Originally Posted by
sflpilot
The airlines will never have any sympathy for commuters. Everyone else in every walk of life lives where they work. Asking for considerations because you won’t is out of the main stream.
The thing is in other professions, companies that hire you will let you know where your needed during an interview. If you don’t already live there, they will provide assistance in moving you to that location and if it is an expensive area they will negotiate a cost of living salary adjustment. I remember when my father got a job for a retail company, they had a realitor help us sell our house in location A, provided us with an apt in location B until we found a new house and provided us with professional moving services at no cost to my father. He was paid adequately for the area they required us to live. He wasn’t a pilot, he was a retail manager, no knock on him but not really a position that required thousands of dollars in a specialty training. No degree and about 5 years retail experience when he got that job.
Example two... A friend now flies for a regional based in Seattle, his wife was hired on at an airline the same year as a marketing manager. She was offered a higher salary due to location and assistance with moving from their previous location. Now I get that marketing is an important part of the airline staying competitive, but not necessarily a high risk job and no more important than the job of a pilot.
The reason for that is years of airlines having thousands of applicants on file, people that were just happy to have a job flying a plane no matter the location or pay. Yes commuting is a choice about 90% of the time. However, there are situations that regionals put new hires in that make living in base without living under a bridge impossible with the current pay scales, like new hires with family or any sort of debt from training that are based in LAX, SFO or NYC. Most other professions companies also pay for hotels and assist with food costs during training, yet Delta Air Lines still doesn’t cover hotel costs. Why?? The stack of resumes happily willing to pay for their hotel during training as they know in the long run it will be worth it. That is an example of many necessary evils in the industry. Pilots will sacrifice way too much in my opinion to chase the carrot