Regional Airline Pay on the news
 

Last night several anchors for the news were discussing how shocked they were that an airline pilot could only be paid $16,000 a year. Turned on the news this morning and saw the same disgust from another news program.

This may shock you, but some of these people in this pay scale have come from years of airline experience only to be put back into that pay scale due to losing their other job. The part that really sickens me is when an airline says: "We pay our pilots pay scales that are industry standard". This is an industry standard that is disgusting.

Because of the events of this Colgan crash, we may all be required to complete stick pusher scenarios in the sim. I have no problem with this, however I can pretty much assure you that in 95% of the transport aircraft out there, if you get a full stall to the point of the stick pusher at the outer marker, you are just along for the ride until it hits the ground. This is why the FAA only stressed recognizing and avoiding stalls for the last 40+ years, and with no problems. And because of the media, their shock of how we could not practice this event in the sim shows their misunderstanding for the whole concept.

But we also have this pay issue that is finally out in the open. Yet with the politics between the FAA and the airlines, this is one major problem that will never be solved. And with more pilots being furloughed with no other work to turn to, there are more experienced pilots flying regional jets around for pennies. It is sickening that this is a policy that will probably never change.

I hope they expose not only colgan's pay but Pinnacles pay and the fact that we have been in negotiations for 5 years. I really hope the media shows the world how cheap this company is and how the only thing they care about is money.

welcome to capitalism and free market my frineds

the same economic model was put in place in my country (argentina) by the US back in 1995 and everything collapse in 1999-2000.banks went under,no credit,people wages went down 50 % all because of the free market and capitalism where all it matters for companies is to make money.
if this pilot doesnt want to fly for $3000 we'll find someone who does.(That was the hole idea) 0% oversight.

it would be nice to get paid more yes, but my only hang up is that when we all went out lookin for our airline jobs we knew full well what the pay was going to be but we all still took the jobs despite that fact.

It is not as though on day 1 they said oh yah you get paid 23 an hour. We all knew what we were getting into so I don't think we can be that upset. Nobody is forcing us to work here.

Ya don't like it......... quit.

Agreed. We all took the job knowing what 1st year pay was. We have each other to blame for.

Wow! Talk about unified. The only ignorant person who would telling us to quit our job if we are not happy with the wages we accepted would probably be low time CFI trying to get into the door.

If you are not going to be part of the solution, get the hell out of the way.

What does this accident have to do with "stick pusher" training? They stalled the aircraft. And it wasn't until AFTER the crew did exactly the wrong recovery, and CONTINUED to do so until they hit the ground, did the stick pusher engage. It was trying to save the aircraft and they overrode it. This accident was completely avoidable and recoverable (provided that there wasn't an overweight or CG problem that we don't know about yet).

I've been in all sizes of aircraft up to the stick shaker (mostly for training) and have had two events that went beyond the shaker and on to extremely bad buffeting of the aircraft. The result, the crew applied the proper procedure and the airplane lossed a few hundred feet (the worst event was an accelerated stall at FL240 and with a grossweight of 500,000lbs --- higher altitude and heavyweight ... bad combo). The aircraft I fly now has a stick pusher, but I'm hoping I never get to see it.

I disagree with the statement that if you get into a stick pusher event, it is unrecoverable. At the time they got the stick pusher, they still had workable airspeed and altitude. I don't know what the terrain altitude is there, but if they had at least 1000 feet they should have been able to recover. And remember, the stick shaker onset was artificially raised due to them putting it into "ice" mode. Therefore, you can make the argument that the aircraft may have been flyable at airspeeds below that reference point. We know that it was flying just fine as they approached the "ice" stick shaker reference point. Vrefs are 1.3 stall speeds. I don't know what their Vref was ... but assuming 130 knots ... your stall speed is approximately 91knots. The aircraft is still flying below 130 knots.

We can argue all day about whether they should have had stick pusher training. The reality is, they failed the first basic law of flying, stall recovery. They never applied max power, he kept the nose up, and she decreased lift by raising the flaps. That airplane never should have hit the ground.

23, 43, 53, 73 an hour.... it all sounds good... but only to people used to getting paid fourty hours of pay, for fourty hours of duty time. Getting 5 hours of pay for 16 hours of duty time, week after week after week is BS.

fatboy, I agree with most of what you are saying. My point though was first you get a stick shaker- time to recover. Once you go through the shaker without recovery, you will then get the pusher as a last resort to save you. If you are low to the ground (or god forbid covered with ICE!) and you get all the way to the pusher you have two choices: lower the nose and get that speed back as you hit the ground, or hold the nose up in the air and then lose control and hit the ground. Either way, you hit the ground- that is why the FAA trains to recognize at the imminent signs.

