Yes, he gripes about it on Facebook as well


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What’s hilarious is that guy has no clue how good he had it compared to those who's footsteps he walked in.

24 an hour commuting two legs to res in Dayton. I remember. **** was terrible back then. Y'all are making at least 20k more then what we were. And that wasn't that long ago. I'm happy for you. But you don't have it bad anymore. Sure it could always be better, but damn.

Oh I remember. And it’s more than $20,000 more. Try double that. I had to literally save money in order to afford the first year pay cut at a regional. And then commute to reserve to fly mostly 200s all summer long and every single turn was a plane swap and no gate. I get the senior-manning is a raw deal, but not that long ago people were FOs for 6-7+ years before they had the opportunity to upgrade.

11-12 year upgrades were the norm at the old Eagle.

Perhaps, but I'd assign a higher value to someone who made the effort to become fully qualified, and gave it a try before deciding it wasn't for them, than someone who at the first minor challenge threw their hands in the air and said "your airplane".

10 Additional Pilots
 

By comparing the seniority lists from the August and September bid periods, we had a net gain of only 10 pilots.

So I conclude that either:
a) new hire classes are drying up, (because word is out that there are much better places for new hires to go), or
b) new hires are failing training at a significantly increased rate, or
c) guys are moving on at an increased rate, (which I haven't noticed).

Classes were shrunk by design designed. I know September we saw some FO attrition in the greater than 1 year range.


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Funny you say this we have a fo here who has done that twice to me at low altitude on approach... Still here though... Yikes.

We had a guy in class who’s partner left after systems for a new job, he had a variety of different seat supports. Other IPT instructors, guys going back to the line, new hires moving into to training department. He did just fine because he took the time to prepare. One guy that didn’t have a partner from the beginning and he passed as well. Personally my sim partner started to struggle once we hit sims and I had to go into this guys checkride with seat support, and I made it out alive ;)

That’s actually and severely scary... yes I’m an FO but just NO.. nobody should be giving up on the damn approach, if it gets to that level it’s supposed to be a “Go Around, Set Thrust, Flaps 8” was what I remember being taught.. or SOMETHING better than giving it up all of a sudden at low altitude. Hope you submitted a report, I mean obviously that calls for extra training, hell I would want it if I got to be that inconfident and unable to make a semi decent decision.

Forced upgrades gonna get real interesting soon

What’s scary is when you fly with FOs who are only a month or two away from their upgrade and they still exhibit terrible techniques and at times a serious lack of situational awareness. I just shake my head. Nothing any of us are going to do about it.

I know we disagree on a lot of things, but I agree with you here. It took a fair bit of sapping down to manage to get myself 2 years of FO experience before I hit the upgrade.

Thanks to the Union though I'm an outlier, most guys won't be upgrading with some diversions, Winters and emergencies under their belts.

I wasn’t aware that we disagreed on anything? ;)

Two points...

1) Just because it's better, doesn't mean that it's good. Aviation needs to be compared with other skilled professions. Our operations occur in a very fast-paced, complex, and dynamic environment. There is direct responsibility for $30-million-dollar equipment. Most importantly, there is also direct responsibility for 76 lives on board. No captain responsible for such things should be earning less than $150k per year. And FOs should be starting at half that salary. Such wages are just common sense when compared to other industries that require similar levels of experience, training, and judgment.

2) Even though I might think that the video in question MAY have come off as a little whiny or entitled, YOU only stand to gain from such negative publicity in the industry. Why bother attacking him? Scarcity of supply in pilots willing to work for a given wage is what drives wages up. If his videos keep people from showing up at a regional airline, the regional airline will have to increase pay and QOL to attract people. When you cut down or insult those who try to tell the less glamorous side of the job, you effectively become a tool for airline management.

Strongly disagree. This response reeks of enitlement and a lack of understanding in business and compensation practices amongst various industries.

1.) Aviation is comperable to other skilled professions. Go live on a medical intern or resident salary and tell me how you feel. You're flying a smaller plane, doing most of the scut work, getting your ass kicked by awful schedules. Cry me a river -- EVERY skilled career, be it a doctor, lawyer, or airline pilot starts out at the bottom of the compensation ladder with the worst quality of life. Stop acting like aviation is somehow more sacred than the intern prescribing your grandmothers medicine. How many hours has that intern worked, how many orders have they filled, and how many reports do they have to write for their resident? And what's their compensation?
Airline pilots have it the best we've had it in a long time, and I'm making more than my friend whos in his residency. I'm home more (and I commute). I have more free time. You arbitrarily throw out $150K as the base starting for an airline pilot, but the truth is if you got that you'd still complain. You're stuck on the hedonic treadmill, plain and simple.

