commuter jobs when they met mins. In those days the commuters were hiring pilots straight out of flight instructing. The difference, though, is many were flying under 135, so that was your 135 experience before you went on to 121. Quite a few commuters were operating such aircraft as Jetstreams, Metros, etc., under 135 in those days. I know the FARs changed about seven years ago to require FAs on all flights, which turned these 135 operations into 121.

I would have loved any one of those jobs.

 

[Skyboss]

Re: Cut & Paste Job Skyboss?

Where did ya cut and paste that info from Skyboy? Perhaps dipsomania has clouded my vision, but what do your numbers prove?

From Uranus.... Get it... Your - Anus???

ROLMFAO!!!

 

[I.P. Freley]

Nahhh, I didn't give 20,000 hours of instruction, but I was in the land of instructing for about 20,000 hours (a little over two years). But my coming from a "pilot factory" notwithstanding, I kinda did it the old-school way... Get yer CFI ticket, teach and teach and teach, pick up a couple of hundred hours flying a Chieftain, then go 121 in a 1900, an aborted attempt to "move up" to a Jetstream 41 (interrupted by 9/11), then my most recent adventure in lazy, the Saab.

Do I wish that I could've sidestepped all of that and gone straight to an RJ? Part of me says yes, but another part says no. I feel like I "did it right" and I got a lot of valuable experience from it.

BTW, I'm not so sure that it's fair to refer to anyplace as a "pilot factory" if you get a DEGREE out of it... Like ERAU, UND, Fl Tech, etc.