How about Air Florida Flight 90: Covered with snow and ice, low to the ground, got the shaker, then the pusher and at that point it did not even matter. It was going to crash 5 second before it hit the ground, no matter what input anyone would have applied.

So back to our point: the transport category standards are to avoid the stall and recover from the imminent signs. So if the FAA is going to re-write our procedures to have us recover from pusher scenarios, fine. OR, how about address more important topics like work rules, crew rest, and pay- issues are right in front of us, and causing numerous pilots across the country to suffer on a DAILY basis. How many stick pusher scenarios were there yesterday in all world wide 121 ops? Or even last week, or even the last year. Just one!

People (pax) will be shocked at regional pay until they buy their next ticket. Then they will only think about saving $10 on the ticket; they won't care who is flying.

Get the hell out of the way??

What are you gonna do run through the front doors of your head quarters and demand they give you more money? More than the amount you knew you would be paid when you applied for the job, prepped for their interview and then went thru training for?

Sounds to me like you had a long time to re-think your idea to go work where it is you work after you had learned what the income level would be.

By the way nice grammer tough guy.

I fixed that for you.

I would like to think that there would have been a happy medium between stick pusher and powering out of the stall. It has been said, I think Fatboy said it, that the pusher was attempting to save the airplane.

Aerodynamically, this is the correct action for a stall recovery. However, the pusher doesn't particularly calculate the severity of the stall (how far over critical the wing is stalled), it merely does a hefty full forward application of elevator. Perhaps, that input alone would have resulted in a sure disaster.

In shaker events, we are trained to lock the pitch and power out of it. A combination of these inputs, lowering the nose (just a bit) and application of full power (no retraction of the flaps, of course) could have been the recipe for success in this case. I believe that Capt. Renslow's decision to override the pusher was probably founded in sound logic considering the low height above the surface. But it looks from the animation that he just held back pressure the whole way down.

I am really having trouble with people saying that the Colgan Captain had "sound logic."

First, of all, I do not have all the details of the accident - only what has been made public. So, this is my own assessment.

1. He did not have a lot of time in this aircraft.
2. He overrode the pusher. Sure, he could have had sound logic if he thought that he was 30 feet over the ground and defeating the pusher would have resulted in a belly skid and the wheels going through the wings. This didn't happen over the approach end, though. He allowed for the flaps to be retracted. Again - I don't see the sound logic.
3. He failed several tests (and I don't have the specifics). Fail one test - I'd say it was nerves. Twice - the wife might have been yelling at you the day before. But we are talking about more than that.

Last point that I want to make. There have been a lot of arguments about regional pilot pay and the lifestyle. We should be treated like professionals. I totally agree. However, if you want to be treated like a professional, act like one. One of my biggest pet peeves are those of us that are violating sterile cockpit. It takes less than 10 minutes to get above 10,000 feet. When you are descending, you are usually working hard anyway. Why are we as a regional pilot group allowing these non-sterile cockpit conversations to continue to happen? We sound like idiots when the CVR's are released. Take a listen to USAir 1547 and United 232. Then listen to some of the more recent regional accident CVR's (I won't name them, but you can probably figure it out). Notice a difference?

Before you say that mainline allows the same thing to happen - I can't tell you the number of times that I have been on a mainline JS and heard the captain say, "10,000 feet, sterile." You know how many times I have heard that on a regional jet? Almost never. Jumpseat on FedEx sometime - these pilots are some of the most professional that I have ever seen in action! And you know what? They don't even have passengers on those aircraft! Aside from that, they debrief each flight and try to learn how to improve on the next one. Anyone else do that?

To sum up - a tragic accident happened. Hopefully there can be some good that comes of it. Maybe it will be government-enforced improved work rules and pay. At the very least, you can honor those who died by looking at the way that you conduct yourself and work and redefine the term, "professional pilot."

That's hitting the nail on the head. The way I see it they have two ways they should pay us.

1. 1:1 like Cape Air.
2. Continue with the current system at significantly higher pay rates.

And just who is topping out the pilot payscales as well? Oh, right Fedex... Hmm, maybe there's something to that whole "Pay them as professionals" thing...

My wife and I bought a vehicle the other night and when doing the loan application I was asked what I gross in a month and when I told the guy he asked me 3 times, "in a month"???? Then looked at me like I was a schmuck, Nice!

Just as points of clarification:

1. the NTSB hearings on Day 1 showed that the crew did not select ice speeds
2. Bombardier testified that the Q400 stick pusher fires just after the stall, not prior to the stall

I don't believe the crew was flying with complete control effectiveness, post stick shaker, given the testimony of Bombardier re: the FDR data.

