I may not have been in the airline industry as long as some of you may have and I am by no mean an expert. However since this new 117 rule has been talked about I immediately thought of the Buffalo crash and analyzed it a bit for myself and noticed that behind the fatigued pilots lied a whole other world which I then began to realize is a norm for regional pilots and some major airline pilots.

What I realized was that many pilots simply cannot afford to live on their low paying salaries and are then forced to have other jobs, they also often cannot afford to get a comfortable housing arrangement in those popular bases that their regionals have due to high cost of living vs low income so the are then forced into having to stay at uncomfortable crash pads and commute from other states on long flight as in the case of the Buffalo crash.

From speaking to fellow pilots I have heard them saying that if they made a little more money that they would even consider moving their families with them to their base and not push themselves into working an extra job or even two to cover their bills.

We have all been there at the low paying flying gigs but I think that the pay is a direct link to safety and fatigue. The 117 is addressing a small part of the issue but as some would agree that this rule has taken a bigger toll on their QOL and family life as well as being able to credit more at work which could turn them into burning themselves out in another job or two and that is the issue we need to address first!

Now I do not blame the airline management teams for taking advantage of us because we agreed to come work for these wages in most cases, but if we are going to try and fix the issue then the pay and QOL needs to be the top priority. I am a big believer that a person is much more well rested and less stressed out and bothered when he or she is financially stable.
Besides with all the regionals having staffing issues this is a great time to get together and try to push for something better, and I hope that AE and XJT will stick to their word and vote down those concessions that they are being asked to take. I say if the regional airlines cannot afford their product (Pilots to operate their airplanes) then let them go out of business or pay the price, it's simple!

I also came up with a system that may or may not work and I'd like to know what you guys think about it:
Since airlines try to keep ticket prices as low as possible to stay competitive, and the only thing they cannot change is the fees and taxes that the airport and government charge, therefore I think that there should be a government program in place to charge $5-20 (I don't know how many tickets are sold each month in the US to make a difference in a pilots paycheck) per ticket sold which would then increase everyone's ticket prices evenly across the board and have that amount divided evenly amongst all US airline pilots to help supplement their income.

Feel free to chime in with your thoughts and if you think these are valid points and you know of a way to promote these ideas please let me know and lets try to make things better for us all!!!