Support for other pilots and Simple Math

[Dan Roman]

By making this statement that supply essentially exceeds demand, you acknowledge that the next round of LCC entrants will quickly emerge with pilots flying retired busses and madogs and guppies for sub RJ wages funded by anyone with a full bank account (GE capital.).

I don't think it will be that widespread, just starting an airline with cheap labor doesn't guaranty success. Far from it, for every SWA there is a dozen PeopleExpress's. Virgin isn't putting pressure on anyone with low wages, if anything they and JetBlue seem to be focusing on upping the service level . I'm an optimist, but I think the airline industry is consolidating and getting healthier than it ever has (which supports Beechs premise). The supply and demand part of the equation comes in with the regional pilots. They are the one's that need the most support for bringing up their wages. I'm guessing the airlines remaining all have a much stronger foothold than they ever have had and don't need to fight over who has the cheapest labor as much as in the past. It's no longer a matter of survival for anyone remaining. Airline pilot wages may have bottomed out as their is no way anyone would consider trying to replace a pilot group (strike) with cheaper labor. It is no longer even remotely feasable.

 

[scoreboardII]

They don't have too, they have us right were they want us, they lowered the bar via regional feed and wipsaw of wage between the RJ/mainline fleets and now have bottomed out the payscale to that of the RJ.

SWA pilots get paid what they made in 1973, adjusted for inflation.

The rest of the industry has collpasped below that level.

You might be right about stability, but wages will remain stagnant.

Unfortunately.

 

[Andy]

and we could raise the requirements to get an ATP to an ACT score of 29, about the same for academy admission. That would certainly cut down the ATP numbers.

While I wouldn't use ACT scores, I'd tighten up ATP requirements to be more like the MCATs. In countries where there aren't extremely high hurdles to becoming a doctor, doctors' wages are lower than in the US. US doctors have artificially reduced the number of doctors by making entry qualifications so high that only a few qualify.
Do the same with pilots and you will resolve most pilot wage issues.

 

[Andy]

By making this statement that supply essentially exceeds demand, you acknowledge that the next round of LCC entrants will quickly emerge with pilots flying retired busses and madogs and guppies for sub RJ wages funded by anyone with a full bank account (GE capital.).

The barriers to entry are near zero to start up a new airline. If it weren't for worldwide liquidity constraints, we probably would have seen one or two startups since age 65 went into effect. And it's not just old aircraft that you'd see startups fly; aircraft manufacturers are very generous with financing new aircraft.

 

[Andy]

Yet they line up around the corner to buy a frappecino whatever with whip cream from Starbucks for $4.

I'm done believing that bs from managment.

Starbucks has successfully branded their coffee. Coffee is a commodity that is offered everywhere, but they have somehow captured a large market share for a product with near zero difference between their coffee and the coffee sold by Dunkin Donuts/McDonalds/Burger King/etc.

The only similar business model that I see in the airline industry is Southwest where they have a very loyal consumer base. To a lesser extent, all of the major airlines have frequent flyer programs that allow them to have loyalty from a small percentage of the flying public.

If you can figure out a way to get the flying public to pay an extra $20 per ticket for a unique flying experience that can't be easily duplicated by other airlines, you'd see the Starbucks effect in the airline industry.

The internet has absolutely destroyed the airline industry. It allows the public to shop thousands of airfares with a couple of keystrokes. With very little to distinguish American from Delta from United, the key variable is ticket price.
That's forced airlines to cut corners in every aspect of the operation in order to lower ticket prices. You used to get free alcohol in coach (long ago). You used to get meals in coach. Now you can't even get a free bag of pretzels/peanuts on most airlines. Airlines have been forced to cut wages in order to remain competitive and I would expect pilot wages to continue downward until demand exceeds supply ... we have a long way to go until that happens.

 

[scoreboardII]

The barriers to entry are near zero to start up a new airline. If it weren't for worldwide liquidity constraints, we probably would have seen one or two startups since age 65 went into effect. And it's not just old aircraft that you'd see startups fly; aircraft manufacturers are very generous with financing new aircraft.

Andy gets it.

Expect to see numerous startups next year or at least once the presidential election is defined.

Then, the new paradigm evolves, pilots flying mainline for RJ wages competing against current LCC's. LCC (like SWA) who have a wage disadvantage of 50%.

All that money thats being pulled out of the airlines via consolidation and bankruptcy will go right back in when the next IPO for "We fly cheap express" hits the streets.

 

[scoreboardII]

Starbucks has successfully branded their coffee. Coffee is a commodity that is offered everywhere, but they have somehow captured a large market share for a product with near zero difference between their coffee and the coffee sold by Dunkin Donuts/McDonalds/Burger King/etc.

