Comparing ourselves to Doctors is a absurd. Very few pilots are smart enough to be Doctors. (ie Doctors don't get a book with all the questions and answers to their written tests) They kill themselves studying in medical school over four years. We can get our all of our ratings in a matter of months. There is a reason they get a title and can put initials on the end of their name. Pilots look like pompous a**es when they put Captain as their title on their credit cards.

Instructing is not like Residency. Residents make 50K a year working 80 hours a week. When residency is finished almost all doctors go to a job that pays at least 125K a year. There is a light/payday at the end of their tunnel.

Working for a regional is nothing like being an attending physician at a county hospital. You are still paid over 100K and can leave for a better job at any moment. As a regional airline pilot you are an indentured servant for as long as the economy or market factors determine.

They only thing that is correct is pilot and doctors should not be compared to each other. Thanks to seniority and the lowest common denominator (ie everyone should be a captain) we are not rewarded for competency or over achievement.

Baseball
 

Pilots are not like doctors at all. They are closer to baseball players. Only a tiny handful will ever make it to the majors. And of those who are able to wear a major league jersey they are not out of the woods yet and can be taken out of the game at any minute.

Only a few stars really achieve the dream. The rest wallow in the minors or lessor rungs of the majors until they are eventually forced out or get smart and try something else.

A doctor is a highly educated professional who is valued for the skills that they have developed over many decades. They are worth more over time and have transportable value. A pilot career is more about luck, circumstances and how willing you are to mess up your life for an obsession driven long shot. Maybe you will make it to the dream but most likely you will not. And there is no residual value to a pilot career.



Skyhigh

Base
 

I think it would be cool if the regionals permitted their pilots to be based out of smaller spoke airports. Then they could afford to live better on the wages offered. A duty day could begin when you reach your local rural airport and check in for the deadhead to the hub. It would cost less than a pay raise.

SKyhigh

One thing not being taken into account is that if airlines have to move their entire base of pilots everytime there is a change in operations, it will probably change how airlines run. There will be a lot less moving in and out of markets because the cost will grow exponentially. Nobody will take a regional job if they continuously have to move on their own dime, so the company is going to have to start paying to move their employees. It would change the entire industry.

True they do but fractionals have A LOT more bases.

As per APC profiles
CS: 25 bases
NJA: 100 bases
Flight Options: 18 bases
XO Jet: 36+
Flex Jet: 5 bases
Avantair: 39 bases

Additionally, most fractional guys' first day is an airline in to a location to meet the a/c. They usually don't dare try to schedule a customer trip with the crew airlining in, just too much can go wrong with airline flights, which is contradictory to why people would buy into a fractional anyways.

That's great for DTW. You should see the sh**hole we have in ATL.

Doctor V Pilot
 

When a doctor embarks on their career it is similar to investing in the stock market. It will go up and down over the decades but in the end their sacrifice will have paid for itself many times over and their value will have diversified into a stable portfolio.

A pilots career is closer to sitting down at the blackjack table with 150K and 40 years of your life in chips. As the years are dealt out it at times you will be up and at others you will be down. It is possible to win big but most likely by the end of the night you will leave with nothing. The house usually wins in the end.

SKyhigh