What's Happening in Newark?
 

Lots of flights getting cancelled today and word on the civilian street is that there is some sort of work action going on. Doesn't seem to be pilots though. Anyone know what is going on?

Strikes (or imminent threat of) in the NY and PHL area by SEIU workers (cleaners, customer service, baggage handlers, etc).

I don't think they're airline employees, but those attached to the industry. Drudge has a article about it out now actually

Just out of curiosity where is the line between unions covered under the RLA and those that aren't?

Some no education toilet cleaners think their jobs are precious and non-replaceable.

No pilot has the balls to walk off the job. You should be using their rage to your advantage.

You realize that's how the labor movement started right? Poorly educated factory workers were working 12-18 hour days, 7 days a week for almost nothing and organized. I applaud them. Clearly their employer isn't paying them or treating them fairly. :This is my shocked face:

I guess you haven't been around this business very long then.

We should be upset that we do not have the power that basically all other unionized groups do. Not at the jobs they perform, which are just as important, regardless of salary or education.

Those days are long gone, we live in an era of globalism.

Globalism has zero to do with bathroom cleaning or wheelchair pushing. You can't outsource that to China. Try again.

But you can import.

Like Norwegian?

It's all relative. You feel that you as a pilot are superior to toilet cleaners. Executives at your airline view you as nothing more than a bus driver which in reality is all that you really are. Have some respect for fellow hard working Americans. A job is a job, not too big nor too small.

Well put------

Nailed it.


I'll never understand this attitude from fellow pilots. If you want to be blunt about it, the only likely real difference between you and those "no education toilet cleaners" is that you were fortunate enough to have the money/means to pursue this career. If they had the money (and desire) for flight training, most of them would be right where you are. You (and the rest of us) are not that special.

While I agree with you on the importance of being humble, I disagree that most of them would be right beside us. Please don't belittle our profession by pretending those of us got where we are today without dedication and hard work. Having money was a small piece of the pie.

Nothing you said negates anything I said up there. Many of those "toilet cleaners", given the opportunity, would make it through a civilian flight training program with just as much "dedication and hard work" and you and I. Unless you were military (I was not), having money was a gigantic piece of the pie. The largest piece of the pie. It may not be what the pilot ego wants to hear, but it's the truth.

[QUOTE=tizzizzailslf04;2393748]Nothing you said negates anything I said up there. Many of those "toilet cleaners", given the opportunity, would make it through a civilian flight training program with just as much "dedication and hard work" and you and I. Unless you were military (I was not), having money was a gigantic piece of the pie. The largest piece of the pie. It may not be what the pilot ego wants to hear, but it's the truth.[/QUOTE

That's a pretty broad brush to paint with.

[QUOTE=Chakerik;2393781]Maybe but I agree with him. I'd say that was the biggest reason for people dropping out of flight school was the cost.

How can anyone tell there's a strike?

It's freaking Newark. Nothing in or near that airport has been cleaned for at least 3 decades.

It doesn't have to be a gigantic piece of the pie. There is more than one way to skin a cat and flight training can be done at an incredibly affordable rate if done right with a little creativity.

You are starting to miss the forest for the trees here. The point is pilots love to look down on these cleaners, customer service, baggage handlers, etc as uneducated when the reality is that many pilots have the exact same education level as many of them...a high school diploma. Or a college degree.

The biggest obstacle for most between stopping there and attending civilian flight school is MONEY. Yes, flight training is difficult and challenging, but lets not kid ourselves...it is NOT law school, or med school. The majority of the people you are looking down on, provided the resources you had, would have no trouble going to flight school and getting to the exact position you are in now.

Tuned in for some good EWR jokes. All I got was a political/socioeconomic debate. You guys should be ashamed of yourselves.

Or it started by factory workers realizing they produce for the company and are skilled now.
I really hope you don't think iron workers building the Empire State Building wanting safety improvements, is in anyway related to a wheel chair pusher showing up consistently late to the gate to push a wheel chair and dodge their next drug test, if they even have them.
For the record I am not for anyone being mistreated, but I haven't witnessed very much work ethic form the majority of the ones I've had to deal with.

Unskilled labor. The people whose job it was to pour iron or shovel coal. Just because it's dangerous doesn't make it skilled.

Yea, except they built it in 13 months. No amount of wheelchair pushers on the planet could build a 100 story building in 13 months, you can trivialize it all you want.

Your attitude is why so much of America is anti union. No one thinks the trades or craftsmen shouldn't organized, but when the Teamsters try to choke a company by forcing a guy to have a book to push a wheelbarrow, its self destructive. If these guys would lean to push a plane back for SW they could make $16 bucks an hour, but you have to pass a drug test and know more than how to flush a toilet or push a wheel chair.

