Our jobs and the entire airline industry is about to implode............

[Browntothebone]

The point is that the public doesn't care about the woes of the passenger pilots. ALL they care about is a cheap ticket.

 

[Browntothebone]

I cant belive the awful scumbags replying to that article...
"
The skills involved in flying an airplane are overrated. (My pilot friends would agree) It is only the consequences of the mistakes that make us think of this as an elite profession. There should be regulations about rest requirements just as there should for bus and truck drivers. The pay for an occupation is determined by supply and demand. If you have a bunch of young pilots willing to fly for low wages, oh well. You aren’t going to raise their experience or skill level but having a pilot minimum wage. Flyers don’t think they are “entitled” to fly anywhere for $99. Airlines in intense competition for butts to put in the seats are cutting costs to lower prices. That’s how competition works.
— Bob Wortman"

You are correct. The actual manipulation of the controls is very easy. It's always come easy for me, flying. You just need to get some good experience to build a data bank to fall back on when times are tough in the air.

 

[SLFLYHI]

I read Capt. Steve's article, and it wasn't bad. He was right about some things, but off base on others. The problem isn't $99 fares. The problem isn't the pilots at regional airlines, or foreign airlines, or low fare airlines. The problem is management. Period. The managers at the airlines have proven to be experts at divide-and-conquer. By successfully pitting one pilot group against another, whipsawing for new or continued flying, and generally using pilot livelihoods as a marketing weapon, they have ruined this profession. Unfortunately for us, there isn't a single union for pilots and as such, managers will continue this warfare even if it results in blood on their hands. I don't know what the solution is, but the problem, at least in my opinion, is clear.

 

[Browntothebone]

I read Capt. Steve's article, and it wasn't bad. He was right about some things, but off base on others. The problem isn't $99 fares. The problem isn't the pilots at regional airlines, or foreign airlines, or low fare airlines. The problem is management. Period. The managers at the airlines have proven to be experts at divide-and-conquer. By successfully pitting one pilot group against another, whipsawing for new or continued flying, and generally using pilot livelihoods as a marketing weapon, they have ruined this profession. Unfortunately for us, there isn't a single union for pilots and as such, managers will continue this warfare even if it results in blood on their hands. I don't know what the solution is, but the problem, at least in my opinion, is clear.

If your plane has Express, Connection, Airlink or any other regional trade name painted on it, then you ARE the problem.

 

[Full of LUV]

It's still the jumpseat....

I read Capt. Steve's article, and it wasn't bad. He was right about some things, but off base on others. The problem isn't $99 fares. The problem isn't the pilots at regional airlines, or foreign airlines, or low fare airlines. The problem is management. Period. The managers at the airlines have proven to be experts at divide-and-conquer. By successfully pitting one pilot group against another, whipsawing for new or continued flying, and generally using pilot livelihoods as a marketing weapon, they have ruined this profession. Unfortunately for us, there isn't a single union for pilots and as such, managers will continue this warfare even if it results in blood on their hands. I don't know what the solution is, but the problem, at least in my opinion, is clear.

The jumpseat should be held for professionals who make a professional wage. Right now, if you want to start up a cheap airline in San Francisco, no problem, because all of your competitors will deliver your low wage workers to the job site via the jumpseat. If it were not access to this, most companies would have to pay a decent wage to either get access, or convince pilots to move to their base. It would be much harder for skybus, rah, etc to get going at substandard wages. Where is ALPA in stating that !!!!! is the professional minimum wage in order to be a pilot for a 121 carrier. It may limit the top end in negotiating, but it will surely pull up the bottom end and I think most pilots realize that being undercut is far more dangerous than the relatively short lived designation of being the "highest paid" in the industry. LUV

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Pilots, all of us, complain that consumers aren't paying enough for a ticket, then we rush to other industries and become the consumers we loath....

The market will continue to race to bottom when people function solely or mostly as consumers.

Airlines and most corporations in any given industry will continue the battle for the lowest cost and prices. What else are they to do...??

