Pilots are severely under compensated for the responsibility involved. Pay should definately be elevated to physician compensation. These careers involve life and death decisions. I'm speaking all across the board not just the majors. Having said that, the compensation at the majors is decent but can be better and include better pension options.

 

I'm not sure the pay right now is significantly different than a doctors'.

At the end of a bachelor's degree, a doctor will go on to medical school for another 3-4 years. A pilot will become a CFI for 2 years.

A doctor will then have residency and have to move up through the ranks thereafter. By that time the pilot should be a regional captain looking. Before the doctor's out of residency the pilot should be looking to become an FO at a major.

 

Says who?

Pilot compensation is determined by market forces, not by "should". Unions can improve compensation, but still ultimately limited by market forces because of the need to compete with other airlines.

"Should" only matters if congress gets involved. But as long as any snot-nosed pimple-face HS drop out can go from Arby's to R-ATP in two years, there's not really going to be any public pressure.

The public expects three kinds of people to make big money...

- High-end specialized professionals with years of post-grad education and training.

- Hard-working, driven self-starters who spent years doing entrepreneurial pursuits.

- Experienced executives.

Regional FO's don't fit the bill in the eyes of the public.

 

But using this same logic, if a skilled physician who has been practicing for 8 years, switches to a new orthopedic group or new hospital, he/she doesn't really go to the bottom of the totem pole at that point, like pilots do. Likely the same for attorneys, and other skilled workers. That is the part that seems so backwards to me.

 

That is because of the seniority system and the fact that this is a unionized profession. At the end of the day there are tons of pilots who would crawl over each other for a legacy job. You can advocate for removing seniority if you don't like it, but it exists for a reason. This profession has historically been very unstable and as a result (some?)people like the predictability of knowing where they sit in the pecking order for furlough, pay, etc.

An orthopedic surgeon on the other hand doesn't have to compete against other surgeons to the same degree that you compete against another pilot for a coveted job at a major. His profession is not unstable, no matter what happens in the world people need him. He has a highly transferable skill and would never agree to join a union or to go to the bottom of a "seniority list", he knows that his skill is rare. An ATP is nowhere near the level of training, intelligence, and discipline required to be a surgeon.

 

" seniority is the worst form of assigning pilot positions except for all the others."

All joking aside, It is bad that a employee is more married to their company then mgt. The lack of lateral mobility means that we actually care more about our company then mgt. To prove it just read posts of pilots defending their company as a good place to work. The legacy carriers gutted pensions by declaring bankruptcy and bypassing RLA contracts to use the court system as a way to cheat their employees. Disgraceful.

However, it seems even many non union pilot positions use seniority. At least at airlines and from what I understand corporate positions to a degree.

 

oh in addition to the topic of doctors, I sure wish pilots controlled the number of new pilots like doctors control the number of doctors allowed to graduate from med school.

talk about a shortage

 

Another factor has been the expansion of the potential pilots for hiring. Used to was, for majors (read: legacy carriers) one had to be 32 or younger, 4-year degree, pass a physical that astronauts could barely pass (a whole day at AA with an electroencephalogram and horrible diabetes test), vision of an eagle (20/20 uncorrected was the standard until the ADA in ‘92) and more than 70% were ex-military except during big hiring sprees. Oh, a be a white male almost without exception.

It would be absolutely unheard of for a 40-year old to be considered. Nothing against today’s standards, but those tight hurdles reduced to pool. The first change was deregulation, then ADA, then regionals with flows.

GF

 

I think that this blog (or post or whatever it is) provides a pretty succinct and accurate explanation:

Cartel destroys pilot job then cites shortage
http://tinyurl.com/yacb4b4r

 

He's absolutely right that the pool of candidates is huge. The fact is that the average joe sees the profession as some incredible "dream job" where they can fly around on someone else's dime and just be on vacation. They don't think of it as a real job. I just read a post on here where a radiologist and a dentist are looking to leave their careers to be regional airline pilots. WTF?

This is why the pay is low, too many guys have a fantasy of flying a jet.