Why would you invest the tuition @ Perdue to secure a better job then be willing to work at McDonald's to make extra money to fly?

Don't sell yourself short.

OK I will give it to you...my last point was a little to broad. I would like to point your attention to the first point I made though. I said if you are telling people to go do something other than flying then why don't you lead by example. Also I have known since I was a freshman in High School that when you go to a commuter your pay is going to suck. I knew what i was getting myself into. I still know that my pay is going to suck. Would i like to make more money? yes i would but because people have been going to work for those wages for quite a while I don't see the airlines changing them. Also you could be a moral revolution and tell them to stick it when they offer you a job at 17K a year but they will just wave buh bye and pick the next one. I invite you to start that revolution and I will gladly follow once it starts. I would also like to ask you about your education? I personally have taken two languages, french and hebrew minored in econ and Poly sci. I have been involved in a program that has never glossed over the nasty details of this industry. even though the "Honeymoon" will eventually be over for us all there are those who will always still enjoy what they do and will make the best of it that they can. I am not going to go after you becasue I don't know anything about you. I have spent a lot of time commuting to and from SEA and ORD with commuting pilots and none of them have had an attitude like yours. Yeah they are sore that they don't make 50K a year and they are on reserve but not one person has ever told me that a college degree is worhtless. Do you have a degree? Also not one person has said to get out of aviation because he is a big shot and wants more money...If you really believe that you can get more money from your company by having us not work for them please go ask management and come back and tell us how it went.

No yeah It was more a reference to something that I had read earlier...thought it was on this thread but realized later it was on a different one. I never would actually work at McDonalds.

I have to disagree with you on that one. What is considered "A little training"? I have first hand experience training a real Metro Bus Driver how to fly and believe me you do not want her flying you in an airliner! She couldn't do it nor should she have been pushed through.

This^^^

Puttin' on the foil coach!

Wow. Embarrassing.

Please tell us which colleges the airlines need to start hiring from. Should "we" hire from the university you went to, where spelling is more important than sentence structure?

He is not saying a degree is worthless. He is saying an AVIATION degree is worthless. I realize you have done your research on this career, but untill you are on the other side of that 121 cockpit door please stop trying to Educate those of us that have been in this industry awhile. We all wore those rose colored glasses you currently don. I wish, when I was where you are, I would have listened more closely to those that had gone before me. Take it for what its worth.

I agree.

The only other things I might add for sake of the thread is that in my opinion we are going to eventually see more downward pressure on regional captain salaries as well. Just give it another 7 to 10 years to play out.

The vast majority of new hire airline pilots and pilots that are currently working at a regional will never make it to a major and sit in the left seat during their lifetimes. When age 65 hits in 2 or so more years the majors are going to shrink and continue to outsourse/codeshare/whatever to much lower paid regionals. Again, just my opinion, but I also think the senior legacy pilots are eventually going to sell out further on scope and increase regional seat capacity to something close to 135 seats. Management will dangle a big enough carrot for them in the twilight of their careers and they will take it. In my opinion they will become international, long haul domestic, wide body only operations.

Optimistically, I see only 1 in 5 or maybe 1 in 4 regional pilots ever being able to make it up to the next level. By next level I mean the "level" we all thought we would get to by working hard and paying our dues.

All of this being said, I still love my job. I can survive and support my family on $70K. But then again I only spent a very, very small fraction of what Embry Riddle or Zero-2-Hero Flight School grads pay for their training these days. This is absolutely NOT the career I thought I was signing up for all those years ago, but no career ever is. ;)

I'm not smart enough for law school. I'm just a stupid pilot that learned to fly at my local FBO and was hired with no formal education. Thats why we except these low wages because anyone can do it.