The only similar business model that I see in the airline industry is Southwest where they have a very loyal consumer base. To a lesser extent, all of the major airlines have frequent flyer programs that allow them to have loyalty from a small percentage of the flying public.

If you can figure out a way to get the flying public to pay an extra $20 per ticket for a unique flying experience that can't be easily duplicated by other airlines, you'd see the Starbucks effect in the airline industry.

The internet has absolutely destroyed the airline industry. It allows the public to shop thousands of airfares with a couple of keystrokes. With very little to distinguish American from Delta from United, the key variable is ticket price.
That's forced airlines to cut corners in every aspect of the operation in order to lower ticket prices. You used to get free alcohol in coach (long ago). You used to get meals in coach. Now you can't even get a free bag of pretzels/peanuts on most airlines. Airlines have been forced to cut wages in order to remain competitive and I would expect pilot wages to continue downward until demand exceeds supply ... we have a long way to go until that happens.

Agreed in whole.

 

[pilotyip]

Andy gets it.
Expect to see numerous startups next year or at least once the presidential election is defined.
Then, the new paradigm evolves, pilots flying mainline for RJ wages competing against current LCC's. LCC (like SWA) who have a wage disadvantage of 50%.
All that money thats being pulled out of the airlines via consolidation and bankruptcy will go right back in when the next IPO for "We fly cheap express" hits the streets.

Agreed in whole.

and your fix for this is what?

BTW Starbucks is under economic pressure to cut costs, close stores, looking at part time help with no benefits. People are not buying as much $4.00 coffee, when Meijers Gas Station sells it for $1.00

 

[ultrarunner]

[/QUOTE]Originally Posted by scoreboardII
Andy gets it.
Expect to see numerous startups next year or at least once the presidential election is defined.
Then, the new paradigm evolves, pilots flying mainline for RJ wages competing against current LCC's. LCC (like SWA) who have a wage disadvantage of 50%.
All that money thats being pulled out of the airlines via consolidation and bankruptcy will go right back in when the next IPO for "We fly cheap express" hits the streets.[/QUOTE]

and your fix for this is what?

Denying the application for an operating certificate on the grounds of "enough capacity".

I vote for re-regulation! Think about it, who wasn't happy during airline regulation?

 

[GogglesPisano]

I vote for re-regulation! Think about it, who wasn't happy during airline regulation?

Alfred Kahn. And Yip, apparently.

 

[scoreboardII]

and your fix for this is what?

BTW Starbucks is under economic pressure to cut costs, close stores, looking at part time help with no benefits. People are not buying as much $4.00 coffee, when Meijers Gas Station sells it for $1.00

collapse our wages to prevent a startup from having any advantage.

Whats happeneing here happens everyday in every city with taxicab operators. Taxi drivers get what they get because the drivers work for crap wages and anyone who trys to improve those is undercut by the next entrant who undercuts wages.

Economics 101.

 

[Andy]

and your fix for this is what?

The fix is to require higher standards in order to get an ATP.
For starters, I know of no profession that doesn't require a 4 year college education. As it is, being an airline pilot is a trade much like plumber or electrician.
Make testing more difficult. The entire ATP written needs to be reworked to make it more equivalent to passing a state bar exam or state doctor's license exams/boards.
Overhaul the current AME system. A 99.9999999% exam pass rate is unrealistic.

You want higher wages? Raise the barriers to entry for pilots. And make current pilots meet the same high standards.

 

[pilotyip]

The fix is to require higher standards in order to get an ATP.
For starters, I know of no profession that doesn't require a 4 year college education. As it is, being an airline pilot is a trade much like plumber or electrician.
Make testing more difficult. The entire ATP written needs to be reworked to make it more equivalent to passing a state bar exam or state doctor's license exams/boards.
Overhaul the current AME system. A 99.9999999% exam pass rate is unrealistic.

You want higher wages? Raise the barriers to entry for pilots. And make current pilots meet the same high standards.

Please we know a college degree has nothing to do with flying an airplane, being of extraordinary intelligence, or a hard working individual. There are so more ways to prove yourself beyond checking that college degree box. The simpleton degree from Bumblebee State in Women’s Studies is available for anyone who wants to pay their fee and get their “B”. Now a degree of one of the top college like U of M, MIT, or a Service Academy might make a difference, but the college degree alone proves nothing. I know too many superior pilot without degrees and I know too many with degrees that should have never made Captain.

BTW Use the service academy screening procedures to get an ATP, that would cut down the numbers.

I vote for re-regulation! Think about it, who wasn't happy during airline regulation?

Life was good for a few pilots under regulation. There are probably 4-5 times as many pilot’s jobs now as there was in 1977. Back in reg time it was about 90% military that went to the majors. Dereg opened up a lot of airline job to non-military pilots. To return to regulation would raise ticket prices, reduce the number of passengers, and therefore reduce the number of pilots needed. So maybe 3/4 of today's pilot would not have jobs under regulation, they would probably be unhappy, me not to worry, I always happy.

