Way to go Delta and NWA pilots!!!

[fromunda]

The outside perspective on pilot's pay and union labor in general, is that they are overpaid, whiny, lazy blue collar workers. NOBODY cares if you can't make $200k anymore. The average joe makes around $40-$70k a year. Don't kid youself like the other guy saying "$125k is chickenfeed". He is a fool and is lying to himself.

If you don't like your job, FIND ANOTHER ONE!!! Nobody is forcing you to stay and take a pay cut. A resume came across my desk the other day that was from a current airline pilot looking to work in the finance industry. He has NO experience outside of flying, and yet his salary requirements were $100k a year. I had to show it to other co-workers so they could laugh as hard as I did. Your employers are trying to compete and YOU won't let them because you think you are worth more. Sorry guys, but the economy (supply and demand) will dictate your worth, and it looks like it really isn't what you think it is. Sorry, but true.

Look at GM right now. They will eventually axe all their unions and get their pay to where it is warranted or get the mexicans or chinese to build our cars. You will soon see foreign carriers flying within our borders at much cheaper fares than US carriers can provide.

Just my take, have a nice day.

 

[Tank Commander]

Not being payed for the responsibility that you carry? You excepted the responsibility when you took the job. Sucks, but true.

 

[Tank Commander]

......and to be subjected to possibly having your throat slit by terrorists......

You obviously don't live in my neighborhood

My friends and neighbors are well educated and successful. They think 125k a year is good money for someone in their late 20s to mid 30s. Beyond that it is not a very good living in 2005 if you are raising a family, saving for your kids education and your own retirement.

You obviously need to find a new neighborhood.

enough to be paid for being away from your family, kids, significant other for Two and a half weeks per month....

You fail to mention the the 10-17 days that you get to spend with them per-month.

......working twelve to fifteen hours a day without a meal or snack break.......

Most I've seen could stand to skip a few.

.......being constantly monitored at your job.

Try an office cubical!

..........having to pass security checks several times a day..

Boy, now you are really reaching....

only getting the $125/hour when the brakes are released then until until setting them.....the rest of the time you don't get paid for ....

Ya, I feel for the FA making 15-18 dollars an hour, that really does suck. For you at $125.an hour......let me wipe the tear.

.......making life or death decisions continously.......

You do not make life or death decisions. You have a responsibility to follow procedure and make good decisions. I've made life and death decisions. 6 of them in 18yrs of military service. Meaning, with my finger on the trigger of a weapon.
I do agree that this is a demanding job. But this one unlike my other one, I can walk away from it anytime I believe that my risk or the demand of me is to high.

 

[800Dog]

It will stop when wages reach a point where they can not attract and retain pilots. Look at Pinnacle, they now buy you a room, pay pre-deim and give you a signing bonus because they could not attract pilots, it works on both ends. Funny GA MBA, the posting in the Ann Arbor paper said U of M MBA grads average about 70K to start, must be GA has a better program. Or could it be your know two guys who started over 100K and you did not tell us about the 17 guys who started at under 50K.

Wrong again. Michigan is 131k. Check out www.admissionsconsultants.com/mba/compensation.asp


Why don't you post the article from the ann arbor paper! Noone from a reputable mba program starts at 50k.

 

[pilotyip]

dog ate my paper, how could they be that far apart.

 

[miles otoole]

I am halfway finished with my MBA at GA Tech and the average starting pay for graduates without experience, such as myself, is about 110k. The average student in the program has over eight years of experience in corporate America with an average income of 135k. I never said that making over 100k does not put one in the top 5%. You said that 125k is a lot of money and I just stated that I disagree. It is all about expectations and those with more education have higher expectations than those with less.

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/05/emba_profiles/georgiatech.htm

Well according to this, the average starting pay is about $110,000 as you claimed, but the average management experience is 13 years with an average age of 36. That's right-36, not 25.
Many of these folks are consultants, and while typically home on weekends, they arrive late Friday night and leave Sunday again. Work weeks are also 70-80 hours. There is no union, and if you don't quite fit in with the boss or team, you can easily be out of work for months at a time and may never see that $110 K again.
MBAs are not what they used to be. Everyone now has one and much like the pilot glut, the MBA factories like Ga Tech (GMAT not required and 80% selection rate-are you kidding? Mesa is more selective than that) will help drive down demand and thus salaries.

 

[800Dog]

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/05/emba_profiles/georgiatech.htm

Well according to this, the average starting pay is about $110,000 as you claimed, but the average management experience is 13 years with an average age of 36. That's right-36, not 25.
Many of these folks are consultants, and while typically home on weekends, they arrive late Friday night and leave Sunday again. Work weeks are also 70-80 hours. There is no union, and if you don't quite fit in with the boss or team, you can easily be out of work for months at a time and may never see that $110 K again.
MBAs are not what they used to be. Everyone now has one and much like the pilot glut, the MBA factories like Ga Tech (GMAT not required and 80% selection rate-are you kidding? Mesa is more selective than that) will help drive down demand and thus salaries.