2.) OR, and hear me out on this, bad word of mouth spreads based on a video. That word of mouth leads to a loss of pilots, which causes CCF to skyrocket, which in turn leads to a loss of flying when AA realizes we can't staff our routes. So, rather than providing better compensation, AA (who's in fiscal turmoil as it is) decides to start pinching pennies, and all the sudden that magical quality of life you're looking for gets further away. There's always at least two paths every story can go down. Just because you have the lofty idea that the idealistic and altruistic executives in Dallas will realize they need to float cash to PSA to solve the problem doesn't mean that's what they'll do.

The truth is, if ananyone is at fault for the poor QOL and pay, it's the pilot group. WE elected our respresentation, ratified a contract, and told the airline in black ink on paper "these are our expectations, and this is how long we expect it for."

Them's the games of being part of a union. If you don't like the situation you're in, I strongly suggest you think more clearly about who you intend to elect next.

No, docs have it better. Residency is long hours and low pay, but it's short and finite and at the end you instantly go from regional FO pay to major widebody captain pay at age 30 and you stay there for 30 years. (And if you get tired of your widebody captain job in ABC you can get a new one in XYZ in a couple weeks.)

And also, with residency you’re still somewhat learning and you have someone over your shoulder checking your work. You’re not quite on your own yet. While regional airlines might not be viewed with the “prestige” as the major carriers you’re still flying around up to 76 passengers. It shouldn’t be viewed as a learning experience. You should know what you’re doing by the time you get here. I’m sure the passengers wouldn’t feel comfortable if their captain and FO were using their regional airline as a residency type of experience.

I see the point about American parking airplanes if they cant staff them based off current rates...BUT... Delta has rates for the CRJ900. APC isn’t showing them for some reason but if i remember correctly the FO rates are higher than even Endeavor captain rates, and the Delta captain rates were in the 150-170 range, maybe more, i cant remember. Not that i think Delta be bringing the 900s to mainline anytime soon, but my point is that I don’t think Delta would have agreed to those rates just for the heck of it. If they do bring the 900s to the mainline certificate ill bet a pretty penny theyre still going to be making a good chunk of change off those flights. JetBlue and American both fly the E190, which isn’t much bigger than a CRJ900 and their rates are double to triple what we make. I don’t think we’ll ever see pay rates anywhere near that at any regional airline. I’m just saying there is a lot more room for pay increases (far beyond endeavor rates even) than what management would like to admit. And best believe American won’t be parking airplanes if they’re still making money off them, even if its less of a profit.

I also don’t think we can blame our crappy pay and work rules on the union so much. They might have a little say in work rules, but at the regional level pay rates are mostly market driven. That’s why up until 2-3 years ago every regional was taking concessions for 10-15 years straight. If they didn’t, they were “comaired” or their flying was given to someone else. Now we’re finally in a pilot friendly market, but maybe not as much as we’d like to believe. For example, we’re still filling classes with some of the worst pay and work rules amongst the regionals.

Another reason why regional pay is so low is because mainline rates are so high. Sure there’s always going to be the starry eyed fresh CFI who wants to fly a jet, but think about it... after a year or two nobody would be willing to fly for regional pay if that’s as good as it gets. The only reason why people are staying and we’re getting corporate and military guys in classes is because they know if they put up with the ridiculous regional management ****** it’ll pay off a few years down the road when they get to mainline. If mainline pay was similar to regional pay nobody would be filling classes right now.

You completely missed the point. Or you purposefully misquoted me to prove yours. I said a Captain should make $150k, not that $150k should be the base starting salary. I never said or implied that aviation is MORE sacred than other professions. My attitude is far from it. Just that it should pay more LIKE other professional occupations. But if you want to argue for less pay...by all means go for it.