Auto Throttle
 

I don't think that the dash 400 has an auto throttle. I wonder if the Saab does. Since the captain was newly transferred over from the Saab and if it did have an auto throttle my guess is that during the heat of the approach he could have forgot about setting his power.

Perhaps the answer is to keep wages the same and spend more on adding an auto throttle to the dash 400? The company does not get any lasting benefit from spending money on its pilots but does from buying itself things. Maybe more automation and less pilot is the answer?

(Note: the preceding statement was intended as sarcasm.)

The Alaska Air group preferred adding stuff to its planes over increasing pilot wages. Pilots come and go but the heads up display is still there doing its job.

Being ridiculously underpaid is stressful. There is no way around that fact. It doesn't matter whether or not you understood that fact before taking a job.

Over time, that stress becomes chronic. This affects pilots' lives in many many ways, some of which we don't even understand. I believe it is reasonable to make the logical jump that one would be more capable in all aspects of one's life with less stress.

When a pilot is stressed (overworked and underpaid), that pilot might make poor decisions on occasion, like doing whatever is necessary to get those extra hours at home before the long commute to work.

Are pilots' responsible for the actions they take as professionals? Absolutely yes.

However, nothing ever happens in a vacuum. There is always a bigger picture. Lives of humans are messy and complex. There is a lot of pressure on professionals to "put up and shut up", even when reasonable objections might be in order.

People make mistakes. Every single pilot ever has made mistakes, some of them embarrassing. Rather than heaping blame on folks for being human, it is more constructive to find out ways to mitigate those mistakes in the future.

And lastly, anyone who advises anybody to "simply quit" any job in this economy is dangerously out of touch with reality. We all have the right to work to improve our working conditions.

I went to the Continental web site searching fares from EWR and BUF. The cheapest one way fare I could find is $264. One ticket probably covers the cost of the crew’s compensation and meager benefits. Can anyone from Colgan share with us the average loads between EWR and BUF, also the operating cost for the 1:30 minute flight. Also how much of the fare does Colgan have to share with Continental for each seat sold?

I feel like I'm completely stating the obvious, but it seems like most people in their ranting on APC the past few days have been missing the point of this accident.

This crew executed the procedure to recover from a tailplane stall situation. This was everyone's initial first reaction the day after this incident. This message forum was rife with people discussing tailplane stalls. (Turboprops with T-tails+Icing, correct procedure: reduce power, reduce flaps, pull back)

I'm sure both pilots were knowledgeable about how and why an airplane stalls. The crew members acted together to fix a wrong scenario.
Tragic.

Tell that to someone who has gone through multiple pay cuts, downgrades, furloughs and bankruptcy.

This was my whole point from the beginning.

Listen to the CVR again. They were scared and were way too fatigued to know what was going on. The Captain freaked out and in a desperate attempt to save the airplane, ignored all of his training and just pulled back hoping the airplane would go up. They were not thinking tail stall, just "jesus christ". The first officer thought to reduce drag and all she could do was retract flaps, while that reduced drag, it also reduced lift. Then she retracted the gear. All the while the Captain was still pulling back over powering the pusher. Let's not bring up "they thought it was a tail stall" again because they didn't. Look at his training record, and look at her voice on the CVR repeatedly revealing her inexperience with icing and how she wouldn't want to make any decisions involving ice.

Argh you are the type that make me want to get a email from the apc police.

Not all of us is to blame. mesa colgan great lakes etc don't even know who I am. I would not copy my resume on used tolit tissue and submit it to the worst paying airlines.

This is exactly why the RAA and airline management can't just use the "pay has nothing to do with quality" argument. There are lots and lots of great pilots who went to better airlines or did something else rather than throw their hats in with the likes of certain companies.

You pay nothing and all you end up getting the folks who either couldn't find work any where else or are trying to cut corners in their career. Lets face it, the only reason people went to Colgan was the fast upgrades or didn't have the experience to go somewhere better.

Very doubtful. I don't even think this CA even knew what a tail stall was much less how to recover from it. Apparently he didn't know how to recover from a normal one. He probably took his eyes off the speed for some reason. All he had time to do was to utter "jesus christ" The FO most likely some time around the 20 degree pitch up point thought it would probably be a good idea to put the flaps up since they were climbing, without checking the airspeed and the vsi.

The first rule in emergencies is to aviate. Which means you don't speculate you just do what you have to do. VSI going down? Stick pusher activating? That's most probably a stall. Max power, pitch level or down and wings level until clear of the shaker then max climb.

