I know what you're saying, but let's put that in perspective. Many of us in the industry have become so spoiled and entitled as we compare ourselves to the airline pay of the past or the pay in some other careers currently. Let's look at the statistics.

According to the US Census Bureau, the MEDIAN annual salary in the United States is $53,482!! That means a full 50% of people in this country make less than that!!
(See: UNITED STATES QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau)

Check out the breakdown on this website. A full 75% of people in the US make LESS than $100,000 per year. Only 11.3% make more than $150,000 per year. And only 5.6% make $200,000 or more.

(See: ? Household income in the U.S. - percentage distribution 2014 | Statistic)

So yeah, even making $75 to $100K would easily qualify you for "upper middle class" income, but certainly from $100K to $200K is "upper middle class" on a per capita basis.

But wait, you say. I'm different! I have a college education! I'm not just any unskilled worker! More of us are men than women in this career field. And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the MEDIAN weekly salary for a man in 2014 with a bachelor's degree was $1,385 or about $72,020 per year. Even with an advanced degree, the MEDIAN salary for a man in 2014 was $1,630 per week or $84,760 per year.
(See: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/med...ty-in-2014.htm)

Yes, I think we are underpaid and we deserve more. But I also appreciate what I already have and definitely feel like I am "upper middle class" even when I am making more than $100K but under $200K per year. I personally know many well-educated professionals like nurses and teachers who will never make what I can make as a pilot.

 

AND... the average person doesn't get more than 8 days off per month. The typical major airline pilot, depending on seniority and a few other variables can have 15-18 days off per month. If you can sit reserve from the comforts of your own home, you can manage to rarely go to work at all. It ain't all hearts and unicorns, but it could be a whole lot worse.

 

^^^^ +1

Exactly!!

 

When previously describing how changes would probably prevent a return to the wages of the golden era, I forgot to mention another major factor: the watering down of the effectiveness of the Railway Labor Act over the past few decades.

Prior to deregulation and before the consolidation of the industry, unionized airline employees were not so hamstrung in implementing "relief" actions such as striking. Strikes, even at the larger carriers, were not uncommon.

In the last quarter century, there have only been a handful of strikes by pilots or cabin crew in the United States airline industry. When was the last time you heard of an an airline strike that really caused a serious disruption in commercial travel? For the most part, you haven't, because the only ones that have been released to "self-help" were relatively minor airlines, not the large carriers. The government claims that airlines today are too big and too important to inconvenience the traveling public by shutting down.

Here's what I show for the past 25 years, 1991-2016:

2010: Spirit Airlines pilot strike was the most recent pilot strike and a successful Tentative Agreement was reached in just a few days. But today, Spirit's market share of the US airline market is just 2.6% overall and it was less in 2010. So the impact was limited.

2005: Polar Air Cargo pilots. Lasted 16 days and resulted in a successful Tentative Agreement. But Polar is just a subsidiary of the larger Atlas Air Worldwide and only operates 13 aircraft.

2001: Comair pilots. After 81 day strike, a Tentative Agreement was reached. Note: This strike occurred PRIOR to the terrorist attacks of 9/11 which led to furloughs and bankruptcies. While this was a major strike that primarily affected Delta's Cincinnati Ohio hub, Delta's overall operation continued to function. At the start of the strike, Comair operated only 119 smaller regional jet aircraft.

1997: American Airlines (pilots) went on strike for only a few minutes before President Clinton ordered them back to work while a specially-convened board resumed negotiations.

1997: UPS Strike (was not a pilot strike but shut down operations for 16 days).

1993: Alaskan Airlines (Flight Attendants) CHAOS strike, first successful use of Association of Flight Attendant's (AFA) tactic of having crewmembers randomly walk off the job to "Create Havoc Around Our System."

1993: American Airlines (Flight Attendants) strike for five days before President Clinton intervened and sent the negotiations to an arbitrator.

Overall, considering the amount of passengers carried by US airlines in the past 25 years, there has been VERY minimal disruption that has been allowed by the RLA, quite a change from the earlier days of the industry where labor had more muscle to exert pressure on management for contractual improvements. The balance of power has shifted substantially.

*My listing of references for this posting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_strikes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Airlines
Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings
Pilots, Delta unit Comair reach deal - Jun. 14, 2001
AMERICAN AIRLINE PILOTS STRIKE BUT CLINTON ORDERS THEM BACK - NYTimes.com
STRIKE AT AMERICAN AIRLINES - Airline Strike Ends as Clinton Steps In - NYTimes.com
Workers World Dec. 9, 2004: Flight attendants to airlines

 

I agree, I think pilots are underpaid and it would be nice to see some of that money gradually come back to us

 

MaxThrustPower - thank you for the informative posts. How is it possible that a unionized labor force can have their most effective tool (il)legally removed from them? How did we give the POTUS, and a Democratic one, no less, the power to cripple labor?

 

Glad you found my postings helpful!

Excellent questions. Maybe you were asking rhetorically? I don't know if I can say the definitive answer but I'll give it a stab.

Like the "golden days" of the airlines are over, it seems unions are struggling to maintain their rightful place in US society. For many decades, unions campaigned against pitiful and dangerous working conditions as well as the poverty wages exploited by the robber barons of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They won huge improvements in safe and humane working conditions and better pay. In those earlier days, I believe the general public had a lot of empathy and support for unions, but as conditions and pay have improved, the battle is perceived to have been won and support has waned. I think many people in our society only see unions today as greedy, archaic machines that demand unreasonable contracts and raise costs which are just passed along to the consumer.

Meanwhile, management has continued to refine their "union-busting" techniques and government big-business sympathizers allow negotiations to drag on indefinitely.

Another factor which has hurt union ability to demand better pay and working conditions (and which has actually caused us to slowly backslide over the past few decades) is management's ability to capitalize on the regular downward cycles of the industry to chip away at our compensation. Of course, nowhere could this be seen more clearly than the use of bankruptcies by the legacy airlines over the past 25 years.

Fortunately, airline unions have recently made some progress restoring our lost wages and benefits, but we have a long way to go before we would ever reach the level of compensation we had 50 years ago. It would be nice, but as I pointed out, I think the odds of ever getting there are against us for several reasons. But I do think we will be able to continue to benefit from the industry recovery of the past few years.

I believe it's time for the airline contracts to be removed from the dated "Railway Labor Act" and be placed under a new set of rules more even-handed and applicable to today's airline industry. The RLA no longer serves the best interests of airline employees.

 

MTP: RE- Airline Strikes Last 25 Years

You left out the Northwest Airlines pilot strike of 1998. Even so, your point is well taken since NMB has been extremely reluctant to "pull the trigger", especially post 911.

 

World also.

 

This is really simple, in addition to all the "union" threads and such. Pilot pay will never go up until there are pilots that are willing to stand up so that FUTURE pilots can benefit. In this day and age, no one is willing to do this, to make a sacrifice for the future generations. It is what it is. Everyone wants theirs and they want it as easy as possible.