No more excuses= up your pay!

[skyward80]

I don't understand what's easy about flying. I think the high level of training turns a lot of stuff into second nature for us. Even something simple like signing off a flight plan is a big deal. You have to make sure the route is correct, legal, and safe. This involves complying with the FARs, company regs, and your own good sense.

Lining up on final, flying down to the runway, and bringing the aircraft to a stop involves highly-trained motor skills. I won't even start on what's it's like to do this at night, in the weather, with or without systems problems.

Sometimes, we are a flick of the wrist away from disaster. I would argue that anybody who claims that being a pilot is easy needs to hit the books a little harder and challenge themselves in the simulator a little more.

Automation is a big help, but last time I checked, jets still require at least 2 people to be flown. There's a reason for that.

Skyward80

 

[pipejockey]

Hell- dairy farmers have representation. Where their career lends itself to free markets- ours does not...

I believe they are even subsidized as well!

 

[Freight Dog]

Screen Actors Guild, Writers Union, all professional sports....what about them? Last I checked the writers held out and got a good contract. The SAG right now is getting ready to strike against the studios who are trying to steal services and what about the strikes in hockey and baseball in recent years? There are many other unions that are doing fine and ones that are hurting. But, you like to pick and chose to make your rather shallow argument.

Here's the fundamental difference between them and ALPA - they don't go back to START and get paid bottom dollar if their company goes under or they change jobs.

I have 5300TT, 3 type ratings, 121 and 135 captain experience, ETOPS experience, domestic experience, single pilot experience, crew experience, 10 year career with no violations/accidents/incidents. At my former airline, my position paid $94.14/hour. Now that it went under, thanks to ALPA and our seniority system only pays $22/hour if I choose to stay flying in the airlines, which is something I've been doing for the last 8 years. Yes, I'd get paid the same as the starry-eyed kid fresh out of ALL ATPS with commercial multi ticket and Regional-Jet transition course and 250 hours of total time with ZERO real world experience.

As much as I despise unethical management, I despise ALPA even more for allowing this kind of nonsense to even manifest itself.

 

[waveflyer]

exactly-- that's the problem... we have to recognize it. Since deregulation- we no longer can expect to stay with our companies til retirement.

Keep seniority-- but kill the tradition of "1st year pay". Noone in my generation goes through it once.
Even out the payscales and make the next job industry wide a livable wage... We do that and leverage will return as a majority of pilots will now be more willing to walk away from mismanaged or financially stressed airlines.

 

[Mamma]

Here's the fundamental difference between them and ALPA - they don't go back to START and get paid bottom dollar if their company goes under or they change jobs.

I have 5300TT, 3 type ratings, 121 and 135 captain experience, ETOPS experience, domestic experience, single pilot experience, crew experience, 10 year career with no violations/accidents/incidents. At my former airline, my position paid $94.14/hour. Now that it went under, thanks to ALPA and our seniority system only pays $22/hour if I choose to stay flying in the airlines, which is something I've been doing for the last 8 years. Yes, I'd get paid the same as the starry-eyed kid fresh out of ALL ATPS with commercial multi ticket and Regional-Jet transition course and 250 hours of total time with ZERO real world experience.

As much as I despise unethical management, I despise ALPA even more for allowing this kind of nonsense to even manifest itself.

Don't blame ALPA, blame the selfish baby boomers. They ruined everything.

 

[milky]

Actually you are paid for the longevity of your service. Experience and judgment are not the basis for pay under collective bargaining.

Finally somebody that gets it... I predict you will be called management and an idiot at least 3 times in this thread.

 

[milky]

Here's the fundamental difference between them and ALPA - they don't go back to START and get paid bottom dollar if their company goes under or they change jobs.

I have 5300TT, 3 type ratings, 121 and 135 captain experience, ETOPS experience, domestic experience, single pilot experience, crew experience, 10 year career with no violations/accidents/incidents. At my former airline, my position paid $94.14/hour. Now that it went under, thanks to ALPA and our seniority system only pays $22/hour if I choose to stay flying in the airlines, which is something I've been doing for the last 8 years. Yes, I'd get paid the same as the starry-eyed kid fresh out of ALL ATPS with commercial multi ticket and Regional-Jet transition course and 250 hours of total time with ZERO real world experience.

As much as I despise unethical management, I despise ALPA even more for allowing this kind of nonsense to even manifest itself.

Well, based on the responses I see here, you must be a member of management because no pilot is smart enough to understand how the market and unions work. You should immediately leave the profession for having developed the intellect to understand that your collective bargaining tools have bargained you right into a longevity based career in a time when airlines done have longevity. As the 'professional' pilots on this board will tell you, you are not welcome here anymore.

 

[Abernathy]

Pilots really are stupid. At least half the ones in this thread. To actually argue against your own livelihood is something you'll only see here.

To sit here and argue that FDX and UPS pilots are making "ridiculous" salaries that they negotiated when their companies were making hoards of money manifests jealousy.

I happen to agree with the original poster. And so should every idiot in this thread.

And about the doctors. Stop idolizing them. I know many doctors. They might know a lot of stuff about medicine, but construction workers do a lot more work. Should they be paid more? Or maybe you argue that doctors should make 200K but pilots shouldn't because doctors go through more school. So do teachers and professors, and we all know what they make. A Harvard professor doesn't make as much as you'd think.

If you think that a retard can fly an airliner, either you know a lot less than you should and made it through from studying gouges, or you just think it's cool to tell people that "oh my job is easy" because you think it makes you look smart. That makes you look like an ass.

If you were smarter, you'd be more up in arms about management lining their pockets with pilot pensions.

 

[Abernathy]

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!!

Those thousands of guys not in the airlines can also be trained to be doctors, plumbers, secretaries, take your pick. Just because they can doesn't mean they should or want to.

What a ridiculous argument.

And where are you a 4th year FO making more than "a lot of doctors?" Do you actually know any doctors? And if you do, do you know their salaries?

If there are doctors making less than a 4th year FO, they're either doing residency or a fellowship and haven't completed their program, or they got sued a million times and no hospital will take them and they can't open a private practice.

I hate to break it to you, but judging from the logic in your arguments, you're just not that bright and shouldn't be trying to argue anything, period.

 

[Quimby]

Nobody cares about your free military MBA. I think the poster was calling into question your incredibly stupid remarks that show you as some kind of Judas. Would you walk a picket line in support of your fellow UPS pilots or would you cross it?

bingo.

 

[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.