Originally Posted by milky

I'm not questioning your credentials, and I'm not really interested in a whose is bigger contest. I was just saying that I fly for an organization that is known for training great leaders as well as great pilots. We tend to get jobs with many less hours than our peers because of our training. But, I don't want to work for a place that starts pilots out at 30k per year and doesn't get much better for a while. I make much more than that now, and I can get a management/corporate/sales job easily starting 80-90k/year. The bummer would be that it isn't flying, but airline flying isn't really that great of a job these days anyway. That was my whole point. Would I love for airlines to be a great job with great pay and QOL? Of course. I'd jump on the conveyor belt like you probably did some time ago since I believe you're a captain now. But, it's not the same as when you started. The market is flooded with cheap labor, and the airlines seem to have no issue with accepting it no matter what skill/training.

Back to my point on this thread, the airline unions (just like detroit unions) have made your industry difficult to enter and impossible to laterally transfer. The pay was once worth it. But, with the volatility of each airline, there is not even a slim chance of knowing if you will be able to stay with your company for the rest of your career. Since, you lose everything you had when you join a new organization, you have essentially set up your industry to be non-labor friendly. Throw on top of that your desires to artificially increase pilot wages in an industry that obviously does not support high wages, and you are just setting yourself up for failure. I know you probably have a lot of time invested in this career. Hopefully you are close to retirement because I would be shi*%ing myself if I was 45 in my 8-12th year as a major pilot in this industry. You cannot afford to start over with a different company. You need your company to survive. If you strike, you may cause your company to fail. If you don't strike, you may make less than you made 10 years ago. No win situation.

Don't take this the wrong way. I want to be an airline pilot. I'm just not willing to do it in the industry as it currently stands.