Originally Posted by
Sum Ting Wong
They are not underpaid. No one is forcing anyone to work for low wages. If a person chooses to make $16,000 a year as a Regional pilot, that is his/her choice. He/she can make more money working full time as a grocery store cashier.
There is simply an abundance of people that want to fly for a living.
Writing, acting, photography, baseball, flying....too many people enter these fields and only those at the very top can earn a decent living. Somehow this message doesn’t get through. The pay scale is similar to baseball; the people at the top do very well, and those one step down (AAA league or the Regionals) earn something feeble, and the rest never earn a dime and have to find another career.
If its about safety we should "pass the hat" for police and firemen. Most pilots are pilots for a reason… it's a life long dream job.
A school bus driver holds the future of 25-50 young children each with the potential to become President. Are we going to pay him/her 100,000$ a year?
Maybe, but I think the market price of a first year regional FO is probably more than minimum wage. There's another force at work here, and choice has nothing to do with it. I wonder if low senority FOs are subsidizing over paid regional captains to some degree.