What CHQ pilots really think!

[KeroseneSnorter]

Let's see-90K or $60,000 net / 12 = $5,000 per month.

$2,000 for a mortgage
$500 for a car (all expenses)

That leaves $2,500 for the rest. Hard to imagine one couldn't have a high net worth after 20 years of this single income. Want to live like the millionare next door? Drive a previously owned car, have the spouse work (gosh forbid), don't buy a new boat, don't eat out every night, etc. Many Americans do it.

You left out a few things:

Second car for the spouse 500
Child care if the spouse works 250 minimum a month
High speed internet (required for most airline jobs anymore for bidding ect. $50
Power 100 average
food 500 month (Kids eat like horses...trust me on this one)
Car insurance $50 month and that is if you are getting it real cheap for both cars,


$3950 right there and that doesn't include 401k and IRA contributions (You don't actually expect to be able to retire on 401k alone do you?

Add college tuition in that and you are going in debt every month.

If you want to be an airline pilot and live like your average joe down the street, be my guest, But you should have saved yourself a lot of time and gone to high school only and become a Coke or Pepsi drink truck driver. They pull 40 to 45k second year or so and all they had to do was take a CDL written test.......What is your average Junior RJ Captian making these days after spending 5 to 7 years getting there? $50k...$55k? Seems like the return on the CDL is the better investment. Got a buddy that moved into managment doing the drink truck thing, he pulled 70k last year and only has 7 years with the company...which was his first job in the business. That 90k payscale, what was that.....12 year scale....or was it 20?

 

[Bdfg1]

Let's see-90K or $60,000 net / 12 = $5,000 per month.

$2,000 for a mortgage
$500 for a car (all expenses)
That leaves $2,500 for the rest. QUOTE]

Yep keep adding more fuel to prove our point.

 

[Nindiri]

See, this is the kind of stuff that makes us look bad to the public. Take an average teacher, for example, with a Masters degree making about 45K. He sees us whining that 90K and 15 days off a month is not enough, and he is not very impressed. You think he's going to give a crap when a judge refuses to release us to strike, or fines the union for too many sick calls?

Maybe you guys have more expensive tastes than me, but I get by just fine on 90K without hardship. And, of course, if my company gets bigger equipment with relatively bigger payrates, that's even better.

 

[210FR8DOG]

no kidding, our 4yr captain rate is $60 an hour or about 60k a yr. You can make about 90k in 15 yrs if you add check airman pay. In about 15 yrs that 90k will be worth, you guessed it kids, 60k, or less!! I'm still here because I'm too broke and stupid to do anything else!!!!!!! dammit!!

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

See, this is the kind of stuff that makes us look bad to the public. Take an average teacher, for example, with a Masters degree making about 45K. He sees us whining that 90K and 15 days off a month is not enough, and he is not very impressed. You think he's going to give a crap when a judge refuses to release us to strike, or fines the union for too many sick calls?

Maybe you guys have more expensive tastes than me, but I get by just fine on 90K without hardship. And, of course, if my company gets bigger equipment with relatively bigger payrates, that's even better.

He also is not the one in charge of 20 to 100 million worth of company equipment and responsible for 100's of lives on a daily basis.

How many times have you heard a teacher type ask you what it's like to be responsible for that many peoples well being every day? I hear it all the time, I normally respond with "If I get there in one piece so do they." But next time you hear it, consider who is asking you the question, Chances are it comes from some fairly well paid professionals.......They unconciously are telling you that they would not want to have that kind of responsibility.

Never be embarrassed about what you make, or what other people think about what you make outside of the aviation family, most of the people that you haul around everyday would not want that kind of responsibility.

 

[Nindiri]

I understand what you're saying and I'm definitely not ashamed of what I make. I'm just saying that relative to education and training, and the amount of work we do, we make better than most other people. 90K buys quite a bit, and we still have plenty of time left to do whatever we want. True, in 15 years inflation will have eaten into that, but long before then we will all be on new contracts. Again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't want more, just that we aren't being quite honest when we complain of being underpaid.

 

[KeroseneSnorter]

I understand what you're saying and I'm definitely not ashamed of what I make. I'm just saying that relative to education and training, and the amount of work we do, we make better than most other people. 90K buys quite a bit, and we still have plenty of time left to do whatever we want. True, in 15 years inflation will have eaten into that, but long before then we will all be on new contracts. Again, I'm not saying that we shouldn't want more, just that we aren't being quite honest when we complain of being underpaid.

True there are professions out there that equal or surpass ours in the amount of training that we receive, Doctors, Teachers etc.. But aside from the Doctoring profession there are very few professions that is as intolerant of mistakes as ours.

If an engineer make a mistake from a momentary lapse of judgement or inattention, he has many chances to correct the mistake before his building project gets to the stage where it could collapse and hurt someone.

We on the other hand do not have the luxury of having a lapse of judgment on short final and then take our time about correcting it. For the most part we must be correct all the time, physics and gravity do not normally allow much time to rectify a mistake.

If a teacher screws up, they go back and correct the test or whatever it was, the engineer goes back and corrects the calculation error for the load bearing beam, Pilots normally get placed inside several ziplocks along with their passengers if he screws up.

That is an important point to remember the next time some passenger, or more importantly some Airline CEO tells you that you are not worth a better than most payscale. Remember that 99% of the Airline CEO's out there doesn't even know how to start the airplanes that their company operates.....and he also is one that has time to correct any mistakes that he makes as well.

 

[miles otoole]

You left out a few things:

Second car for the spouse 500
Child care if the spouse works 250 minimum a month
High speed internet (required for most airline jobs anymore for bidding ect. $50
Power 100 average
food 500 month (Kids eat like horses...trust me on this one)
Car insurance $50 month and that is if you are getting it real cheap for both cars,



Add college tuition in that and you are going in debt every month.

Get a cheaper, used car.
Doesn't wifey poo have a job with her college education? If she's a kindergarten teacher, she should be seeing $40K min. Heck, at $90K you are getting close to not being eligible to even contribute to an IRA because you make too much.
Kids? Why are you having kids when you can't even afford to save for retirement or for their 8 years of education.
"But I'm a pilot. I am supposed to be living in the same neighborhoods as doctors."
Pay WILL NOT significantly increase in the future in this industry. You may not want to hear it, but the barriers to entry are the same as those for your Pepsi truck driver. If you WANT to retire comfortably, control what you are able to and quit wasting time on those things you cannot. Or don't. Either way, remember that each and every pilot in this industry will do what is in their OWN best interest.
As the senior pilots have shown time and time again that they will gladly throw the junior pilots in front of the truck full of hot tar if it's in their best interest alone, then the only way to protect yourself as a junior pilot is to grab what you can, when you can, as it ain't gonna be given back.
Start all newhire regional pilots at $40K a year and you'll see much less selfishness. Continue to start 'em at $20K and like someone on welfare, they get understandably become desperate. Question is, how do you realign pay so that a newhire regional FO makes at LEAST what a top major airline stewardess makes? Should they or should they not be compensated based on their level of responsibility ALPA? Anyone? I say give 'em some of Woerths salary.

 

[flyguy81]

who says you have to pay for your kids' education? noone paid for mine, i paid and am still paying for it

 

[miles otoole]

who says you have to pay for your kids' education? noone paid for mine, i paid and am still paying for it

Exactly-once they realize that they'll make squat as an airline pilot, they'll have to look into more lucrative careers to pay their school loans.