In case you guys have forgotten!
 

I know we all "love" to fly, but some of you guys are forgetting that without pilots, the airplanes don't move. Some of you guys have an attitude that we should just be happy that we have a job, and we are so very lucky to be allowed to fly commercial jet for a living. We are the ones moving the airplane from A-B safely, not management. You take away top management and an airline can still run (for the most part the past 6 years the only thing management has done is run airlines into the ground), you take away the pilots, and the airplane sits on the ramp. We need to start realizing our worth and make it known to everyone, from the once a year traveler to the CEO's running our airlines, that we are professionals and we have a skill that is required to fly an airplane, that we all worked very hard to get. We aren't "lucky" that we are airline pilots, we busted our marbles and sacrificed a lot to get here, time for management to pay up, and the only way we are going to get our money back, as well as the respect that we deserve is to not ask for it, but demand it.
-Joe

Yeah, but there are a lot of starving children around the world who could make out pretty well just off of your per diem.

You bring up a good point, however.

And what exactly is yours?

Great point SAAB,

Glad to see someone is willing to kick some management.....

Shark,

The only way your statement makes any sense is if you are trying so say that ever dollar we leave on the bargaining table goes to starving children. Unless you count executives as starving childern, your point is meaningless and plays right into their hand......

I'm like that engineer in Airplane II. I don't have a point.

But seriously, we are all somewhat lucky just to be in this country in the first place. There are plenty of worse problems in the world than pilot negotiations. But that's just to put things in perspective. I don't mean to come off like a bleeding heart liberal, because I'm definitely not one, and I think SAAB is absolutely right.

...
 

Well I am a "Liberal" and I think that:

We are lucky to have been born in an industrialized nation.

We should be able to command more pay for our skill. We have earned the right to negotiate.

The United States is in it's last years of being the supreme economic power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The United States money machine has been prosperous manipulating the worlds markets and economy, but in the last few decades the USA has become dependant on other sources to maintain an unrealistic market for itself. The airline market has followed. Deregulation and imports. Soon every one of us will work for Wal-Mart air, or we will work for Made in China Air. The USA just does not have the infrastructure to support the fat cat salaries that our predecessor pilots were able to command.

It is a sad reality. I will always use my skill as a bargaining chip, but much like poker, a bluff can be called, and the chips will be divided.

Do you want to work for Wal-mart offering a cheap service at a great price, or do you want to work for a foreign airline that has become the new standard to which the worlds markets are forced to follow.

It a no win situation, but we have to fight the change as long as we can.

Buy American, support American made products (no foreign cars either), invest in American emerging markets, and SHOP AT YOUR LOCAL MOM AND POP STORES!!! Feed our infrastructure and not another countries. Only then will we have a future in this country.

Off my soapbox now!!! Thanks for listening!

Man, you'd just love where all my 401k money is going.

This is what I was trying to tell my ASA brothers and sisters before they (most of them) voted for a godawful TA. They don't have enough experience to know that it's bad. Mark my words.. in the next few months as it is implemented, complaints will spew forth

WellIbedamn!!! Someone has finally snatched the mask off the monster. The dollar is worth only .68 compared to the euro. It's even worst when compared to the British pound. The amount of money that foreigners are using to buy up real estate, manufacturing, and other markets in this country is freightening. WE'D ALL BETTER WAKE UP OR ELSE!!!!

The Presidents of Iran and Venezuela called the dollar worthless. When you think about it, the greenback doesn't have the buying power that it use to have. China's GDP is growing at 8-10% per year. That's phenomenal growth. I agree with the post that I quoted, however, my philosophy is:

"An educated, healthy and well norished labor force is the prerequiste to sustainable economic growth." You can't be dumb, sick and hungry and expect to be a viable force in this global market. What the US needs to do is to develop all of its human, labor & intellectual capital. When you remove artificial wharfs and sandbars and allow a rising tide to launch all boats, you'd be amazed as what kind of turnaround this country would experience economic, fiscally/financially, & socially.

JMO.


atp

Sure their may be larger problems (hunger, diseases, etc) than pilot salaries, but right now our wages are lower than they should be and the CEOs make more than they should. Period. You can't just ignore that.

Why should a CEO make $7,000,000 a year and have that end up being 350 times more than a regional jet first officer? It's time to fix this top heavy country. Saab I know you're working with XJT ALPA, but its really the unions of the bottom feeders that need to fix it up, pick up the slack and 'take it back'. Colgan, Mesa, to name a few. Fix those problems and we'll all be better off.

Advice to my fellow regional pilots-
Write/email your reps! Tell them that you are tired of bottom feeders pulling down your profession! Tell your CFI buddies to pick a respectable company to work for. Push them away from the crap companies. Everyone, pitch in!

Saab you are right. It's the 'I'm so lucky to have this job yet can't pay my bills' mentality that hurts us all. For me, this is a profession, a career, not a SJS game.