When did I say the average age was 25? GA Techs program was ranked 32nd in the nation by US News and World Report with an average GMAT score of 658. In 2004, Forbes ranked Tech #9 among public universities and 29th overall. Very competitive school for both undergrad. and grad. school. Do some more research.

 

[WhiteCloud]

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/05/emba_profiles/georgiatech.htm

Well according to this, the average starting pay is about $110,000 as you claimed, but the average management experience is 13 years with an average age of 36. That's right-36, not 25.
Many of these folks are consultants, and while typically home on weekends, they arrive late Friday night and leave Sunday again. Work weeks are also 70-80 hours. There is no union, and if you don't quite fit in with the boss or team, you can easily be out of work for months at a time and may never see that $110 K again.
MBAs are not what they used to be. Everyone now has one and much like the pilot glut, the MBA factories like Ga Tech (GMAT not required and 80% selection rate-are you kidding? Mesa is more selective than that) will help drive down demand and thus salaries.

Finally a little real world commentary on this thread.

 

[LJDRVR]

You do not make life or death decisions. You have a responsibility to follow procedure and make good decisions. I've made life and death decisions. 6 of them in 18yrs of military service. Meaning, with my finger on the trigger of a weapon.

Thanks for your service to our nation, I'm truly appreciative for that.

You should, however take your half-baked opinions elswhere, as you obviously don't know what you're talking about.

Let me guess, you retired and are now working in your first aviation job, which you got hired for with low time. Never sat in the left seat of anything larger than a Seneca, and the only thing you've ever pulled the QRH out for is holdover times. Now you're gonna lecture us on what we deserve to earn, and chide us for having the gaul to think we may have made a life or death decision or two? Even though some of us have flown behind more types of engines than you have aircraft, and experienced abnormals and emergencies with almost any system you care to think of?

You ever had a total electrical failure at night in a jet? How about rapid decompression? Smoke in the cabin at 410? There are pilots on this board who've had to shut down a motor in the tracks, perform an offset, driftdown and diversion into Iceland or The Azores, all in the non-radar, RVSM, MNPS environment, running the checklist and being responsible for their own seperation from hundreds of potential midairs.

You've got a lot to learn, brother.

 

[PCL_128]

You do not make life or death decisions. You have a responsibility to follow procedure and make good decisions.

Jim, my respect for you is rapidly waning with comments such as this. Procedure only take you so far, then you have to rely on your own judgement to start making life altering decisions. When you take that CRJ on a flight, you're responsible for a $25 million airplane and the lives of the passengers and other crewmembers. It's not something to be taken lightly, and it certainly deserves more compensation than what me make. A lot more compensation. Don't sell yourself short on what you deserve.

 

[Splinter]

Other unions are not handcuffed by the RLA....thats why ALPA can't shut down the entire industry in one big swoop without many people going to jail and ALPA losing all it's money in the largest law suit in American history. The RLA is what makes our unions different from other unions.

Wow! Someone who doesn't speak from his backside!

He is absolutely correct. There will not be a Master Contract in this business because of the construct in which our industry operates. Collectively, we as pilots know as much about our industry as does management, and that is why we are all working for bankrupt carriers. We need good ol' airline people running airlines, not CEO's from Burger King and AT&T looking for a challenge. The way you boost your company's value is not bare bones operating and NEVER thinking about the effect on stock price...take care of your 1) employees, and then 2) customers, and THAT will 3) boost stock value.

 

[freightdogfred]

Maybe some of the NWA and DAL pilots have friends who went down with EAL and Pam Am. They found themselves going from $125/yr as an airline pilot, to begging for a job as a bread truck driver at $35K/yr working 6 days a week 12-14 hours a day. Talk about QOL. They found outside of aviation no one cares that you were an airline pilot. The reality of the real world may be moving them into the compromise role. The UAL guys went through it and most came out whole on the other side. Of course this is a pilot fantasy board that does not deal with reality. The reality is $125K/yr for flying an airplane is a good job. Ask your friends and neighbors outside of aviation what they think of a $125K/yr. According to stats I have seen $125K puts you in the upper 5% of income producers in the country. Yea cojones has a great macho ring to it, but the reality is it like putting bullet in your head. Standing by for bashing and screaming.

