turbinesurgeon
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 10, 2005
- Posts
- 182
People are stupid. You get what you pay for.....period. It's cliche but it's true. $100K a year gets you a comfortable, experienced, well rested, happy pilot. $18K gets you an inexperienced, tired, commuting across the country b/c they can't afford to live in base, never seen IFR, never seen ice pilot.
Time to get rid of the time builders and 40 year old mid-life crisis pilots that made all their money being accountants and lawyers. This is a profession and we should be paid that way. What if pilots changed their minds and became lawyers and said they would work for 5 bucks an hour because they just love litigation, or they did taxes for everybody for free, because accountimg is awesome. What would happen to them?? We could bring down an entire industry just like they did. Bottom line, we need dedicated, trained pilots, that don't work for peanuts. Get rid of ALPO and let every company have their own union.
I don't think throwing money at the problem is necessarily the answer. I have seen a lot of poor decision making on the line. People don't use the fatigue call enough when needed or at all. I hear many pilots talk about their crappy schedules and flying tired. Why don't they call in fatigue? because they will lose money is one of the biggest motivators I believe. Someone here will say if you are only making 18K, you can't afford to call in fatigue, well if this Colgan crash doesn't wake you up then I don't know what will. Dying is permanent.
IMHO I think its sad we have to get Bureaucrats involved to make the decisions for us. I really believe we do get what we pay for. But a lot the new generation of pilots wastes all of their money on stupid $hit and as a result they make poor decisions like buying a new Iphone instead of health insurance. 18K or 100k they will piss it all away. I guess Mommy Government will fix everything since they are the really smart people who knows whats best for us. If you are smart you can live off of the 18K per year. and commute safely. If you can't than maybe you should do something else and leave this profession for the professionals.