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Ned

Active member
Joined
Dec 3, 2001
Posts
39
I'm not an aviation professional - I'm 27 with all my commercial/CFI ratings and about 700 hours.

I keep up with the writings on scope and RJ's (its interesting!) and it seems to me that basically the mainline guys are finding it cheaper to send flights to the regionals because you can pay the pilots a lot less.

I have a couple of questions... Why does ALPA not want to force the pay at a place like Comair up and forget the whole scope thing? Is there a reason? It seems like it would be in everyone's best interest (except mgmt of course)

On a side note. The real problem seems to be a glut of pilots. I figure the reason most of these jobs pay so poorly is because somebody takes the job. For example, I recall seeing coex drop the minimums down to like 500 hours rather than up the pay. I have no doubt they would have dropped the requirement for an actual pilot's licesnse before paying the crew more. And as you get what you pay for..... Well I can walk down to the cafeteria and see what 15K a year gets you. Why not make it more difficult to become a pilot and keep the bozos who work for peanuts out? Require a master's degree or something like that. We've some real morons teaching at the local FBO, and as long as they are out there giving poor instruction for nothing, there is no decent paying job to be had.

The situation doesn't make me mad, it is what it is... I'm just not taking the job.
 
The only way you can make sense out of what ALPA is doing, is to follow the money. They continue to do things that are blatently illegal, and against their own charter, at the expense of all of their members. Comair pilots had the greatest chance in recent history to raise the bar for all regionals, but ALPA made it very difficult for us. I don't think there was anything more we could do. Now, the only solution is for all alpa members to work together. Since the mainline members refused, we had to sue our union. I hope something happens with that soon.
 
Pilot "shortage" or Principles of Professional Aviation 101

There is no pilot shortage. You are correct; there is a pilot glut. And, that is the name of the game. And, you are correct, again, offer a job and you'll have more takers than you'll ever need.

It goes back almost to the time the airline business started. Every time an airline needed pilots or found itself short of pilots meeting its quals (note my semantics), it simply lowered its hiring requirements. People want to be pilots and fly for airlines so desperately they'll take almost any pay. Just review airline history. In the 1930s you had E.L. Cord. In the 1980s, you had Frank Lorenzo.

I don't think that upping the requirements will weed out the bozos. The bozos will simply up their performance, get their Master's, and still work for little. It has more to do with the desire to be a pilot and to fly airplanes.

The same thing happens in broadcasting. I've seen it. So many people want to be on radio that they will grovel, indeed will work for nothing and take more abuse from lowlife subhuman managers than any human being should take. It all has to do with "being on radio."
 

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