Helping ATC
 

I was reading that several airlines and other companies are having the unused meals go to the ATC facilities. As a retired tower guy, I want to thank each and every one of you and your companies for the kind and generous offerings. I have several friends still working, and many of them are having trouble making ends meet (or should I say meat). This is what being an American is about,.... THANK YOU again! Cheers and happy holidays to all of you.....

Happy Holidays — It’s going to last that long?

aren’t controllers going through enough without having to eat leftover crew meals?

They aren't destitute.

At least they don’t have to eat our “boxed dinners” that late arriving crews get at some of our hotels. Your own dog would disown you if you tried to feed it to him.

In civil service circles it's well known that you need a month of cash on hand late in the fiscal year. Basic Ramsey stuff, just way more predictable, and you know exactly when.

For most GS, it's just a free vacation and they love every minute since they know they'll get back pay. Some of them even book open-ended refundable vacation plans every Oct just in case.

For essential workers it should just be a wash, minor nuisance.

But that's for Oct. Going beyond one month I would say is where many might reasonably start running out of free cash. Don't really want ATC controllers with 10 hours off between shifts driving uber instead of sleeping (they should still be able to use fatigue calls, which of course impacts staffing).

Most should not be destitute but if I were in their shoes the pain point would be pulling money out of qualified retirement accounts and paying tax and penalties.

This kinda helps the argument to raise the retirement age for ATC doesnt it?

There isnt a pilot shortage.
There is a controller shortage.

What are you talking about?

I think you're confusing people making the most out of a crappy situation they have no control over and thinking to yourself "well look! They must really like it!"

I know people who like it. $100k+ career professionals can easily plan ahead to take advantage of it, and it's almost like clockwork these days. CS is not like the military, not a pyramid, the majority are in the middle/higher grades. Even most of the TSA is in the mid-range.

I guess Trump has been making scary noises about eliminating the backpay, so that might be nerve-wracking. Although I'm nearly certain it could not be retro-active.

I love that guys here who are making $300k/yr and refuse to do a single duty outside of their defined job or help the company in any way at all are saying that controllers and government employees are doing just fine while working without receiving a paycheck, and if they haven't planned for it then it's on them. I'd love to know how many guys at the airlines would be showing up for work if they knew they weren't getting a paycheck for a few weeks. The current administration has also threatened to not give back pay, so yeah, I'm sure anyone working for the government is feeling just peachy right now and should just get on with their work.

👎

you mean like the guys at Mesa or Commair in the 90's and early 2000's respectively?

Look it's cool if you came right from the military.........but might want to give your colleagues who starved through the lost decade a little more respect before you start lecturing them on their perceived lacktherof for others. We didn't just trip out of bed and fall into 300K.

A lot of us ex mil guys didn't just trip out of bed and fall into 300k.

WorkIng oil field jobs while CFIing on the side. Flying King Airs in crap places for $300 a day (Avenge circa 2014)

I didn't imply you that you did.

I often hear in both oral and electronic arguments "You make a lot of money, ________", "You get paid 300K a year, _____" as our current industry rates of compensation are a catalyst to encourage or inspire a perceived a higher needed level of professionalism. Perhaps not in aeronautical decision making, airmanship, or CRM but rather things like uniform appearance, tipping the van drivers at least $5 each time, or only having the "high and tight"........

We should as professionals always strive to improve, it's just that we haven't always been paid well............does that mean we shouldn't have been professionals when we were making $19.50 per hour...we still had (in my case at least 53) peoples lives at stake?

The arguments expressed above almost always come from a mouth that hasn't tasted that level of poverty, their aeronautical background notwithstanding. My hunch is that these things are intrinsically inter related.

This is precious. No one in the government sector cared when I got furloughed and went 9 months without a paycheck. Oh and when I came back I didn’t get backpay. Cry me a river.

Unless you’re a contractor. Or unless POTUS and the speaker of the house gets their way and they deny back pay. But hey besides that’s it’s all good right?

“Why don’t the poors simply make more money???”

Did you get an unemployment check? I'm guessing you did. So someone in the government worked to ensure you got that check.

