No more excuses= up your pay!

[Quimby]

You're crazy dude. Wake up and smell the reality. There are thousands of guys who are not in the airlines that could fly the planes just as safely and efficiently as the fat, lazy, 50-something baby boomers doing it now.

Yes our profession takes years of training and a lot of sacrifice. But so does nursing and you won't see RNs making the ridiculous wages we make. Any Capt that thinks he deserves the 300k he makes at UPS/FDX or the 200k at the pax carriers is crazy.

Don't get me wrong--I'll take the wages. I just don't have any illusions about how much I deserve to be paid. First year FO pay should be around 75k and top capt pay should be no more than 150! I'm a 4th year FO and I make a lot more than a lot of doctors!!

(shakes head in disbelief at the crap you spew)

Let me get this straight. You talk about the "ridiculous" wages in one sentence, then say "I'll take it" in the next. Maybe you should volunteer to give back the part you don't need to UPS, or say....the charity of your choice. You don't deserve it, your A-300 is "so easy to fly" (your words). You should be doing this job for way less. Didn't you learn this in M-B-A skool?

I know you don't fly a pax a/c, but stick with me here. A few months back an AA MD80 lost one on t/o from STL.....came back & landed. If you interviewed the pax getting off that a/c, do you think any of them would have said "Boy I sure am glad that overpaid crew handled that well & put us safely back on the ground".....I'm guessing no.....probably more like this "those guys did a great job & deserve every penny & then some"

Or this......you need to go in for surgery. Do you want some tool who struts into the O.R. saying how easy the job is & that he/she is way overpaid?

Keep talking your job down & saying how you're overpaid....that does us all a lot of good.

 

[milky]

Nobody has to 'say' that they are overpaid. The hundreds of pilots applying for any flying job that pays any amount of money is doing the talking for you. That is the point. You can claim you are worth whatever price you want to claim. The market (your fellow pilots working for wages you claim you do not deserve) says you are worth what you're getting paid now (or probably less since many pilots would probably do it for less). Nobody says that what you do is easy. It's just that there are a lot of people trained to do what you do (and experience does not seem to matter to the public right now), and they are willing to do it for any wage they can right now.
I do not believe that there should be some arbitrary cap on pilot pay. If the market dictates $500,000/year, I would probably come to the airlines. Right now, the market shows no sign of going back that direction. It actually shows signs of continuing to decrease pilot wages. Maybe something will change that. In the meantime, I will find something that pays what I feel I deserve. i will not 'get my foot in the door' and then expect something to change. Oh, sorry. I bet that just hit a few of you square between the eyes.

 

[Sedona16]

If you are not an active commercial pilot and you don’t have anything to motivate those who are to raise the bar please go somewhere else. Fyi there are people that also thought oil tripled on price in a very short period of time due to supply and demand. I can tell you it was not how much oil was being consumed across the globe but rather speculation and perceptions perpetuated by a relative few. If you keep telling the 25 year old regional pilots market conditions have be laid to never get a raise and they should expect pay cuts because its the only way the business will survive then that is what will happen.

There have been countless times in history when much more insurmountable odds as raising the bar in one industry have been overcome. You people who want to focus on the negative and they why nots instead of the whys are the biggest part of the problem. Perhaps you and Michael Moore can go make another movie that focuses on the problems. There are still some out her however who will focus on the positive and where necessary step up the fight for positive change. Have fun rolling over and crying into your cannot do blanket.

 

[milky]

If you are not an active commercial pilot and you don’t have anything to motivate those who are to raise the bar please go somewhere else. Fyi there are people that also thought oil tripled on price in a very short period of time due to supply and demand. I can tell you it was not how much oil was being consumed across the globe but rather speculation and perceptions perpetuated by a relative few. If you keep telling the 25 year old regional pilots market conditions have be laid to never get a raise and they should expect pay cuts because its the only way the business will survive then that is what will happen.

There have been countless times in history when much more insurmountable odds as raising the bar in one industry have been overcome. You people who want to focus on the negative and they why nots instead of the whys are the biggest part of the problem. Perhaps you and Michael Moore can go make another movie that focuses on the problems. There are still some out her however who will focus on the positive and where necessary step up the fight for positive change. Have fun rolling over and crying into your cannot do blanket.

Does holding an ATP and being current to fly count as being active? Or do the furloughed pilots lose their vote when they lose their job.

You discredit yourself wholy when you put me in the same sentence as Micheal Moore. I am the exact opposite of him. I am realistic and believe in free market forces being the most efficient way to regulate the market.

