If you don't like it then just quit....
 

First year F.O pay is probably the most important factor for QOL job security and safety.

- Experienced 135 pilots are extremely reluctant to take a regional job. I met several that had houses, families etc, that claimed that they would never fly for a regional because they couldn't financially survive long enough to wait for an upgrade.

- Lateral Moves. You can't make them as an airline pilot. You can't make a living wage with your skill set for the first 12 months at a regional or major.

So what you end up with

- Regional applicants from Pilot puppy mills that are 21, and thrilled to supplement there parental monthly allowance with first year pay. (beer money)

- A vacuum of experience in first year FO's. Silver spoon bratty kids with crappy attitudes and no skill to back them up.

- A skill set that you can't offer to another (potentially better) company. You can't "STFD" a bad company, because your just "STFDing" yourself, your family, and your career. Management just moves to another company for a pay raise, you however start all over again in one of lifes most depressing "do overs".

The old saying "If you don't like it, then quit" is a fallacy in aviation. You can't afford to leave a miserable working environment.

In good times where 1000hrs 121 PIC is all that you need the pay scale may be

18000, 25000, 30000, 60000 = $133,000 over four years

thats an average of $33250 per year. Over a 40 hour work week that would be 15 dollars per hour for 4 years. Thats on par with many jobs that require only a high school diploma, and no special skill set.

So unless your a regional lifer, your not benefiting from the major difference between captain and fo pay.
Even if you upgrade in three years, your still only pulling down an average of 30ish thousand for your time

I would have gladly earned less as a Captain on year four to ensure that I didn't have to live in poverty for the first 2. With the ability to make a lateral move and earn a living wage, if you didn't like it... you could just quit.

Right on !!
 

You nailed it ! :D

Skyhigh

+1 here. Unfortunately I'm sitting on quandry #1. Doing the 135 bit but I'd take a more than 50% pay CUT at some regionals, and I"m flying airplanes older than I am that carry less than some SUV's. On top of that I'm looking at little to no movement over the next few years in the industry with few options to move on to. (especially if I want to remain in my area). I guess I'm thankful to have a job and I'm enjoying the flying - but I'm really not sure what, or when the next move will be. I just hope I don't have any decisions forced on me anytime soon.. :o Good luck to everyone!

Part 91/135 pilots can CHOOSE to lowball.

Almost all U.S. Part 121 pilots MUST lowball - courtesy of ALPA.

That's a good point. An airline has set hourly pay for the crew so they probably don't really care which way it's split. The problem with that is now that it looks like we might be at the regionals for more than a couple of years, the senior guys will demand more money.

That's painting a rather wide brush. The majority of first year FOs are not spike-haired, ipod & backpack wearing punks.

Some of them are spike-haired old farts.

Some couldn't afford the ipod or the hair gel, thus have a cheap alternative (mine cost $12).

Some have a saddlebag.

Some comply with their FOM that prohibits backpacks.

And sometimes, TSA stole their hair gel :mad::mad::mad:.

I really think they should do something about the starting pay but I also think they could leave the pay intact for more senior pilots - why not a raise across the board? Consider if they raised the ticket price TWO DOLLARS per passenger - say conservatively there were 30 people on board, you did 4 legs per day and worked 180 days that year (2x30x4x180) you'd wind up with over 43,000 dollars per year you could split between the flight crew on top of what they already make! Many regional pilots also work more than 180 days, have more than 4 legs and more than 30 people on board too. I hardly feel like the airlines would be dropping like flies if everyone raised the ticket price by $2.00. Might even raise the professionalism and saftey level. But I'm no economist, and I don't work for management. So I probably don't have a clue. We're all circus animals that will work for peanuts to preserve our job, or our dream of flying. They've figured us out. :rolleyes:

ALPA cannot force any airline MEC to accept a poor contract. They can only advise. So, if you're going to make a statement like that, you should really phrase it "courtesy of local MECs."

I have tried very hard not to comment on these types of posts but..
Please guys... Lets understand something. THE AIRLINES ARE A BUSINESS.
If they could raise fares any amount, be it one cent or 1000 dollars, pilots or any labor would not see it trickle down to them as long as they are willing to do the job for the price that they are being paid for and accepting. The KEY is accepting a pay rate. By taking a job at any amount of compensation you determine the price of your services. WHY would anyone pay a penny more?

Supply and Demand.
Unfortunately the demand will not be met by supply and supply by demand as long as the free market does not exist in the job market of an airline industry because of the existence of a union and/or seniority number.

No seniority number = free market = opportunity to adapt to market price.

I guess my point is that saying "if you don't like it, then just quit" does a disservice to the profession. It is common knowledge that lateral moves are actually huge steps backwards in aviation. You are erasing years of work towards an upgrade, or livable FO wages. Until first year pay is livable, many pilots will be stuck in miserable work conditions, with no other options. If you are stuck at a company that abuses flight crews, your options are to...

