statistics 101
This article is rife with inaccuracy. To lump the wage statistics of regional FOs in with major FOs is highly misleading. He or she has confused the mean, median, and mode.
Example salary set-
[ $20k $20k $20k $20k $30k $40k $50k $60k $70k $80k $90k ]
The mean, or average is $45k.
The median, or midpoint of the samples is $55k.
But the mode, the most common salary is only $20k.
So, in cases where there is a nonstandardized distribution as with pilot salaries, you have a bimodal distribution (or trimodal). You cannot present an average without skewing it badly.
The article skews a bunch of things. To report there is a pilot shortage without qualifying it with the larger economic picture of supply, demand, wage, and cost is ridiculous. If the industry has artificially suppressed wages, then to claim there is a supply shortage is misleading.
Throw this article on the heap of sensationalist journalism. You would think the Washington Times could do better. Unfortunately, there is a lot of this kind of thing getting airplay lately.
Last edited by Cubdriver; 08-20-2007 at 11:27 AM.