Originally Posted by Jetjok

It's rather hard to compare someone on an annual salary, which, from the outset includes both salary and bonuses, and someone else on an hourly rate. The piloting profession is hourly, while management is always salary. If we fly extra, we get paid more. If we fly less, we get paid less. For salaried folks, their pay stays the same regardless of how many hours or days they work in a week or a month. Their job is to maximize income for the corporation and its shareholders, while our job is to move the freight. Apples and oranges. Personally, I have no problem with those guys getting fat bonuses, because they're doing what their paid to do. If I wanted to be in that career path, I would have chosen it instead of this flying gig. It would, however, be nice if they were to suffer a little financially, if for no other reason, than to show the worker bees that we're all in this together, but alas, that rarely happens in this industry. I seem to recall a very few senior airline executives who took either pay cuts or returned their bonuses, during the bad times. Good for them. I'm sure it made the hourly guys feel slightly better about greasing up and bending over.