Originally Posted by
EWRflyr
Just another typical person living beyond their means. I am always amazed by the number of people I fly with who need to be making 85-95 hours a month to make ends meet.
EXACTLY! Any pilot who doesn't have several months' savings to fall back on AND is actively saving a large portion of their current salary is a financial idiot. After what everyone experienced due to 9/11, there's no excuse to not be saving some of your pay every month in a rainy day fund on top of maxing out your Roth IRA and 401k if you're past second year wages.
Originally Posted by
syd111
That all sounds good ewr, but most of the age 60 I fly with have been hammered over their careers. Some are ex eastern, followed by esop and ch-11 so they really have not had a solid 25-30 years of service to put it away.
I'll swap careers with them. I turn 51 in November. I have had four years of service since leaving the active duty military at 39 with 15 years active duty and am currently on furlough due to age 65.
Here's the irony. I've got quite a bit in savings, have paid for one child's college and am paying for a second so that they will have zero student loans. So excusing any pilot for a busted career doesn't hold water. It's been more than a decade since 9/11 - if that wasn't a huge wakeup call to pilots to start saving money, I don't know what is. Insert Ron White's tag line here.
Originally Posted by
gettinbumped
P.S. Since I'm adrift - how did the company so easily pull one over on ALPA with regards to work rules. The JNC is fighting hard (and meeting resistance) for UAL work rules as the superior contract they want to adopt. Umm.... those work rules were set in Ch 11 Bankruptcy. Depending on your perspective, they might be better than CAL's, but they still TOTALLY BLOW. Why are we considering draconian CH 11 work rules??
Two comments on work rules:
1) ALPA gets 1.95% of your salary, not your work rules or benefits. Why do you think ALPA always advises 'xxx airline plus $1'? You never hear, 'we want xxx airline's work rules'.
2) Yes, UAL's work rules suck. CAL's suck worse. While it'd be nice to see the JCBA get work rules back to C2K, I think it's a bridge too far for a single contract. Hold the line at UAL work rules; that will probably be a fight as it is.