What's a major airline pilot worth?
 

So I started a thread here asking what folks thought a pilot was worth and the mods moved it to Hangar Talk which I find to be incredibly interesting as this is a PilotPay forum but I feel that the thread was buried.

So the question is what's a MAJOR airline pilot worth?

Joe Peck

UAL IADFO-75/76

About fifty percent of what they had a decade ago:eek:

Whatever they negotiate.

A lot more than what they are here in the US... it's incredible how low the pay is in the US. :eek:

The pay could be so much higher, as soon as we get rid of competition and go to a national airline like most foreign carriers. Oh then the pay will be awesome.

I'm all for a national carrier. As long as it's Delta.

What I always aksed myself, why aren't US pilots stirking? Are they somehow by law forbidden to strike? (I know striking is a hard thing to do, but it works perfectly at LH and other jobfields, especially in Germany ;))

And how low the cost of living is comparitively, as well as the value of our currency.

Three words; "Railway Labor Act".

Airline industry employees, along with railroad employees fall under the Railway labor Act and are not allowed by law to strike unless they are allowed to do so by a federal bureaucracy called the National Mediation Board.

Recent precedent, allows airlines to declare bankruptcy, go to court, have labor agreements thrown out and then another federal court will jump in and prevent workers from striking after their contracts are thrown out.

Additionally, while in bankruptcy, federal courts can terminate employee pension plans, while other federal courts, once again, prevent employees from striking.

Pathetic!

Funny you should ask.

I was just looking at a textbook... Intro To Economics.

It goes through a few definitions (cost vs value vs worth, etc) and by page 3 they start with the first lesson: What is worth more, a diamond or a glass of water?

Then they go into the discussion of a guy in the desert and how he would gladly trade diamonds for a glass of water. I guess anyone in the world can relate to diamonds, water, deserts, and thirst.

Reading on to page 5, they go into the second lesson: How much is a 747 Captain worth? (I swear I'm not making this up!)

This discussion goes along the lines of all the training, experience, the lifetime of preparation, a clean record, incredible responsibility, long hours away from home, and so on. So is a 747 pilot worth 300,000 a year? Yes, they reason, as long as there are only so many available.

However, they go on to point out that if there is a surplus of qualified persons to fly 747s, then the "value" of a 747 Captain drops rapidly. Thus ends the second lesson in the economics textbook.

Honest to God... the first two examples in an economics textbook are a rich man dying in the desert and a bunch of 747 pilots that think they're worth more than the market will support.

I didn't read any more after that.

Sorry for hijacking this thread but, why did they pass this law? Were they scared of if they strike the whole transportation system would collapse? Are bus driver included in this law? For me it makes no sense to forbid them to strike. :confused:

You really owe it to yourself and all other professional pilots to read up on the RLA. It may cause a lot of grief to us at times, but if it weren't for the RLA, we'd be back in the stone age as far as work rules are concerned.

Because we all know Delta has the highest customer satisfaction rating.

Politicians have destroyed just about everything that makes sense in this country. Welcome to America!

In about 10 years you will find out what we are worth. When the pilot shortage comes.

Is that the same "shortage" that occurred when all the vietnam era pilots retired or the next "shortage" that will occur on 12-13-12? Do you own a flight school? Because they are the culprits (them and AOPA) who seem to predict pilot "shortages".

Pilot Pay has always been a Supply vs. Demand issue. Here's an idea I've been playing with for many years, decouple our pay from the company. No pay by the company, at all.

As soon as we get above 10,000', we make this PA. "Hi Folks, Wecome aboard Pay Me Airlines. We will be up front, doing all we can to get you to ATL as smoothly and safely as possible. As soon as we find some smooth air, Buffy and Muffy and Tiffany will be coming trough the cabin collecting our Landing Fees. As soon we have collected an adequate amount, say, $5.00 per person, we will request to be released from this holding pattern and we will get you into ATL ON TIME. Remember our motto, You want a safe, smooth flight? PAY ME!"

Then we go hold somewhere until the pot hits at least $500, (for a 1hr. flight, to be divided between 2 pilots, $300 for me, $200 for Junior) then we land, safely, smoothly.

A long time ago an American Airlines Capt. wrote a paper called, "What if we all worked for free." I still have a copy of it, it's several pages so I won't type the entire thing here, but the bottom line was, he used AA's own numbers, ASM's, CSM's vs. RPM's, and did the math, to show that even if AA paid their pilots ZERO, the actualy price of a ticket would come down about...$5.00. So when the Company starts with the, "We can't afford to give you a raise, our ticket prices would go up too much..." well, we all know that's a bunch of crap.