 

[SnowBoardBum]

Everyone is missing the point here. My point is that in the big picture pilot pay is a very small percentage of an airlines operating cost. Mangement trys to convince us that our salarys are the problem but that isn't the case and I laid out the overly simple math to prove it. The larger point is that when any of us say or believe that the top earners salary is "unsustainable" or cheer another unionized pilot groups loss we are hurting the profession. In the end they will pay us what we think we are worth and can negoitiate. With capacity, demand, and prices at their current levels we as a profession have the ability to recapture some of the staggering losses we have suffered in the last decade. We need to support each other in that effort no matter what our union pin reads or what the paint job on our plane says. They can in fact afford to pay us more and lowering our expectations doesn't help our cause.

While I don’t have the exact percentage of pilot compensation to OPEX total employee compensation to OPEX at say Delta is 20.4%. With net margins around 5% the impact on pilot compensation is significant to the operating results of the airlines. To think otherwise would be foolish – yes I am insinuating.

 

[Andy]

Please we know a college degree has nothing to do with flying an airplane, being of extraordinary intelligence, or a hard working individual. There are so more ways to prove yourself beyond checking that college degree box. The simpleton degree from Bumblebee State in Women’s Studies is available for anyone who wants to pay their fee and get their “B”. Now a degree of one of the top college like U of M, MIT, or a Service Academy might make a difference, but the college degree alone proves nothing. I know too many superior pilot without degrees and I know too many with degrees that should have never made Captain.

... and that's because you don't have a college degree. See, I've already cut down on the number of pilots eligible to fly part 121.

Let's take your college degree argument one step further - a high school diploma has nothing to do with flying an airplane. Two steps further - graduating from elementary school has nothing to do with flying an airplane. The difference between a profession and a trade is a 4 year (or more) college degree.
Or let's go in a different direction with your argument. How many fake doctors/lawyers/etc have been caught? Worse yet, how many haven't been caught? http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/real-life-doogie-howser-14445081
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700062077/Clinic-worker-charged-with-impersonating-a-doctor.html

There are a TON of internet hits for people impersonating doctors.

 

[pilotyip]

... and that's because you don't have a college degree. See, I've already cut down on the number of pilots eligible to fly part 121.

Let's take your college degree argument one step further - a high school diploma has nothing to do with flying an airplane. Two steps further - graduating from elementary school has nothing to do with flying an airplane. The difference between a profession and a trade is a 4 year (or more) college degree.
Or let's go in a different direction with your argument. How many fake doctors/lawyers/etc have been caught? Worse yet, how many haven't been caught? http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/real-life-doogie-howser-14445081
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700062077/Clinic-worker-charged-with-impersonating-a-doctor.html

There are a TON of internet hits for people impersonating doctors.

There is no comparison, Doctors are knowledge workers, and pilots are skilled workers. Doctors go to school for up to 20 years, work for slave wages until established in practice. Anyone with a certain level of skill and desire can be a pilot, no high school diploma, no college BS degree required, no MD like a doctor, just go to a trade school and develop a skill. Pilots unlike Doctors, CPA's and Engineers have no unique abilities that allow them to change jobs and be paid close to their last job. The job can be done by anyone with a Comm/MEL/Inst. High earnings are based upon seniority within a company's pay structure. When you can not live on a pilot’s pay, you go somewhere else where you can get better pay. I have had four non-flying jobs while waiting for a chance to get back into aviation. I have never seen a $100K in my life and I would be happy to work for that. I am still living my dream.

It would a great time for me to be 33 again with the coming experience shortage, I was at the peak of the hump of the pilots trained for Vietnam, the military trained over 15,000 pilots in 1968. There was no shortage of guys my age for the much smaller airline industry to look at in 1970's. The joke bak in 1977 when I left the Navy was "To get an interview with AAL, UAL, or DAL over age 30 you needed tow logged lunar landings"

BTW College is not an acceptable screening for limiting who can become a pilot. I know a major pilot, he was a high-school drop out. He paid $2,500 got a BS from XYZ College and bingo hired by a major. He is a great guy, and a good stick. Back to the Academy screening process to limit who can become a pilot.

 

[Andy]

There is no comparison, Doctors are knowledge workers, and pilots are skilled workers. Doctors go to school for up to 20 years, work for slave wages until established in practice. Anyone with a certain level of skill and desire can be a pilot, no high school diploma, no college BS degree required, no MD like a doctor, just go to a trade school and develop a skill. Pilots unlike Doctors, CPA's and Engineers have no unique abilities that allow them to change jobs and be paid close to their last job. The job can be done by anyone with a Comm/MEL/Inst. High earnings are based upon seniority within a company's pay structure. When you can not live on a pilot’s pay, you go somewhere else where you can get better pay. I have had four non-flying jobs while waiting for a chance to get back into aviation. I have never seen a $100K in my life and I would be happy to work for that. I am still living my dream.

