Originally Posted by
captnate702
I do think that as pilot salaries sky rocket our place within the unionized world becomes more separated. The only reason we make 4-5x more than other skilled labor in the same industry is because of free market principles and some old fashioned crony capitalism.
Free markets and effective lobbying has made commercial pilots a far more lucrative career than I ever thought possible. You can build real wealth as an airline pilot.
We make 4-5x other pilots because the revenue supports it, and the liability exposure is so vast that it's worth it for the pax airlines especially to do anything they can to reduce risk, even by tiny amounts since over millions of flights that incremental risk would eventually translate to additional massive costs.
When it's a buyers market for pilot labor, airlines will naturally want to pay less. When it's a seller's market, they pay and pay until they get the best talent available (as quantified and measured by themselves).
Where the unions really earn their keep is by contractually locking in the good times so we don't take pay cuts (or get replaced with cheaper labor) every time labor markets swing.