I had a few minutes to think about what the realistic pay is to be a pilot. Being out of the profession awhile I am not using anything specific to a certain company and my duty regs may be rusty so bear with me here.

Let's take a starting F/O making $25 an hour. Now from what I remember that hourly rate applies to flight time only. Since I forgot the duty time regs let's just say it is 14 hours. To my way of thinking that 14 hours is considered being at work. Also from what I remember hearing you can get roughly 3-4 hours of flight time in that 14 hours of duty time. Getting the calculater out that equates to $100 a day. Being at work 14 hours that also equates to a realistic pay of $7.14 an hour. I'm not sure what minimume wage is these days but is a starting F/O realistically making minimum wage?

Now let's take someone who has worked their way up to $65 an hour. Assuming the same scenario as above the person would be making a whopping $18.57 an hour. That being after several years of paying dues not to mention the cost of education.

Throw in trips that would leave a person gone for several days, technically at work in my opinion, and the hourly rate diminishes tremendously. See what I'm getting at here?

 

Good calculation. Here's something to think about also; next time you go to your teaching/university hospital, you'll likely be seen by residents- they've graduated med school, but can't practice on their own just yet (still in training for that specialty).

When you do the math, many of your doctors are getting ~$10 an hour, maybe even less.

Pilots and doctors both start out getting the short end of the stick. It ain't right, but it's the way of the world. The hospital management abuses them just as much as airline management abuses pilots.

There's the same problem in both professions, everybody complains, but there is no unity, and so the situation will never change. If professionals want more, there must be unity.

 

Interesting point. I've often wondered why no one has tried to organize white collar jobs.

 

My guess is because it's assumed (falsely?) that white collars know how to get ahead, or have enough intelligence to know how to work together to achieve a common goal. Apparently, this is false. Meanwhile the blue collars (who realize the strength in unity) are getting much further ahead.

 

Exactly.

The MD has a defined time period of those conditions though, a pilot does not.

Let me illustrate the terms of a contract I am familiar with. After the first 8 hours of work, hours 9 through 14 are paid at time and a half. Hours 15 through 24 are paid at double time. Once 24 hours are worked, you get a "sleeper". That is 8 hours of sleep time paid at straight wages. Plug in a decent hourly wage to that, for the sake of discussion say $30 an hour. For those on standby the pay is 5 hours regardless of a call. Get a call the the preceeding applies.

Today at work I brought up our theoretical pilot making $65 an hour flight time. When asked if they would work 14 hours getting paid what amounts to 18.57 an hour....I'd better not repeat here what they said.

 

Check this out: http://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/r...061025145.html

 

I have always though that you could multiply a pilots time away from base by the minimum wage to com up with an opportunity cost. Then add in the opportunity cost from the investment in education, experience and training expenses and you come up against a huge number.


SkyHigh

 

That's always been the idea behind duty rigs - the pilot is available to the company, it's up to the airline to schedule the pilot's service's efficiently.

Unfortunately, you never see a 1:1 rig (every hour away from base pays one hour of flight pay). The norm is more like 1:3.5 if a pilot group has rigs at all.

 

I've thought about the scheduling before also. I'm not totally familiar with railroads but heard that an engineer will take a train so far until another crew continues and the starting engineer will take a trip back to his home base.

Seems to me something like that could be worked out with pilots too. If there is a stop on a milk run another pilot continues the flight with the starting one going back home.

But then again, the working man takes it you know where and the person in the office scheduling, sipping gravy and not being efficient gets rewarded.

A pilot is directly responsible for the health and well being of more people than any brain surgeon.

I just find it so inequitable that people directly responsible for so many lives aren't being compensated properly. I mention this at work to the guys that just went through a 3.5 year apprenticeship and are earning $200k a year and they just have a poo eating grin on their face.

 

To be honest, I think it's too easy to be a pilot. Anybody can just walk in and get a license. We need a sort of professional body that will control the supply of professional pilots, and screen out the clowns who will fly a plane for next to nothing.

That's how medicine remains a lucrative, (relatively) high paying career. If anybody could just stay at home and study for the board exams, then just show up and do it, everybody would be a doctor, and supply would far exceed demanddemand. Thus salaries would go down. Think about it. How many people do you know who want/wanted to become a doctor? How many actually are?

I'm not saying we should prevent people from flying. It's a wonderful thing, and I'd be the last person to prevent somebody from experiencing the wonder of flight. What I am saying, is that if you want to do it professionally, or for hire, you should need to undergo some further screening process than a simple government exam.

It's all about supply and demand. If we control the supply, we will start to see pilots living much better lifestyles.