- Accept a poverty wage from another regional airline for at least 1 year.
- Accept a near poverty wage from a Major for at least 1 year.
- Retrain yourself for a new career while paying for school out of pocket, while most likely making little or no income.
- Abandon your aspirations to become an airline pilot and return to 91/135 flying, although those jobs may or may not exist any more.

All while you drag your family along for the ride.

I think regional crews have many valid reasons to be upset. and I think encouraging pilots to accept poor pay and working conditions, because "they should quit if they are unhappy" is an unrealistic ideal.

Its time to pay crews in their first year to encourage competition for talent.
Management gets huge bonuses to attract and keep executive "talent" (lol). I think its time to start paying for crew talent. Whatever that takes. MEC's and ALPA need to make a huge push on first year pay.

I think it all comes down to the "apprentice" mentality. New hires at any airline are considered probationary "apprentices". No union protection, crappy wages AND the joy of being on reserve.

That attitude is what needs to go overboard, if you ask me.

Fo
 

If an FO is expected to be hired with the credentials and skills of being a captain then they need to be paid and treated as one.

Skyhgih

Free Market
 

Yea but we all know that the free market price is way less. The only thing that has slowed the decline of pilots wages are the unions and seniority system. Take that away and let the free market dictate wages and 737 captains will top out at 35K per year.

As pilots it is in our best interest to strangle the free market.

Skyhigh

then why is ALPA around? If thats all they do then I can get a bunch of drunk pilots together and help give out some stupid advise. :)

If GM were to lock out or outsource one UAW local, every other UAW worker would walk off and GM would grind to a halt within hours.

If Delta outsources flying or shuts down one regional, the other ones will line up to pick the meat off the bones.

Compared to real unions, ALPA is all bark and no bite.

ALPA or UAW, doesn't matter. Any union is only as strong as its members. If the members of ALPA choose to "pick the meat off the bones", is that an ALPA, problem, or a membership problem?

It is, by the way, a choice.

Crossing a picket line is an individual choice. One that ALPA condemns.

Flying a furloughed pilot's aircraft is a collective choice, one that ALPA seems to have no opinion on.

Delta can take aircraft from Comair (an ALPA carrier), give them to Freedom (an ALPA carrier), then years later give them back to Comair (still ALPA) then 2 weeks later give them to Pinnacle (another ALPA carrier), then 4 months later to Mesaba (another ALPA carrier) and then ASA (you guessed it - another ALPA carrier).

It would be unimaginable for GM to lay off one group of UAW guys and then bring in a different group of UAW guys to fill the job. Is that because the workers all individually decide to do the right thing, or because the UAW decides for them?

Where you are wrong is that almost every single one of those regional pilots took their job knowing what the pay, benefits, and QOL would be. If they misjudged their willingness to do the job for that pay, the correct answer is to quit. In all actuality, until pilots stop lining up for the jobs, the airline does not have to raise wages.

Supply and demand.

You can say that the union can strike, but there are plenty of other airlines that will suck up the business. Much like the UAW companies are seeing, there is non-union and other competition out there that can fill the void if a union company prices itself out of the market. In the airlines' cases, the unions are not one major union but a fragmented group of unions, so even if most of the airlines are unionized, they are not jointly unionized, so the market forces do not allow for any one company's union to actually do much in changing wages/benefits. Even if a specific union did somehow get its companies rates raised significantly above others, the market will dictate the going rate for a plane ticket. If the company cannot pay the wages and still sell a ticket for the same price, those newly higher paid employees will be out of work before long.

When the puppy mills dry up and the seats start not getting filled by guys because they are fed up with it, then things will change. In the short term, that is a tough pill to swallow when you have a mortgage, 2 kids, wife, etc.

One alternative did come to mind writing this. A company could pay higher wages and somehow charge more for their tickets if somehow the industry was able to convince the flying public that their airline is somehow better or their service is somehow better. I don't really see that as an option right now since the airport experience is miserable no matter how nice the crew of your airplane is, but who knows. Southwest has been able to accomplish some form of this in some way up to now.

Good luck. If it makes you feel any better, the state of the field has kept my application and experience out of the running because I am not willing to work those hours and QOL for those wages. Mainline or regional. I'm keeping an eye on it though. Maybe if enough people like me keep doing something else until it gets better, it will actually get better.

Skyhigh supports unions (today)
 

Last week, Skyhigh said it would be 60k. The free market must have taken a severe turn for the worse. :p

In any event, I'm sure ALPA and the other unions are grateful for his ringing endorsement.

i'm with milky, my voice says i'm not willing to work for their price. If the price goes up, i'd consider it, but as of now...i'm out.

I'm flying 135 rite now and will do so until I retire or switch careers if the regionals continue on the same path. If there were F/O jobs available you couldn't pay me to take one.

Actually Skyhigh, you couldn't be any more wrong and here's why:

What would be the incentive to get people in this industry if the pinnacle of their career is 35k a year after shelling out 100k for education/training?

