Depending on which FAA spreadsheets you look at comm/ATP growth is as high as 3% in the last decade, or up to a 22% reduction.

Very interesting is the 2009 drop in Table 18 (additional certificates issued). 2009 comm/ATP dropped 16% in one year, and is 36% lower than 2000/2001.

 

50% of pilots are Captains and 50% are FO's. It is reasonable to assume that half a pilots career at a legacy will be in the right seat and the other half in the left seat. I used the average between the two to come up with an annual average wage then multiplied over 30 years. It is inaccurate to only look at top captain wages.

As pilots we are seduced by the promise of the 20 year captain salary. The reality is that those years comprise only a small portion of ones career. The rest is in much lower ranks of income. The entire career needs to be evaluated.

Ten years in college and as a flight instructor is off set by ten years captain salary at 140K. The average is often less than that of a mailman.

Skyhigh

 

Many here are more than half way through their careers and have enjoyed times when when wages were better. My calculations are projected into the future. From the perspective of a new pilot who is starting college in the fall. What are their prospects?

I am glad that many here have enjoyed better careers than I however my interest is in the future not the past. How are new pilots supposed to afford the cost of college and flight training in light of a profession that is on a path to continue loosing ground?

Skyhigh

 

True yet Boeing projects international demand to surge over the next 20 years. Where are these pilots going to come from? Company sponsored pilot mills is where they are going to come from.

When I was at a regional they intentionally hired 300 hour guys over experienced pilots and it made me wonder. Why would they do that? I think the reason is that they want to hire low timers to save money.

Legacy carriers are no different. They have been loosing billions over the last ten years. The way forward lies in cutting costs to survive. Whatever it takes to secure lower pilot wages will be pursued.

Skyhigh

 

Interesting you bring up Medical Doctors. In fact, a very similar sort of "outsourcing" is going on in the medical profession. The candidates who do not have the grades or resume to make it into MD programs now attend D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathy) schools.

So, a whole new path to a medical profession has exploded in the last 15 with a number of similar effects. While it's harder to get a more prestigious Residency (Surgery, etc.) as a D.O., they have flooded the family practice ranks and have substantially degraded the pay in the family practice market, drastically reducing the income. Yeah, they can't put M.D. behind their name, and in most case they are not the quality candidates their M.D. brothers are, nor did they make it through such a rigorous weeding process... but they get to say they're doctors!

A secondary effect these guys have on the industry- D.O. Schools are substantially more expensive than M.D. schools, which increases the load of their student loans. When they finish training, many of them have to take the first job that comes get cracking on those loans, regardless of pay, etc.

In fact, some jobs once done by medical doctors have been completely undercut. If you get an operation, instead of an Anesthesiologist, you'll likely be put under by a Nurse Anesthetist. A whole career path that used to belong to Medical Doctors is now on it's way to being totally outsourced to less trained and lower paid people who are willing to work for less.

Anyone else see any parallels?

 

The big picture is that the legacy airlines have been in full retreat over the last 30 years. Giants have been ground into dust in that time. One time stalwarts of the industry are merged and shrunk on a continuing basis.

All the while the regionals and low cost carriers take over the industry. Anyone who has 30 or more years ahead of themselves in this profession should have grave concerns about their future.

So far nothing real is on the horizon to suggest that wages or conditions will get better. Airlines have proved that they will go to great lengths to keep downward pressure on wages. It is the only way to get ahead in the modern corporate world. The company with the lowest costs will win.

Skyhigh

 

I like this web site:

What Flying Was Like In The 1960s

It chronicles the glory of airlines past and shows how far we are from the good old days. The author concludes that ticket prices were four times more expensive in the 1960's than today. The only way to significantly raise pilot wages is to bring up ticket prices.

Even a slight increase in prices has a massive effect upon demand. Flying is barely tolerable as it is with TSA and all the hassles that go with flying. In addition there is a lot of competition that the airlines did not have in the 1960s; teleconferencing, the national highway system and a failing economy. Double ticket prices and I believe that passengers will disappear.

Our industry is propagated by $69 ticket prices. An entire generation of Americans are use to jumping on a jet to fly 1000 miles to attend a dinner party. All that will go away with a significant increase in prices and so will go most of the job market for pilots.

Skip the flight to grandmas house and buy her an XBox with Kinect instead. They you can visit all you want for free.

Syhigh

 

I find that Flying The Line Vol II is a good opposing view to the idea that the 60s and 70s were the "glory days" (or something that we want to go back to).

Looks to me like it's always been a completely screwed up career, and the flavor just changes by decade.

 

Which is why there will be plenty of guys flying overseas. The US doesn't lead in ANY airline pilot category. Not pay, not work rules, not even soft issues like prestige.

The only real benefit in the US is commuting to your job in another state.

 

138k is a conservative mixed average, thus you are wrong at least about delta. On 4th year pay and not flying much extra I made 105 last year. Our upper tier captains typically make in the 180s or so. One guy made over 35k in december alone.