I don't think that this is the attitude that we can go forth with if we want to make improvements to our pay/QOL. Asking for improvements in QOL and pay are not unique to the airline industry, but to all jobs.

I understand the point you are trying to make. I DO hold MYSELF RESPONSIBLE for what I got myself into when I was hired at my first airline. And Yes, I do have the option of Quitting. The only problem is, I doubt right now I could easily find a job with my degree (in the current state of unemployment etc..). However, holding myself responsible for my choice to become and airline pilot, and wanting better pay and working conditions CAN coexist.

I admit that I myself complain my fair share about how miserable working conditions and pay are for our profession. However, it takes actually being employed as a pilot for an airline for at least half a year before(maybe even sooner or later, i dunno, just a given amount of working experience) one realizes that it is a joke how hard we can be worked for the pay we receive. You never really have a complete picture of what kind of working conditions you are getting yourself into, until you have actually experienced them; and in the case of many airline pilots, that is only after you have invested many thousands of dollars to get to a regional carrier.

If we all the attitude that we should either be happy and accept what we have, or quit; well I would say the pilot shortage thing that they have been talking about would be more than noticeable.

With the attitude that your statement reflects, you are essentially saying you DO NOT WANT higher pay, that we should all be locked into the pay we agreed to when we were hired. Management would love this...no pilot pay increases EVER and we can still take away their pay during tough economic times, when they give into our demands.

The fact is, we are airline pilots, and I know I want to continue to be one for a long time coming, and I am in support of all other pilots in the attempts to increase pay/QOL/working conditions.

I Don't wand to quit!! I want to fight!! I hope there are others that want to fight too!!

I figured it out this is Roger Cohen president of RAA the same guy making the news rounds saying we make enough money get more than enough rest and we should shut the hell up and be glad we get to tell are friends "i am pilot". I don't just rant on APC after seeing Colnago(Roger Cohen) BBC interview I went to the RAA site to send him an email. I went back for more today and can't find any contact emails listed for the entire board of the RAA. this is getting interesting ladies and gentleman. Change is comming to the airways.

Agreed. This IS BS

The q400 at Vfe with full power and icing on the tail plane stalled at -15 degrees AOA. DFDR showed they were at -7 degrees AOA. Not even close to a tailplane stall.

They also (air florida) failed to ever achieve/set max thrust, which was much more of a contributing factor than almost anything else. And more so the captain told the FO to do it kind of like a "soft field" takeoff, which is also kind of one of those "golden rules of twin flying"

Very true, but a tailplane stall would not activate the shaker/pusher.... which is driven by wing angle of attack.... if your getting the shaker/pusher.... it's the big wing, not the upside down little one...

oh well with the pay thing cleared up for me there goes my shot of ever "gettin some"... in this line of work.... im quitting. ;) FML

While it would be nice to think that Marvin was thinking Tailplane stall, just can't buy that theory. Remember the initial APC theory was un-recognized icing leading to a Tailplane stall with Marvin attempting a normal stall recovery.

What I think happened is that Marvin was overly concerned with maintaining altitude consistent with the emphasis he had received in sim training (100' loss was a bust on the event)

I think Rebecca changed the configuration out of the old truism that if you change the config and something bad happens, un-do it. Plane was flying fine until the Gear/Flap extension.....so, let's get back to the config where things were good.

I think it is likely that their X-checks were slow due to fatigue, that Marvin didn't power up after dropping the gear due to fatigue. Woulda coulda shoulda, at least one of them should have caught the aspd dropping into the hook. I don't think either of them realized how slow the plane had gotten and I don't think either of them were thinking stall. I think Marvin was reacting to an out of control plane thinking a wing had fallen off versus a damn let it get too slow, relax-power up-recover

I think you are right on here. This seems to be how they were reacting. Inattention caused this crash, and it is inexcusable, but it seems as this was how they were reacting.

Going back to what Cohen stated.. I have a few friends that fly in regionals in the USA.. one of them bids flights that keep him flying about 15 days out of the month (he's not reserves) and he's only a 2nd year F/O with Mesaba (he's on these forums too). The other one is a 3rd or 4th year F/O with SkyWest and I think he bids his flights to put him near 80-90 hours a month, but that's still plenty of rest. I know sometimes that flight crews are rushed between flights, but it's not always that bad, and it's not every airline either. It just seems to be the poor-quality-managed airlines are like this.

But I also feel Cohen is wrong, he said that salary has no effect on pilot safety, when I feel it does. If pilots made more, they wouldn't need a 2nd job, and people (even pilots) who make just a few bucks to get by, generally have money and other financial obligations rolling through their mind, especially in the empty void of flying at FL360 for 2 hours... instead of focusing on flying.