The only way corporations will change direction on the race to bottom is if they are mandated and that mandate applies to everyone. IOW, legislation.

Legislation is is a function of citizenship. Not consumerism.

 

[Browntothebone]

The jumpseat should be held for professionals who make a professional wage. Right now, if you want to start up a cheap airline in San Francisco, no problem, because all of your competitors will deliver your low wage workers to the job site via the jumpseat. If it were not access to this, most companies would have to pay a decent wage to either get access, or convince pilots to move to their base. It would be much harder for skybus, rah, etc to get going at substandard wages. Where is ALPA in stating that !!!!! is the professional minimum wage in order to be a pilot for a 121 carrier. It may limit the top end in negotiating, but it will surely pull up the bottom end and I think most pilots realize that being undercut is far more dangerous than the relatively short lived designation of being the "highest paid" in the industry. LUV

Sounds like you are saying that jumpseat priority for offline pilots should be by your hourly pay rate, irregardless of who signs up first for the jumpseat.

 

[777forever]

Very poorly written article that comes across as a long winded rant with no thesis or conclusion. Has the author ever heard of a free market? Since when have pilots (well known as some of the cheapest mofo's on this green earth) been given the right to bash passengers for getting the cheapest ticket they can get?

 

[JoeMerchant]

The jumpseat should be held for professionals who make a professional wage. Right now, if you want to start up a cheap airline in San Francisco, no problem, because all of your competitors will deliver your low wage workers to the job site via the jumpseat. If it were not access to this, most companies would have to pay a decent wage to either get access, or convince pilots to move to their base. It would be much harder for skybus, rah, etc to get going at substandard wages. Where is ALPA in stating that !!!!! is the professional minimum wage in order to be a pilot for a 121 carrier. It may limit the top end in negotiating, but it will surely pull up the bottom end and I think most pilots realize that being undercut is far more dangerous than the relatively short lived designation of being the "highest paid" in the industry. LUV

Do you work for Southwest?

 

[JoeMerchant]

Pilots, all of us, complain that consumers aren't paying enough for a ticket, then we rush to other industries and become the consumers we loath....

The market will continue to race to bottom when people function solely or mostly as consumers.

Airlines and most corporations in any given industry will continue the battle for the lowest cost and prices. What else are they to do...??

The only way corporations will change direction on the race to bottom is if they are mandated and that mandate applies to everyone. IOW, legislation.

Legislation is is a function of citizenship. Not consumerism.

I don't agree with you on much....but it is amusing how many pilots complain about pay and low fares...then shop around for the lowest price and try to get "a deal".....

They hate the $99 airfare.....while they try to get the $39 hotel room and $15 rental car.......

 

[NavinRJohnson]

Rez: My thoughts exactly, and I think that's what the author was trying to get across.

777: Free market? If you had an absolutely free market, your children would die from poorly made cribs and toxic toys, the food you eat would be loaded with melamine (or at least the lowest level that won't kill you), and the smog from an unregulated energy industry would make our cities choke. Read Sinclair's the Jungle. This battle has been going on since the industrialized world began...

Regulation is extremely important. I'm not saying I want to be a commie bastard, but corporations have no guiding ethics without controls.

You're absolutely right however, when you say we as pilots are the cheap bastards when it comes to our own spending habits (guilty myself).

I now, however, make an attempt to educate myself on the true cost of what I buy now, and act accordingly. That's what all consumers should do, but they don't.

 

[Paul R. Smith]

I think....

Union busting has brought us to where we are today. For decades, companies having been sparing no cost to cripple and shame unions. A company will spend more than twice the cost of new CBA with its union(s) just to spite it(them).

This won't change. America hates Unions. Congress lambasted previous airline pilot contracts saying they were filled with featherbedding. Yes congress said that (the irony) and we can add to that congress and corporate media protects the assertion that we need to retain the losers who managed our companies right into Ch11 proceedings with 10s of millions in compensation and (here is that word used correctly to describe the situation)> featherbedding like membership at only the most expensive of health, sports, and countryclubs. You would think you could afford all that ******************** with 18mill.