And in this month's ALPA magazine there is a graphic that shows where every cent of a Ticket Price goes, Pilots are about 3.2% of the total cost of the ticket. The sample Ticket they used in the example was $339.64. Of that the Pilot Costs were $10.87. Airport fees and taxes were all much higher than pilot costs, 9.9%! The bottom line is, Pilot Costs are a tiny fraction of the ticket price, only 3.2%.

As I still tell people when they ask about our pay, you are not paying me for the smooth flight, the flight is free, you are paying me for the safe landing. Like they guy in the desert willing to pay diamonds for a glass of water, how much is a safe landing worth? Well then, Pay ME!

[QUOTE
As I still tell people when they ask about our pay, you are not paying me for the smooth flight, the flight is free, you are paying me for the safe landing. Like they guy in the desert willing to pay diamonds for a glass of water, how much is a safe landing worth? Well then, Pay ME![/QUOTE]


The problem with this argument is you must be willing to crash the plane to prove your point.

No. But we have be to willing to not release the parking brake to prove a point.

No, I'd just find a good thunder storm to go play around in, until their money shook out of their pocketts...

The traveling public seems to take safety for granted. Maybe we should have a Crash of the Month club! Put a little fear of God back in them!

I was flying for DAL back when DAL was doing a lot of stupid stuff, like landing L10-11's in thunderstorms in DFW, and departing DFW without flaps on a 727, etc. I told pax back then when they would ask, "Is this thing Safe?"

"Well, in about 10 minutes we are going to find out!"

Now, PAY ME, so I'll be thinking about setting the flaps instead of paying my mortgage.

Here's what I feel "fair" wages would be at a MAJOR airline considering the incredible responsibility and amount of training it took to get there:

Annual Salary at max longevity:

Narrowbody Cptn: $250K
Narrowbody F/O: $170K

Widebody Cptn: $350K
Widebody F/O: $230K

You know........kind of what DLA and UAL used to have. I feel that those contracts compensated airline pilots appropriately.

ha ha!! :)






....

Fixed your post

I don't think he lives or works in the US.

The RLA is in real need of reform as are our bankruptcy codes, particularly the 1113c.

The RLA has been used in recent years not so much as a method of resolving major disputes, but rather a tool to prolong negotiations for years after a contract amendable date.

The 1113c process in bankruptcy, which was originally intended to prevent arbitrary airline contract rejection by management, has morphed into a tool to reject contracts and then through the RLA prevent strikes after a contract is rejected.

Prior to the 1113c process, management could reject a contract and workers could strike. Today, the 1113c allows management to reject a contract with a minimum of effort and then the RLA kicks in to prevent a strike. In essence, airline employees are stripped of their RLA protections through the 1113c process while management maintains their RLA protections to prevent strikes.

We as pilots want the RLA to change, but I guarantee management likes things just the way they are. They have the money/power to change it, but no motivation to do so.

Yes, but we have ALPA. And their seat at the table.

Carl

I disagree, we do have the power to change it, but lack the grassroots drive to do so.

Too few professional pilots are getting involved in the political fight to reform our antiquated labor laws and one sided bankruptcy code.

Too many rationalize their apathy and take a smug or cynical attitude towards those who are trying to make a difference.

Too few professional pilots hold their elected legislators accountable for their votes on labor issues.

Too many professional pilots only see the labor movement through their own narrow interests and don't understand that without support for a robust national labor movement we will all eventually be picked off piecemeal.

If pilots wanted to make a real difference today they'd joined a political action committee like ALPA-PAC and encourage others to do so also. At the end of the day we are reaping today what our political apathy and cynicism has earned us.

Give money to a PAC that actually has this on their agenda. ALPA's PAC has been funded strongly by its members for many decades now. Reforming the RLA and the NMB is not even mentioned in anything I read from ALPA or the ALPA PAC. If I've missed it, I trust you'll show me.

No, we ALPA pilots are reaping the results of giving our money to a PAC that does not have reforming the RLA or the NMB on their agenda. The only cynics are the apologists like yourself that advocate giving money to the ALPA PAC which is only interested in re-electing far left politicians. How's that working out for us?

Carl

13% of ALPA pilots contribute to the PAC, I guess in your universe that constitutes strong support.

You are your own worse enemy Carl.

Military to airline pilot costs...
 

