Originally Posted by
JDFlyer
You are pulling alot out of your arse . . . .
For about the 5 millionth time . . . . Skywest pilots, by choice currently HAVE NO UNION. We are paid essentially industry competitive wages by Skywest management for the skills we offer to the company.
Our SAPA pilot representatives do NOT determine how pay raises are allocated. They will make proposals to management, but the final pay rates are ultimately approved or disapproved by management at Skywest.
If you or Paid2Fly are envious of Chips pay check, I suggest both of go apply for his job. The marketplace will determine whether you get it or not. Just like the market place determines what a CRJ FO and CRJ CA are literally worth. If you don't like those numbers either, I suggest you do the best job you can today, polish your resume to a golden shine and tomorrow go get a job somewhere that will pay you what you feel you are worth.
(Remember the film "Trading Places" when Day Akroyd's character is trying to pawn some kind of fancy, expensive watch, the pawn trader tells him, "In Philadelphia, its worth $50 bucks." This is our reality as regional airline pilots. Take it or leave it. My plan is to leave it. I have not a clue what yours is.)
Hermann -
If we are to pay people based on how much they have "invested" in their career, all the trust fund kids or kids of rich parents who sent them to Embry-Riddle or any other zero-to-hero pilot mills should be taking big fat pay cuts. "They" didn't pay cr@p for their job - their parents did.
For the record, one of the most resourceful people I know, who is a SLC FO, paid, out of pocket about $5000 to go from zero fight time to Skywest newhire CRJ FO. I suppose he should probably be paying Skywest for the honor of sitting in their right seat. Wait . . . maybe he should be giving $100 bills to the FO's with say $75,000+ aviation debt.
When it was all said and done, I probably paid $20,000 or so out-of-pocket to get to Skywest from zero flight time. I know . . . I know . . . . that practically makes me a communist. Remember, there is no "Havard School of Aviation" - all our licenses are the same, all are government issued. If you or anyone else on these threads paid $50,000 or $75,000 or $100,000+ for this job, that was YOUR or your PARENTS choice. Don't ask me to compensate you for those decisions. Don't continually punish Skywest for the economic realities of an industry that exists in a constant state of upheaval. Our management teams is one of the best in the industry.
To finish this post with much less sarcasm, and hopefully a few constructive thoughts:
1) I truly feel the pain that all regional airline FOs feel. I was one once. Yes, you deserve more money for your time, your skills, and yes even your investment. We all do. But ultimately that fight is with the consumer who buys our services.
Be patient, you will make Captain one day. On that day you may feel different about why Captains are paid more than FO's for their services. Luckily there have not been many, but there certainly have been days when I gladly would have been flying on the FO's "ticket" and have the entirety of his future career at great risk instead of mine.
2) While easy to do, carefully consider whether the anger or hostility you feel is in fact correctly directed at Skywest management, Skywest Captains, SAPA, Crew Support, etc.
OR
is it more fairly directed at an airline industry that has dramatically stagnated in the last few years. Where the economics of our industry have forever changed the compensation structure and work rules that we all must live with in order to even have a career.
Peace, my fellow aviators. Fly safe!
I have no anger towards the Company Chip or any in management. The company is excellent. They play their part but let's face it we do not play our part well in pay negotiations. They are businessmen and good at it.
It is up to us, the whole pilot group to fight to get all of us to a decent pay level. Nobody will give anything to you or me. Chip or management will not come with presents to you or me and offer us a huge pay raise. That does not make them bad. It just works that way. Anything you want to get you have to fight for it. They expect us to. They know the game of business and negotiation. If you do not fight in any way for what you feel is your right you will never get anything.
I may be a CP or I may not but whatever my position is it does not stop me from seing that we have a group of pilots in our company that is abused and not fairly compensated.
Most FOs at our company are not in their 20s and had an easy ticket to their seat, a lot are experience guys that flown for other companies before and have been flying for 10 to 20 years in commercial aviation.
If you managed to get your tickets by only paying $20k good for you. Not all are so lucky...and by the way I dont care how anyone got their money to pay for theirs, its not about that, if mom paid or not, no mather whom the money came from the total sum is the important and it is also about how much the profession cost in general.
Who cares whom the doctor got his moneyfrom to pay for college or the lawyer, they are paid according to what the total cost is to graduate from law school or med school. Regional FOs are the only ones that pays a lot to gain everything that is needed to work as a pilot and is not paid accordingly.........mainland FOs are paid accordingly so...why not Regional FOs. You will say oh but the mainland FOs have sooo much more experience. That is not always the case. We have a lot of experienced people at the regional level also and many relative unexperienced pilots at mainland.
Many Captains in our company became captains after just 1 year and some with no other than instructor experience before getting into the jet. Nothing wrong with that. Just trying to explain that it is not always up to the pilot why he is not a Captain yet.
That someone is or is not a Captain yet should not matter because what we are talking about is how unfair the Jet FO salary is compaired to all the other pilot groups in the company and they should not have to wait to upgrade to have a fair pay per seat/hour and then not give a s@@t about everyone below them.
I think Duvie is right on this one,.... that we have to help all coming after us, if one pilot is not fairly paid in our company it should be enough for all of us to react.
Let's put aside our attitude of just thinking about ourselves for once. Let's show other Regionals that we have not only quality operating as pilots but also integrity as people. At least why not try.