 

[pilotyip]

Unions make companies non-competitive

I think....

Union busting has brought us to where we are today. For decades, companies having been sparing no cost to cripple and shame unions. A company will spend more than twice the cost of new CBA with its union(s) just to spite it(them).

GM and the UAW
This brings me to the relationship between Detroit management and the UAW. It is likely that if no Japanese or European manufacturers had built plants in the U.S.—in other words if imports were still really imports—the Detroit carmakers would not be in their current straits, although we as consumers would probably be paying more for cars and have fewer choices than we do. The fact is that the Detroit Three's post-World War II business strategies were doomed from the day in 1982 when the first Honda Accord rolled off a non-union assembly line in Ohio. After that it soon became clear that the Japanese automakers—and others—could build cars in the U.S. with relatively young, non-union labor forces that quickly learned how to thrive in the efficient production systems those companies operated. Being new has enormous advantages in a capital-intensive, technology-intensive business like automaking. Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and later BMW, Mercedes, and Hyundai, had new factories, often subsidized by the host state, that were designed to use the latest manufacturing processes and technology. And they had new work forces. This was an advantage not because they paid them less per hour—generally non-union autoworkers receive about what UAW men and women earn in GM assembly plants—but because the new, non-union companies didn't have to bear additional costs for health care and pensions for hundreds of thousands of retirees. Moreover, the new American manufacturers didn't have to compensate workers for the change from the old mass production methods to the new lean production approach. GM did—which is why GM created the Jobs Bank. The idea was that if UAW workers believed they wouldn't be fired if GM got more efficient, then they might embrace the new methods. Of course, we know how that turned out. The Jobs Bank became little more than a welfare system for people who had nothing more to contribute because GM's dropping market share had made their jobs superfluous. Health care is a similar story. GM's leaders—and the UAW's—knew by the early 1990s that the combination of rising health care costs and the longevity of GM's retired workers threatened the company. But GM management backed away from a confrontation with the UAW over health care in 1993, and in every national contract cycle afterwards until 2005—when the company's nearness to collapse finally became clear to everyone.
In testimony before Congress this December, GM's CEO Rick Wagoner said that GM has spent $103 billion during the past 15 years funding its pension and retiree health-care obligations. That is nearly $7 billion a year—more than GM's capital spending budget for new models this year. Why wasn't Rick Wagoner making this point in 1998, or 1999, or even 2003? Even now, GM doesn't seem willing to treat the situation like the emergency it is. UAW membership 1979 over 1M, membership today under 300K, BTW What kind of a car do you drive?

 

[Paul R. Smith]

I have no rebuttle for that. I certainly can respect that point of view Yip.



I think its safe though to say that the uaw and ALPA/SWAPA/APA/IPA etc.. are not the same. We don't even have the same bargaining laws.


I still believe union busting ends up siphoning more money from business than A) taxes and B) whatever a Union CBA would cost.

Both of which are despised by business.

 

[Flopgut]

I've downsized a great deal and the neighborhood I live in is 5 miles from a Ford plant. Most of my neighbors are UAW. I moved in 3 years ago and thought I would be watching some of them downsize just like I did. Not that I wanted to see them lose but I knew what had happened to me. So anyway, they got a bailout! Big one. I thought I would be watching the automotive version of the ATSB. Not at all folks. The government decided those jobs, building expensive and marginal US cars, were more important than the work we do and the careers we had flying airplanes.

 

[tomgoodman]

Bad planning

And they had new work forces. This was an advantage not because they paid them less per hour—generally non-union autoworkers receive about what UAW men and women earn in GM assembly plants—but because the new, non-union companies didn't have to bear additional costs for health care and pensions for hundreds of thousands of retirees.

Sounds like the "old" companies agreed to predictable future expenses without setting aside enough money over the years. That's a management failure. With a properly funded pension and insurance plan, a worker won't cost the company an additional dime after he retires.
If the "new" companies make the same mistake, they will get the same result.

