From the "Ask the Pilot" column at Salon.com:
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2006/03/24/askthepilot179/
You'll have to watch an ad before you can read the whole article.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"Typically, pilots are paid based on a schedule of 75-85 flight hours per month. Yes, that multiplies out to around 1,000 hours for the year. Actual monthly
duty time, however, can be 150 hours or more, not including layovers. A pilot works 75 hours a month much the way a football player works one hour a week. All the preparation and paperwork of a journey by air -- weather planning, preflight inspections, flight plan review, etc., etc. -- are off the clock, strictly speaking,
as are those nights at the Ramada or La Quinta.
Example: A pilot, let's call him Steve, wakes at 5 a.m. in a hotel room in Jacksonville, with a scheduled departure for Washington at 0700. Steve is a first officer for a major U.S. airline and makes $65,000 annually. He and his crew fly to Washington, where they have a 90-minute stay before taking off again for Boston. After a two-hour sit and a maintenance delay in Boston, they fly to Toronto, landing just after 5 p.m. An hour later, they're dropped off at a hotel near the airport to spend the night. Total elapsed time from curbside to curbside: more than 12 hours. Total
pay hours: fewer than five. Oh, and there's a 4 a.m. wakeup call on tap for the next morning.
Repeat this scenario, or something close to it, 16, 17, or 18 times a month."
"One venue to prominently splash the BLS/Bizjournals findings on
the front of its business section was MSNBC.com. What I like best about this story is the accompanying through-the-windshield photograph of a pilot on the flight deck. Look at the captain saluting, as if he's signing off on this nonsense. In one of the sharpest ironies I've encountered in some time, you'll notice that he's sitting at the controls of a Canadair Regional Jet. It'd be easy to mine a thousand words from this absurdly ill-chosen picture, but here's the short version:
I see a guy about 55 years old. He cut his teeth flying commuters in the 1970s for $220 a week, until landing a job at Braniff in the late 1970s. The future looked bright. Until Braniff, once one of the world's biggest and fastest-growing airlines, went under. Then, he took a job at Eastern, starting over, per protocol, at the bottom of the list at probationary pay and benefits. Then came Lorenzo and the strike, and Eastern too was soon gone. Onward to USAir -- again to the bottom, and another re-set of the pay and benefits clock. It seemed an acceptable bet -- until yet again things turned sour and he was furloughed. Next he settled in with one of the growing regionals, where he made about $15,000 in his first year. Eventually, when his turn came, he upgraded to captain, and today he's as comfortable as he can expect to be, looking at retirement in just a few years. He earns $70,000 or so -- more than at any prior position. A respectable income, certainly, but that's his big payoff after, what, 30 years of flying? Just out of view is the first officer. He's 28 and a new hire, with fifty grand in college and flight school debts. He expects to bring home about $18,000.
So why enter this lousy line of work, with all its pitfalls and dangers and smashed-up dreams? Because you love it, of course, and because, should the cards come up right, you can be one of those lucky ones sitting pretty in a Boeing 777 en route to Shanghai -- hopefully while you're still young enough to enjoy it. As J.A. Donoghue, the editor of Air Transport World magazine, once put it, 'Aviation does not attract the easily discouraged.'"
"A regional carrier I once worked at lectured its new hires about the virtues of, naturally, professionalism. The airline demanded its trainees wear ties to class and meet near-perfect standards of performance and behavior. Fair enough, but this same company paid us all of $14,000. Is
that professional?
As a pilot with one carrier, I was told to make sure the knot in my necktie was the proper width. Then I would step into the cockpit of my freighter aircraft, where the floor was often so covered with filth, gum wrappers, dust and dirt, that a rapid decompression would probably have blinded the entire crew. How about some professionalism
there?
Employees are shouldered with the role, unwanted or otherwise, of representing the company they work for. That company has the right to demand they present themselves in its desired image. But shouldn't it work both ways? One regional pilot puts it this way: "I find it hard to take my job seriously because I am not
treated seriously. Rather, I take the
idea of my job seriously."
It's hard to sustain around here, but it's nice to see the effort!
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