Do your research before throwing out hypotheticals. CLT is the most profitable hub the world's largest airline. AAG is not hemorrhaging cash to pay us. Quite the opposite. They are making tons of cash because of the support that PSA provides to the CLT hub. Furthermore, the reason that they have been growing PSA is because we are already cheaper than the non W/O options.

It's not just about my ideas on the matter... If you observe the regional industry as a whole, other regional options are largely downsizing or consolidating. It starts to become pretty obvious that the remaining options for taking the place of PSA are either more expensive, or have fleet teething issues of their own. But if you want to help weaken our collective bargaining position by buying into, or even promoting management-style scare tactics, that's your right to do so...

Actually AA is not going to be "good" by comparison this year to other airlines profit. May even be the least profitable airline this year, and they have the largest fleet with the most RJ scope.

Yep, how deep into Dads wallet did we get when we wiped out his Buick this past summer?

$35 million according to USA today...

Just as PSA management takes no responsibility when things go wrong, I am certainly not taking any for that one.

Enough to give every pilot on property a $18 /hour raise.

And while not insignificant, that $35 million dollars is just a footnote for AAG. They look at that number and don’t even blink. AAG reported a pre-tax profit of $769 million dollars just for this 2nd quarter by itself.

But hey, it’s a business. They aren’t in the business of handing out many when and where they don’t think they need to. We’re filling classes and attrition is manageable. Until that changes or we find ourselves with some more leverage this is it.

But you know truthfully, why should they take any more accountability than they already do? It’s not like AAG writes PSA managment a blank check and says, “here go buy whatever you need”. They have budgets and things like tens of million spent on a new IT infrastructure are hard to justify at a time when fuel prices are surging and the industry is on the cusp of retirements that will put the leverage in the hands of labor for the next decade.

It’s not like they didn’t have some idea that the IT infrastructure was dated and at risk. If AAG doesn’t want to spend money on it, PSA doesn’t get new IT. If AAG doesn’t want pilots at its WOs to get a raise, they don’t get a raise. It’s not as if our managment is calling these shots.

Because they are responsible for the operation.

Right. They are responsible for making sure the wheels stay on this bus so to speak. But they aren’t any more responsible for this than the regional manager of a fast food chain is of their different locations. If corporate doesn’t think they need new digital cash registers, they don’t get new cash registers despite this regional manager telling them otherwise.

They certainly didn't do an admirable job of keeping the wheels on the bus back in June.

I have higher expectations of management of a supposedly stand-alone company than you do. This is probably due in part to my disdain for the way the industry is structured, with legacy carriers utilizing contractors and subsidiaries to avoid paying wage levels they otherwise would if they performed the services "in-house". Meanwhile the legacy carrier still effectively exercises "operational control", and portrays the service level as equal to the legacy brand...until something goes wrong...then it's the subsidiary's fault.

I'd probably be more willing to accept the above, if someone would step up and accept responsibility and accountability. That doesn't happen though with PSA. It's always "outside our control"...which leads to the rational question - "If it's outside our control, how does anything anyone does matter?"

I applaud you for being able to better accept the reality of the situation. You're probably even able to wear the American Airlines lanyard to hold your badge on...despite the fact that our pay comes not from AA, but from PSA.

I struggle with the "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" operating philosophy. You can consider it a character flaw.

I’d really rather wear a different lanyard. I wish PSA ALPA would make some.

Just wear a plain black one. That’s what I do.

Right on point sir, very well said. I have always felt this, but could never quite put it to word's as you just have. This also run's along the line that there is no pilot shortage(yet/maybe). They have essentially just split the labor force with premium paid pilots being 2/3, while the out sourced labor being the other 3rd and growing(pilots just keep showing up), all the while protecting brand Identity. This all gaining momentum over the past 30 plus years, under the dues collecting watchful eyes of labor unions in concert with their mainline carriers. Essentially, they have outsourced their labor management, and you foot the bill to be held down and in line until you are able to move on.

Regional airlines, of the past were true stand alone identities, that flew their own paint, and operated equipment like Shorts, Foker, Jet streams, and saab, on much shorter routes and sold there services and loads to the big boys or were just content flying non competitive small city pairs and routes that weren't serviced by legacy carriers. Yes the pay was low, but they were flying 19 to 30 pax as opposed to 50 to 76 pax on smaller equipment and generated less revenue for thier market segement. Which in todays money is essentially the same pay for moving more pax to control a market for mainline. These companies had names like ComAir, Wright, Brit, Chicago express, Empire, and Allegany to name a few. They were accountable to their respective stake holders, and employees, and weren't wholly owned subsidiaries to some larger entity.