Regarding the original focus of this thread, I can tell you factually that the Air Force spends over $1 million on each pilot training graduate. That does not include follow-on training in a major weapon system such as a B-1B, F-15 or C-17. That's one reason the Air Force doesn't produce as many pilots as they use to say 20 years ago or so. I used to work at the Pentagon and would generate these numbers for generals & Congressional staffers for planning purposes.

One of the pervasive attitudes among the pilot folk is this whole "I value the ability to not take work home with me". This is a major draw for the pilot crowd at every compensation level. The unintended consequence is that such attitude feeds and usually rolls into a general apathy for the political idiosyncrasies that lead to the airline profession being such a lateral-progression-handicapped vocation as it is. That's all labor's apathy's doing, not management. It's your fault if you let the man manage your money for the comfort of not taking work home with you.

It's a catch-22. People flock to the profession because they want a push on push off type of job. It is this very push on push off nature that makes them perfect target to be yanked around when it comes to labor negotiations. General lack of knowledge and/or lack of interest in topics such as RLA et al are perfect examples. I'm not even a 121 guy, but even when I ask those who are at my squadron, they quickly shorten the discourse with a "eh, I just go do my job and go home". Which I empathize with, as some of them commute sometimes to two gigs (ARC and 121); but can they really get miffed when they get raked through the coals and face their 3rd furlough and household finances scramble?

My hat's off to them, I'm not touching 121 with a 10foot pole (that's MY contribution to the profession, helping the numbers by staying out of it lol)

In my universe, MILLIONS of dollars given to the ALPA PAC over the decades does constitute being strongly funded. Whether those many MILLIONS of dollars come from 13% or not, ALPA got that money. And they've done nothing to move the agenda regarding how badly the RLA and NMB hurts us. What ALPA has done with the money is back far left political candidates. Again, how's that working out for us?

Your response is interesting though. I guess in your universe, if more pilots than 13% would contribute to the ALPA PAC, then ALPA would place RLA and NMB reform on their agenda. Interesting.

Carl

Well said.

Where I live, when they give the civil service exam to get on the list to become a police officer attracts over 25,000 people each time it is given. At most 200 will be picked off that list. Starting salary is over $55,000 a year up to $75,000 after 5 years. All this and all you need is 64 college credits, half which you get from completing the academy.

Wouldn't you think that the salary would come down if 25000 people want to join each time the test is given? Nope, the union gets the salary to go up.

Why don't we just ask a divorce attorney what an airline pilot is worth? They know. They see it all of the time.

At some point in the next 12 months we'll get an email from Moak saying that ALPA is strongly investigating which presidential candidate to support with our ALPA-PAC money. Only after both candidates have made their positions known will Moak make the hard decision and endorse a candidate.

It is impossible to figure out who this person will be. Dozens of ALPA staffers will spend months collecting data, reading transcripts, and scrutinizing voting records. Thousands of ALPA dues dollars will be spent.

Will ALPA endorse Barak Obama or the yet-to-be-named Republican candidate?

I can tell you right now it'll be Obama. Any argument to the contrary?

Yupp.... LOL

Yeah. Do you want them to endorse Romney - the investment banker?

You can't have it both ways. Complain about the RLA, complain that no one will strike, complain that the union is ineffective. Then, come 4 November, vote for a candidate that opposes everything that your union and your contract depends on.

Bad news gentlemen - you are not in the top 1% of earners who are being represented by today's conservative politicians. Pilots are turning into a bunch of trailer park conservatives. Hang on to your guns boys, it's all you're gonna have left. The corporations will have everything else. Remember, a corporation has the rights of a person (per the current conservative Supreme Court). UAL, CAL, DAL, FDX, UPS, etc. are all wealthier "people" than any of us will ever be. I'm sure they will continue to purchase more democracy than any of us can afford - with or without ALPA PAC.

PIPE

This thread is taking a turn toward the type of political speech that will end up in the thread being closed for political discussion not allowed on APC. Leave the partisian leanings, red-vs-blue, and political names out. These things most often led down the path of TOS violations.

USMCFLYR

True, most pilots are not in the top 1%.

However, according to the US Census Bureau data from 2004, the top 5% (the ones termed to be "the rich" by the liberal media, or sometimes "the evil rich") have a net worth of $1M+ (much of it in home equity) and a lower-limit income of $157,176. Many professional pilots fall into this category, and many who don't fall into this category want to fall into this category.

I shall not make a political comment on whether one should vote for one candidate over another, or one party over another. I will simply advise caution when deciding who is representing whom.