Also, were you required to work at your old job when you were furloughed? I'm guessing you weren't. You had the freedom to go out and earn money however you could. Completely, utterly different situation from the controllers who help make our jobs even possible to do.

right now it all sits on the lap of the senate minority leader…

Yeah, that unemployment check is equal to all the back pay they will receive. I can’t roll my eyes back any further.

Likewise, but not remotely for the same reason…. Good grief.

not the majority leader? interesting

Takes skill to control 3 branches of government while dodging all accountability.

Last time I checked, airlines aren’t government agencies and pilots aren’t government employees… Capitalism at work. If the airline can’t pay, they go bankrupt.

If the Dems would follow the stroke victim who’s the only sane Democrat, they’d vote yes and get those paychecks delivered.

yawn…

Night cargo in the winter in an Aztec, $18/hr regional jobs in a 1900. (Average circa 2000)

Did I mention 9/11 or the Great Recession.

Pilots deserve their pay, any pilot who went through the lost decade really deserve it. While pilots of the last ten yoeara complain about 4 yr upgrades, most of us spent 10+ in the right seat of 50 seat jets spread across several regionals and multiple furloughs.

yawn...

Nobody cares. Work harder

Step 1. Find bootstraps

Step 2. Pull

majority leader has voted “yes” to opening the Govt something like 13 times since September

Cute,

pilots who went through the early 2000’s are literally the embodiment of working hard and pulling themselves up by their boot straps.

Many had wives leave them because of the multiple furloughs, ****tty QOL after 9/11 and zero career progression.

True, nobody cares. I don’t care about 2 yr guys upgrading to $300k, and I don’t expect them to care about 20yrs ago

Nobody cares and yet you still cry about your past struggles. That's because deep down you want someone to care a little bit, regardless of how much you deny it.

See, here's a simple little concept guys like you don't understand: you don't get empathy without giving it too.

"You should care about my struggles but yours don't matter because mine are worse" has never worked.

It’s 2012…You just did your post flight…..it’s a quarter to 1 AM Local time,……your last of 5 segments for the day was LOFT like……you have three voicemails: wife’s divorce attorney, debt collector, and crew scheduling………..cue the cryptic syntho pop……sound like something you’d binge watch people?


I’m sure I speak for Vaxmax as well….it wasn’t enjoyable binge living it.

[mod input] Knock off the partisan politics, please. Go argue whose fault it is elsewhere.

It takes 60 votes champ.

Just for clarity, 1/3 of federal workers are not currently working and will receive 100% of back pay for not having worked. That’s 100’s of thousands of employees. I wish they were at work getting paid, but I don’t feel bad for them like I do for the TSA, ATC, FBI and other essential workers that have to come to work to get that paycheck.

And somehow that’s so much worse than getting furloughed and not getting back pay…

I don't care that no one cares but when I hear people who never saw actual hardship ***** and complain about piddly stuff it rubs me the wrong way.

$942.47...monthly Comair wage for first year FO prior to the 89 day strike.

Is that “their way”? All I’ve seen is POTUS saying back pay is not automatic and congress would need to allocate the funding (which is just a statement of fact, not a wish/desire)…and that it only applied to workers who were furloughed, not those coming into work.

I was surprised when I found out ATC doesn’t use the IMSAFE checklist.

not getting paid
illness - no
medication - maybe
stress - YES
alcohol- 🤷‍♂️
Fatigue - YES
emotions - YES

You should all call off fatigued

I want to understand your logic. You were furloughed for 9 months… correct? You worked for the company for which you were furloughed without pay? My guess is.. a solid NO.

ATCers are working without pay… correct? They are remaining at work, accomplishing their assigned tasks, stressed, about making ends meet… correct? Are they entitled to unemployment? Are they entitled to SNAP Benefits? Oh wait, mea culpa, there aren’t any for the foreseeable future.

So enlighten us how was being furloughed, collecting unemployment, is the same as working without pay and unable to collect unemployment.

Because they will be made whole when this is all over. This really isn’t that hard. I would have loved to work for free and get paid after the fact then lose my paycheck for 9 months.

How do you know what someone has gone through in their life prior to being hired at a legacy during a historically favorable era (for now). So because you went through some hardship at the airlines we're expected to not demand a better contract?

Cool, and air mail pilots made even less and had to follow railroad tracks. See, we can play this game ad nauseam.

There's always another person to whom your legitimate complaints are their piddly stuff.