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.