 

[JoeMerchant]

Sounds like the "old" companies agreed to predictable future expenses without setting aside enough money over the years. That's a management failure. With a properly funded pension and insurance plan, a worker won't cost the company an additional dime after he retires.
If the "new" companies make the same mistake, they will get the same result.

Maybe the unions held a gun to their head....It was either give in or a strike....Pensions and health care have been the topic that nobody really wants to address.

Social Security, Medicare, and medical/retirement costs are not sustainable due to the changing demographics and overly optimistic actuarial assumptions....

The problem remains on how to deal with people who were made promises that were never realistic in the first place.

 

[Full of LUV]

No....It's about establishing a standard....

Sounds like you are saying that jumpseat priority for offline pilots should be by your hourly pay rate, irregardless of who signs up first for the jumpseat.

It's about establishing a standard that is the minimum. If it is a true union, then why not say that "X" is the minimum per hour (with everything considered) to be the minimum before your contract is a "professional" pilot contract. ALPA should work to make the "bennies" of professional airline pilots be reserved for professionals. If you want to start up an airline at below professional rates, then know going in that you won't get ALPA qualified pilots so all you will be able to hire is the local misfits who are willing to work below that rate. Not a viable operation to expand if you can't use your competition to commute into the job.

Also, if I were ALPA president, doesn't he get to sign each contract, well I wouldn't be worried about losing a group, and I would refuse to sign any contract that was below the minimum standards in pay and workrules.

Lastly, if an ALPA carrier went chapter 11 or furloughed, those junior "ALPA" pilots should know that they would be the first to be hired for any hiring ALPA carrier, perhaps even with longevity credit for previous ALPA experience. I know everyone thinks this is pie in the sky, but ALPA would be better served by increasing the benefits of membership and making it something to strive for and stop worrying about bringing the twobit operations under the tent. I assure you that Colgan could not operate without access to the jumpseat, look at the two that recently crashed the plane, neither lived in the same timezone as their base.

Maybe it's time to homoginize the professional pilot ranks so that being a professional 121 pilot is a fixed cost and the only thing management has to compete on is other labor, customer service and marketing strategies. Pilots love to be the "highest paid" when times are good but hate the furloughs when things slow down.
Luv

 

[777forever]

Rez: My thoughts exactly, and I think that's what the author was trying to get across.

777: Free market? If you had an absolutely free market, your children would die from poorly made cribs and toxic toys, the food you eat would be loaded with melamine (or at least the lowest level that won't kill you), and the smog from an unregulated energy industry would make our cities choke. Read Sinclair's the Jungle. This battle has been going on since the industrialized world began...

Regulation is extremely important. I'm not saying I want to be a commie bastard, but corporations have no guiding ethics without controls.

You're absolutely right however, when you say we as pilots are the cheap bastards when it comes to our own spending habits (guilty myself).

I now, however, make an attempt to educate myself on the true cost of what I buy now, and act accordingly. That's what all consumers should do, but they don't.

Can't say I disagree with ya on that one. I just think a pilot ranting to american customers (who undoubtly receive a much inferior airline product compared to most other industrial countries) to pay more, is laughable.

What he should be asking is that the gov't keep their hand out the cookie jar when big airlines fail so the market can stabilize itself

 

[ackattacker]

You are correct. The actual manipulation of the controls is very easy. It's always come easy for me, flying. You just need to get some good experience to build a data bank to fall back on when times are tough in the air.

Most ********************ty pilots think flying is a piece of cake.

I will say that when I had 800 hours and was trying to get into the right seat of an RJ I thought I knew everything I needed to know and had already "paid my dues" instructing. All I needed was somebody to show me how to start the thing.

Looking back I was an idiot. But I wasn't alone. The regionals are now completely filled up with such idiots who think flying is a cakewalk and frankly just don't take it seriously. How can we expect the public to respect our profession when we don't even respect it ourselves.