I do hope that the airlines and the auto industry gain efficiency and fix themselves because as a consumer, I want to be able to buy cars and fly on planes for the lowest cost and highest quality. As a pilot, I understand that the market wants the cheapest price for the best product. Since there are pilots willing to work for a lot less than I am, I know that I will not be working for many of the current airlines as they stand. IMHO the companies that pay well now may not be paying as well in the future. The only ones i can see possibly keeping their rates up is the big 2 box haulers. But, if more competition got in the market and started shipping for less with the same reliability (like has happened with airlines), they will have to re-evaluate their payscales also.

 

[waveflyer]

I am realistic and believe in free market forces being the most efficient way to regulate the market.

I do hope that the airlines and the auto industry gain efficiency and fix themselves because as a consumer, I want to be able to buy cars and fly on planes for the lowest cost and highest quality..

umm... Southwest airlines. There are win-win situations out there where paying pilots more actually increases production.


are you pushing for de-unionization? Seniority compromises the free-hand of competition. your market is skewed. and a lot of us got into this career expecting much higher returns. and most still think they will be the one who grabs one of the high paying jobs. hence their pay initially is worth it. Once they find out those jobs aren't hiring as many as they thought- they'll want their raise from the employers they have- an understandable market adjustment don't you think?
That's what you see on this board. Professional pilots arguing for an understandable increase in their pay due to industry changes. Your view of the future is not real. And that view is no more real than mine- and mine sees that industry wide- pilots are DONE- they've seen their concessions given to mgmt and not make their companies stronger. they've seen small jet jobs outsourced, making the major airline career less valuable. The list goes on. I see a future where pilots industry wide make a LOT more than they do now b/c the majority simply believes they are worth more.
You don't have to think that- but believe one thing- the future will be what we make of it- we always have the ability to change our 'reality' by what we learn.

 

[livin'thesim]

As one poster put it previously, doctors have the AMA (not a union, but probably even better than a union). The lawyers have the bar (also really good).
Many other union professions do well also. They have ONE union.

These organizations allow you to move laterally and take your hard-won pay gains with you. Our current system gives management too much leverage over us pilots since we have the most to lose. Management gets their bonuses and severance packages, and they can always go work in another industry and make even more.

It is clear that there are more pilots than jobs, otherwise we would all be getting raises. There's the puzzle, demand for pilots is low and getting lower. How can pay gains be had in this environment? Especially when our only option is a $25 per hour regional job.

If somehow we can find a way to protect those who are holding the line on pay, then maybe they will. Until then, this discussion will continue as before.

 

[acpilot]

You're crazy dude. Wake up and smell the reality. There are thousands of guys who are not in the airlines that could fly the planes just as safely and efficiently as the fat, lazy, 50-something baby boomers doing it now.

Yes our profession takes years of training and a lot of sacrifice. But so does nursing and you won't see RNs making the ridiculous wages we make. Any Capt that thinks he deserves the 300k he makes at UPS/FDX or the 200k at the pax carriers is crazy.

Don't get me wrong--I'll take the wages. I just don't have any illusions about how much I deserve to be paid. First year FO pay should be around 75k and top capt pay should be no more than 150! I'm a 4th year FO and I make a lot more than a lot of doctors!!

Sounds familiar! Unfortunately, I agree with Li'L.

 

[hoover]

There is a new, presumably more labor friendly, administration taking over in a few months, which should make it easier to negotiate. The other factor is the economy. Until airlines start making a little money it doesn't matter what the political atmosphere is.

My guess is better contracts are coming, but probably not in 2009.

I wouldn't count too much on a "pro-labor" President to help out too much. The last thing he is going to want during a global recession is a major airline strike, especially if it means that the government will have to then turn around and bail out the airline.

You said it best: "Until airlines start making a little money..."

Historically, airlines have never made money. Until that changes, you will never see any dramatic, sustainable wage increases.

 

[waveflyer]

i think you guys are all wrong.
i think you discount the fact that airline ceo's make more than ever now- and they've been doing terribly.
i think that the ceo's got together in that big wyoming/montana ranch- and said- we're going to screw these unions- nobody make any money- they operate on the edge- until we take so many cuts that are unions are basically powerless.
not that we have to worry about it now due to 65- but did you see the numbers for majors that were hiring. United expected 15000 apps in the first week= they got 900. And the quality wasn't there overall.
my view- pilots are done-

Airlines dealt w/ quadrupled fuel prices and survived- they can deal with us making a professional rate again.
btw- it's not that dems are crazy for unions- it's that they don't actively interfere w/ the negotiating process.