A great letter... unfortunately it will mean absolutely nothing to the writer of the Post. His motivation for writing the piece had nothing to do with taking a side for or against pilots but for creating a piece of opiniated "news" to sell more papers... and possibly to return a favor to a certain airline manager/shareholder. Holding people in the media accountable for what they write or say is like kissing your sister, it won't get you anywhere because they will continue to say what is required to keep thier jobs. That means all media stories will ignore the truth to tell an "interesting story", simply an ugly side of capitalism.

 

Please explain how you suggest one would should get pay raises on your performance in this industry. If i shoot an ILS better than you do but you still shoot a decent ILS approach and get the pax to their destination safely should i get paid more than you? If i call in sick and you dont because you feel you should fly sick so you get a better performance evaluation, should you get paid more?

This isnt like any other career field. You have thousands of employees at each company that do the exact same job you cant differentiate performance on an individual basis in the airline business.

 

Job performance = On time performance (getting the customer there on time, not flying slow to make more money), customer service and customer satisfaction (helping the little old lady with her bag), contribution to the company (helping save fuel, etc), reliability (showing up on time), and going above and beyond.

Believe it or not, alot of people don't do this.

 

Believe it or not, a lot of people did do these things when they felt valued!

 

Wow! Brilliant!! Funny you would mention the word slave in your post...You need to read up on your aviation labor history, son.

Another justification as to why we get drug tested.

 

So if the wx is bad or you have a mx problem or a atc delay, etc i guess the companies should start docking your pay. You're not trying hard enough How would mgmt gauge each individual person based on how many "old ladies" they help? Would we carry little punch cards? Going above and beyond, hhmm, maybe we should get bonus points for every PA we make after the 2nd one, yeah thats the ticket! Showing up on time, most airline people do show up on time because we have to. if you talking about on time flights, i guess we should all adjust our flight times so that we can beat the headwind because if we dont we might lose some pay based on your theory. Have I made my point? Your idea is cute to think about but bottom line it isnt reality. I am a great employee, i show up on time i try to do the best job i can (thats my job), i call in sick when i am sick, i have never busted a checkride or sim eval, etc should i get paid more? I dont think so. Everyone has their good days and bad days and it would be IMPOSSIBLE to gauge every pilots abilities and "above and beyond performance" READ BELOW AND GET A CLUE Are you the Skywest guy that said you didn't need a union because management will take care of you for a job well done? *Hurl*


EXACTLY!!

 

Why do I get the feeling that you're THAT guy in ground school that raises his hand with a question at 4:59pm on a Friday?

 

"Uhhh...Excuse me? Uhhh...Why didn't they build the electrical system with a...?"

 

How do you measure your greatness your highness..!

In this industry you only see you boss when you're in trouble. So how can you boss evaluate you when he never sees you. I show up for my specific show time, punch my ID number into the computer, find my crew the move on my way. I never see my boss and dont want to.

If we didnt have seniority system one would have to brown nose his/her to the top or screw his/her way to the top. There is no way for your boss to evaluate how you compare to the other pilots in you company. If you want to base that your greatness on on-time performance, well sometimes on-time performance is out of our control. Should i loose demerits because i pushed back from the gate late due to bags, flow, late airplane, passengers connections and arrive at my destination late. These things we cant control so how can we be evaluate on things to get points from for a promotion and such..

You also mention customer service. Should we walk around with eval card in our pockets to give to a customer everytime we help them find the C gate or baggage claim. (God's gift to this company help me from getting lost in this terminal, give him a raise.) This is your job, why should you get praised for helping an old lady in the jetway. Thats what you were hired for and you should want to do that without extra incentives..

 

Right... and no one out there will ever think about cutting corners or ignoring a "small" maintenance issue just to be on time so their paycheck is a little fatter.