It is the boot-licking mentality such as this is why mgmt. is steam rolling over pilot groups. Mr PilotYip, who goes home each night has obviously forgotten what it's like to spend holidays away from home, miss birthdays, family functions etc. THE REALITY is most guys stick it out in this miserable business in hopes that the carrot at the end of the stick will be obtainable one day, i.e. the high paying airline job. THE REALITY is guys at regionals and feeders don't make near 100K a year, and only Captains at Legacys and LCC's make close to your 125K a year. You and your boyz flying your clapped-out diezel-9's and falcons outta dirt city(YIP) might be in it for the love of aluminum, but the rest of us do it for dough. You know why Cathay Pacific has so few nationals applying, and hires almost all Ex-Pats? Because all their applicants pull out an abacus during the interview, crunch the lifetime salary numbers, and then get up and walk out. THE REALITY is you need to get out and fly some trips over the holidays, stay in a few dirt bag hotels I'm sure your company puts it's crews in, and eat out of a few vending machines, non-sked style. Being CP and all, I'm sure you can find a trip for yourself over the Thanksgiving holiday. Do this, and then come back to preach your drivel. Better yet, get the "Tank Commander" to jerk your gear and the two of you can bash the whiny pilots during the trip.

 

[Tank Commander]

total electrical failure at night in a jet? How about rapid decompression? Smoke in the cabin at 410? There are pilots on this board who've had to shut down a motor in the tracks, perform an offset, driftdown and diversion into Iceland or The Azores, all in the non-radar, RVSM, MN PS environment, running the checklist and being responsible for their own seperation from hundreds of potential midairs.

Every situation you described is covered in a procedure that you were trained to preform. Life and death decision infers to keep one or just do away with it. You are not deciding weather you and your passengers should live and die. You are responding to and emergency the best you can to live.
Dieing is not considered an option. If you f-it-up it could become one. If a bus driver does not respond to a tire blowout on the interstate correctly it could be an option also. The way you talk about "life and Death Decisions" is a slap in the face to any Soldier, Marine, police officer, or even one of your fellow pilots that in the time of war had to drop ordinance from an A/C with civilians in the area and has to live with it. YOU ARE NOT MAKING A DECISION, YOU ARE TRING NOT TO LET THE SITUATION MAKE IT FOR YOU!
You my brother need to learn. Life is bigger. Maybe spending so much time in this industry is not such a good thing.

Jim, my respect for you is rapidly waning with comments such as this.

Todd, You are young. When you get older, and have lived a little we can talk.

 

[Spooky 1]

Hate to say it but some of the worst pilots I have known cloaked themselves in under the banner of safety experts. Most Air Force Wing Safety officers were the guys who were never going any place further in their careers. i.e, no Wing Comander slots, no Squadron Comander slots, just somplace to keep them busy and out of serious trouble. Unfortunely you sound like one of these types.

 

[Tank Commander]

Stop. you are going to hurt my feelings

 

[pilotyip]

dogfred, yes I am home most nights, I am in the office about 25 days per month, many days are 11 hours with no lunch break. I am on call 24/7 to answer DA-20 ops problems. I still get tagged to fly a trip once in a while, the best part of job. I will compare myself to a USA Jet DC-9 pilot. 13 days off per month, home about 25 days per month. There are good parts on both sides. If you envy my poistion come over to the dark side and become part of the team that makes your job possible.

 

[wrxpilot]

I am halfway finished with my MBA at GA Tech and the average starting pay for graduates without experience, such as myself, is about 110k. The average student in the program has over eight years of experience in corporate America with an average income of 135k. I never said that making over 100k does not put one in the top 5%. You said that 125k is a lot of money and I just stated that I disagree. It is all about expectations and those with more education have higher expectations than those with less.

Sounds great, let's see some evidence of that payscale and placement rate. I know engineers that have their PEs and an MBA that aren't making anywhere close to $135k.

 

[wrxpilot]

Wrong again. Michigan is 131k. Check out www.admissionsconsultants.com/mba/compensation.asp


Why don't you post the article from the ann arbor paper! Noone from a reputable mba program starts at 50k.

Thanks, I wish you would've provided that link sooner. The acceptance rate is low, but I agree those are some impressive median salaries. I believe there's more to this though. I wonder what the experience of these people are, etc. Probably not many w/ fresh degrees and little experience.

 

[ACAFool]

I have been out of the loop for a week, so excuse my ignorance on here. I thought NWA pilots voted to pass a ta. If so why are does this article say they are threatning strike as well as Delta?

 

[ExAF]

Strike Still a Possibility

NWA is threatening to strike if the company tries this NEWCO thing and outsources the 70-100 seat flying from mainline (among other things). The TA was to buy time (60 days) to try to do better on workrules and scope and come to a mutually agreed upon contract. If the company tries to impose a contract that is not mutually agreed upon, a strike is still a very real possibility. Only 63% voted for the TA (I still can't believe that many morons voted yes). You can already put the 36% that voted against the TA in the STRIKE column if there is a strike vote. It won't take too many more to approve a strike if it comes down to it.