Thanks, I'll engage Mr. Washington Post in his turf. I overlooked the link to his email. I applaud your percentage-based pay idea, but is there any chance that any of the decision makers share the same?

 

SOFA -

"I know tradition. The crew ALWAYS tips the drivers that take us safely from the airport to the hotel and back. I never *****ed or asked questions about this tradition. Can we start a tradition where each passenger on our planes tip us one dollar each for getting THEM safely to their destination?"

I WAS one of those guys and I always appreciated the $1 tip from the pilots and the $0.50 tip from the FAs ($3.50 per crew), but that was 20 YEARS ago!! Is that all you guys are still tipping? No increase for inflation?

Btw - good points, but your emotion is showing through too much. Scale back some of the venom if want your post to be taken more seriously. E.G. when you say "How much money do you make, Mr. Writer?" it reminds me of that crazy gal from the movie 'Misery' - Mr. Man!! Now put down the sledgehammer!

Rickair7777 - I guess there isn't really fair way as you point out in your post. It sure makes it alot tougher though coming into this industry late when you start to realize that the choice that you make the first time around had better be the right one. I don't exactly have too many years to be shopping around for the right job after retiring.

Just my two cents.

USMCFLYR

 

Could be worse, most strippers only rate a buck or two still these days as well.

 

This guy (Pearlstein) was just announced as a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in the field of Economics. From the Washington Post:

Pearlstein won the commentary award for a variety of columns, many of them focused on his early warnings that mounting problems in subprime mortgages and other credit markets posed a serious threat to the nation's economy. He wrote Aug. 11: "This is a financial, economic and political time bomb that is likely to force families out of their homes; dump millions of houses and condos onto an already glutted market; and result in massive losses for mortgage lenders, hedge funds, banks, insurance companies and pension funds that hold securities backed by, or somehow tied to, these troubled mortgages."

 

So why the hell is he writing about Airline Pilots??

 

He wandered into waters he is not familiar with. Someone needs to knock him down.

 

Perhaps an email campaign to some of these media folks would send a small message. I know it is an idealistic thought but what the heck. What about the growing concern of young, inexperienced pilots being thrown into the right seat of RJs. I hate to rag on them becasue they are only doing a job but let's face, it there is a serious safety issue there.

Seems like if everyone at APC were to do this it might raise some attention?

 

Forget about the rj's there's guys flying international widebodies with 300 hr....how would you like to be single pilot for 8+ hrs w/ that guy?!

 

About as much as I would like to get stuck in a cockpit with texaspilot76. To quote Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!"

 

See, every kid should get a copy of that letter before the go to RJ ground school.