When it comes to accountability, non of the previously mentioned regional carriers would have survived a melt down like we just did. If they did someone surely would have been let go.

2 pennies

Funny you don’t think passengers should pay more for tickets due to higher cost of AAG doing business and due PRIMARILY to higher fuel prices. Record profits last year! Airline still highly profitable vs many years ago!

AAG culture is trending towards a business model of AmericanWest, Spirit, and other LLC vs a mainline premium carrier it seems. Great get some basic economy fares, great make the bathroom smaller to squeeze more seats and less leg room. Still record profits last year, very profitable this year as well.

AAG made the decision to return $3 Billion over the next few yrs to shareholders.

Pilots are not to blame for the current industry issues & request for more! Mainline business practices caused it. Passengers are paying less than what tickets should be worth, and government & Airport agencies are hiding additional costs /taxes (PFC) into tickets. Airlines are fighting to leverage just $1-$5 in ticket prices and/or ancillary fees to remain competitive with passenger growth and demands

Pilots are not the problem! Hell, Pilots are coming into this 121 Regional industry only because wages finally were raised above poverty level! Regionals are flying more and more jets and advances jets and carrying more passengers further, faster, and higher than 20years ago!

Without Pilots no growth! Pay pilots what industry wages demand (Republic & Endeavor) and respective QOL). Growth will come if the right bases are offered, they will come. Staff training department and reduce training backlog and they will come.

https://www.inc.com/chris-matyszczyk/a-pilot-for-an-american-airlines-regional-carrier-quit-then-he-made-a-controversial-youtube-video-to-explain-why.html

You guys see this? Thoughts? I think it’s a bad way to burn some bridges. Regardless of the facts or not.

Thoughts?

The company's response is delusional.

Yes. He was a douche in INDOC too. The guy nobody wanted to ride with to the training center. The guy who was always talking about sex and porn for no apparent reason. Even when the people around him, of both genders, were clearly uncomfortable.

We’ve all complained about some of the same things, but...

Whining because you don’t know how to pack a lunch-
Whining because you can’t plan a commute-
Whining because you choose the most senior base vs. one you can hold a decent line-
Showing off the snacks you STOLE from the airline (sure we all do it, but how does the co. feel?)
— so much more. Douche-bag.

Doing it in Uniform? Classless.
And he says he “can always go back.” No douche. You’ll never work in the airlines again.

Gonna be a CFI? I wouldn’t send my worst students to you. I wouldn’t let you near a female of any age.

Say $50k is not enough to live on, yet you beg for patreon spnsorship? C0ck-biter.

We called him “baldy,” or “porno.” That’s the kind of douche he is.

>(typed while waiting in line at Starbucks) :D

(typed while waiting in line at Starbucks) :D[/QUOTE]

Lol I would have to agree I’ve only seen the Starbucks line about a 10 min wait max but very rare.

I feel like the industry being so good has resulted in some entitlement mentality coming out. Even before 9/11 the pay rates were insanely low and it helped weed out the people who just weren't cut out for the lifestyle. This person is a perfect example. Packing a lunch isn't hard and white commuting sucks it's a choice especially at his age and with his lack of commitments. I don't know why people have to make such a big deal about quitting. If you don't like it don't keep doing what you are doing. I hope he can pick up a nice cushy corp job in the future.

On the plus side, that "article" was horribly written and I couldn't get past the first couple paragraph sentences. I doubt many others did.

Crazy this thread has gone on so long, but im not surprised. The culture (imho) here is cavitating from the inside.

However, the part in said ariticle about pay is spot on. You can slice that anyway you want and its still not what a part 121 airline pilot should make. If we made more we wouldn't have to hire guys like this a$s clown.
If you think that the hireing standards have not lowered (exponentially) over the past 8 years you are either a retard or smoking crack.

Woah he is really like that? I’m still just a commercial student right now, but I’ve been watching his YouTube videos as a training aid for the past year. I’ve thought his videos have helped me a lot to fix issues I’ve had. On a personality note, he seems so cool and relaxed. I’m really surprised he was like this?