I'm fairly certain I'm not looking down on anyone. I'm making no judgment on the strike or the people that are striking. Only to say where there is a will there is a way. Apperently you had all your resources handed to you, not everyone in this industry did.

Money is not the biggest obstacle, that's ridiculous. Ask my parents, they didn't have any. Ask the people in the financial aid office where I obtained grants and student loans.

I'm quite certain the skill set required to fly airplanes isn't something every human was born with. 3 years of flight instructing taught me that. It's possible some people aren't motivated enough to jump through the hoops airline pilots have had to jump through. It's possible some of us without money took a look around and decided there was a better future out there and figured out a way to make it happen.

Your premise couldn't be more ridiculous.

It does if you survive. :cool:

https://dudo6el28sqqp.cloudfront.net...2a-mobile.jpeg

Very well said. Agree with all statements.

Previous posts declaring that money is the main obstacle for everyone was pretty presumptuous.

Its not impossible for a poor kid to be a pro pilot. They seldom make the big leagues without a decent amount of support beyond highschool. The really smart ones often dismiss flying as a career.

Great summery.

Who cosigned your student loans? My parents credit was too bad to cosign mine, which almost derailed me from getting to where I am today. Thankfully, I was blessed to have a grandmother with good credit to step in. I got grants and scholarships too, but without that 60k loan, I never would have made it over the hump.

I had a few students who had no problem with money, and failed out due to their own lack of work ethic. But many more ran out of money halfway through the program and had to drop out.

Money is a huge obstacle.

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Tell you what why don't you clean those toilets with all your training and education. Why we can even give you a title to go along with it.

Those jobs are precious, especially if you've ever been in the blue room after a 10+ hour flight or maybe even any flight originating from EWR or LGA. :p

Yes they deserve every penny they make!

I wouldn't do it. That is the reason I went to school to make sure I didn't have to fall back on a crap job like that. I'm glad there are people that do that though cause I couldn't.

DETPILOT...Detroit by chance? I'm from Detroit and learned to fly there. Dad was a tool and die maker at Chrysler. Mom stayed home. Three boys. Not a penny for college or flight training. Grandmother co-signed $2500 loan for my private. Took 3 years to get through CFII because of cash issues. If I didn't have loans and financial help outside of family I wouldn't have made it.

Later I owned a flight school (part 61, non ratings farm). I have 4600 hrs as a primary instructor. Not cookie cutter military/college types learning to fly. All walks of life: zookeeper, chef, lots of cops, EMS, nurses, realtor, funeral director, etc. Since 1991 I've seen maybe 5-10 people who simply couldn't make it. My best student? A stripper (worked at BTs on 8 mile, so I heard). No joke. Nearly unlimited cash. Flew 5 days a week. Private to Commercial in 3 months. Access to cash does matter. Good pilot.

The pay for training programs of the 1990s demonstrate cash does provide opportunity and advancement and limit those without the means. What happened to those that couldn't afford to drop 10K? They weren't hired. As a result those that could afford it advanced their careers, opportunity, and seniority not based on merit or ability but solely on ability to pay. I'm sure there were lots of equally qualified candidates passed over simply because of finances.

Then there's Gateway 7 here at B6. 125K gets you a slot. Five of those 7 have zero flight time. But the means to pay apparently.

I remember when I went for my private instrument checkride. I had run out of money, and had just enough to pay the examiner, the aircraft rental, and gas for the cross-country drive home. I agreed to fly a cheap desktop sim I had never seen before to cut the cost of the ride.
I couldn't fly that POS to save my life. Spun it, even. Never even got out to the airplane.
That was a long flight back, and a long drive home.
It took about two years for me to save up the cash to start on my ratings again. All strictly pt. 61.
That was nearly thirty years ago, I can't believe how much more expensive it is now.

Yeah, not everybody can do our job. (Some shouldn't.) But money is the #1 reason most drop out or don't even attempt it. Be thankful you were in a position to make it work out, it was hard for all of us.
There are a lot of people on the outside who would love to fly, but the circumstances they were born into make that dream damn near impossible.

I pawned my guitar and amp the day before my private pilot checkride to get the money to pay for it. That ride was $125 in 1989. The same ride today is $450. I miss that Red Fender Strat...:(

On the "even more ashamed" front, I drove without car insurance for 18 months while making $10/hr as a CFI at DET and without working windshield wipers for 6 months (RainX is awesome). I also illegally lived in a storage unit for 45 days on my $7000 a year CFI income (showered at the gym). All true.

You are proof that if you want this job bad enough you will do whatever it takes to scrape up the money.
(That Strat is probably worth a gozillion bucks these days ) 😜