It would a great time for me to be 33 again with the coming experience shortage, I was at the peak of the hump of the pilots trained for Vietnam, the military trained over 15,000 pilots in 1968. There was no shortage of guys my age for the much smaller airline industry to look at in 1970's. The joke bak in 1977 when I left the Navy was "To get an interview with AAL, UAL, or DAL over age 30 you needed tow logged lunar landings"

BTW College is not an acceptable screening for limiting who can become a pilot. I know a major pilot, he was a high-school drop out. He paid $2,500 got a BS from XYZ College and bingo hired by a major. He is a great guy, and a good stick. Back to the Academy screening process to limit who can become a pilot.

You asked for a fix to the oversupply problem. I gave a list of things that can be done.
Bottom line question: Would requiring a college degree to get an ATP reduce the number of pilots with ATPs? Answer: Yes.

If we're going to start discussing arbitrary rules in getting an ATP/class I, let's get into blood pressure and age limits; they no more effective than a college degree.

You're reminding me of the people who are screaming to cut the government budget. Until their sacred cow gets offered up on the altar, then it's a completely different tune.
Personally, I'm in favor of cutting the government budget in half. And even that won't balance the budget due to the resulting GDP contraction from cutting government.

 

[pilotyip]

You asked for a fix to the oversupply problem. I gave a list of things that can be done.
Bottom line question: Would requiring a college degree to get an ATP reduce the number of pilots with ATPs? Answer: Yes.

If we're going to start discussing arbitrary rules in getting an ATP/class I, let's get into blood pressure and age limits; they no more effective than a college degree.

You're reminding me of the people who are screaming to cut the government budget. Until their sacred cow gets offered up on the altar, then it's a completely different tune.
Personally, I'm in favor of cutting the government budget in half. And even that won't balance the budget due to the resulting GDP contraction from cutting government.

OK I will give you that one demanding a college degree would cut down the numbers, however it would do little to improve the quality of the pilot's in the cockpit. But it appears you are not interested in that part only reducing the numbers to drive up wages.

 

[Andy]

OK I will give you that one demanding a college degree would cut down the numbers, however it would do little to improve the quality of the pilot's in the cockpit. But it appears you are not interested in that part only reducing the numbers to drive up wages.

Well, we disagree. I think that requiring a 4 year college degree would improve the quality of pilots in commercial aviation. Can you name any profession that doesn't require a 4 year degree?
We have done much to turn this from a profession into just a trade/job. It's time to return this back to a profession.

Edit: I owe Pilotyip an apology. I mixed him up with someone else; he has PM'd me that he does have a 4 year degree. But I still stand by my opinion that a 4 year degree should be a requirement to be a commercial pilot.

 

[waveflyer]

+1 Andy
I also do and feel that academics in aviation are severely lacking- we ought to adopt Navy style aviation academics- and work on developing better judgement and people.
The academic challenge and knowing standard deviations, classical humanities, chemistry, and ethics&logic doesn't always produce the better pilot in management's eyes- but the character and sense of the big picture developed when going through that difficult process does produce a much better pilot -

But then again, Yip and pilot managers world-wide want us uneducated, without an understanding of the big picture, so they can continue to micro-manage the flight deck, erode pilot authority and the career to line their own pockets, and continue to replace common sense and sound judgement with the ever present and ever-changing "policy". They want "robots" they can pay as little as possible.

"Policy" always tends to trump ethics and sound judgement in corporate America - and we don't need more pilots who do not have the ability to think outside of a profile. We need well rounded, proud, educated, professionals in this career. We are the face of all airlines and should be competent at our core.

And though Yip has made his arguments ad nauseum for an ignorant pilot corps who will rotely do as they're told in all matters and let mgmt fly their airplane vicariously through profiles and micro management of flight policy- this is ultimately very dangerous and not how flying ought to be. Aviation history is written in blood and the future is the history you don't know.

Aviation requires more than the Yip's of the world would have you believe.
Would this be a barrier to entry and limit the #'s of pilots-
I actually don't think so. I think human beings are attracted to a challenge. I don't think we want the "easy" way like Yip. I think we would have a higher quality of person going after the pilot gig- we might not be so passive and apathetic as a whole- and collectively in our unions- could form and maintain better unity and arguments for our own worth.

Which, don't fool yourself, is exactly what mediocre pilot managers- who can't do what we do, are afraid of. In the razor thin margins of the airline industry- their only hope of scratching out a living around airplanes are to convince us that they know better and we are worth-less.

You gonna believe them?