Radar

It occurs to me that if there is a pilot shortage, which I obviously believe that there is, it may mean little or nothing to our future pay if we can't get ALPA the power that it needs to negotiate higher wages.

When the shortage becomes reality ALPA will have some bargaining power to change wages, but this could be overshadowed by playing one regional against another to drive wages down. Kind of like how NWA used the threat of going out of business to force NWA pilots to take huge concessions.

In both cases (that of the regional and the major) the fear of losing your flying is the pilots' greatest fear. In the worst case scenario it means losing your seniority number and starting over. No vacations, bad schedules, sitting reserve, a possible commute, learning new planes... in some cases the crushed ego of being an FO again.

How is it that plumbers, electricians, chefs, and bus drivers have come to make more money than pilots? They have unions that figured out that you need to be able to change employers and not start over everywhere you go. You start as an apprentice making a barely livable wage, work your way up to a journeyman, and eventually become a master. Without a similar system in place it may not mean much of anything to the bottom line if all the company has to do is fold and we all have to start over.

There are obviously some obstacles in the way of making this happen, though they are not in the vein of this thread. However, if it doesn't happen I'm not convinced that a pilot shortage will amount to much of anything in the way of sustainable higher pilot wages.