The whole reason for crap wages throughout entry-level parts of our industry is the rat race to get a seniority number at what's perceived a career place. Your whole reason for tolerating crap wages is the perception of the big payoff down the road.

If your case held ANY water, corporate aviation, which is free of unions and seniority systems (fractionals not included), would top out at 35k for Global/Gulfstream/Challenger captains flying worldwide. Care to guess how much those guys make? Guess what else... if their department closes down, they don't go back to making poverty either, unless they choose to go to the airlines.

Like I said... you can choose to lowball in general aviation. In the airlines, you MUST lowball, thanks to unions and the seniority system.

Are you saying the airlines should dump their unions or just dump ALPA and go independent or another major union?

Thats the only realistic solution, NO unions, NO seniority number, NO pre-determined pay scale. Like every other non-Union industry and profession.

Sweet!! Stick it to em!! :cool:

Bingo!!!!!

I don't know
 

Corporate aviation is a mixed bag. They often get better wages because they have to deal with stuff that airline pilots don't. Corporate pilots live like sky butlers. They do not have a schedule and fly somewhat rare planes. In addition corporate guys usually do not get retirements and sometimes have to pay for their own training. Corporate guys often have other job duties like managing the plane or even working on the factory floor. Their jobs are not secure at all and can vanish overnight at the whim of a spoiled executive. I left a corporate flying job because they did not pay as well nor did the job offer the same QOL as a regional.

If the airlines were able to hire and fire at will, did not have to fund retirements, health care or training they too would appear to pay better. The airlines fly common aircraft types on schedules. If the airlines we exposed to the free market and any commercial pilot could get the job of their dreams by merely accepting less than the next guy you would see wages plunge. The free market value of a major airline pilot is between 35 and 60K.

Skyhigh

Yeah! We're all underpaid, overworked, with no days off, with crappy layovers, sky butlers who make less than US regional pilots. Stay away from business aviation! Not to mention, we're too dumb for unions and seniority system too. Maybe when we get a little more advanced, we'll hopefully get unions to protect us against the horrible abuses we suffer. :rolleyes:

Wow! If this perception is what it takes to keep the riffraff out of corporate aviation, by all means, I'll take it! ;)

How would you know what the free market value of an airline pilot is? What are you basing your 35 - 60k figure on? Overseas carriers perhaps? I know that's not where you're looking because their regional FO's make more than US regional captains. You can't base it on any US carrier because of the seniority crap. For example, if a regional airline wanted someone with my qualifications and experience, they'd have to pay for it if I was negotiating my own salary, and sorry pal, if they offered me 20k a year, I'd laugh and tell them that's acceptable as an annual bonus maybe. But guess what... ALPA made sure that I don't have that option. If I want to work at a regional airline in the US, I have to take that 20k annual salary and like it. Sorry ALPA, you can keep that. I'll go be a sky butler instead. :rolleyes:

They are two reasons people fly for food stamp wages:

1) There's that big payoff perception when you get picked up by the "big boys."

2) There's no other way around it in the airlines. Seniority system ensures it.

Deja vu all over again
 

For a preview of what that situation would be like, read "Flying the Line" by George Hopkins. What would make it any better for pilots this time around? :confused:

No seniority number = free market = no union = company fires senior-higher paid pilots to save money.

Senior, higher paid pilots? Why would they be higher paid? You just got rid of seniority...

Hard to imagine a life without SENIORITY, isn't it? Let me tell you, it's beautiful!

George Hopkins is a perfectly unbiased writer without an agenda too! ;)

What would make it better than the 30's, 40's, 50's, 60's? I'd say something called evolution, progress, etc. Not to say that ALPA didn't have a place in those times, but times change, however ALPA doesn't.

If we're gonna by the tradition, we should put third pilots sitting in the jumpseat on every flight too, even on RJ's too! Y'know... flight engineers and all. ;)

Primise for free market pilot wages
 

I base my premise on what free market pilot wages would be on the fact that there are plenty of current and past airlines that offer wages that are a mere percentage of what the majors get paid to do essentially the same job and plenty of pilots show up.

Allegiant
National Airlines
Casino
Skybus
Legend
Gojet

If the unions were to go away and the airlines were completely free to set wages they could universally be cut int half and most would still show up for work the next day and new pilots would still fill out applications to get a flying job.

Skyhigh

You can't afford to pay a pilot $200k per year. You can't get quality, talented people for 18K per year. Engineers (Mechanical, Electrical) generally start relatively high right out of school (around regional capt. pay), and top out below 100k per year. Since the pie in the sky jobs are all but gone, this is a more common sense pay scale.

Companies would have to treat employees better or risk a mass exodus of qualified pilots. Your QOL sucks? Ok, turn in your resignation and go somewhere else taking a 10 or 20% pay cut instead of an 80% pay cut.

ATP should without a doubt be required for both pilots, you should pay your dues in flight instructing / building 135 multi time, then be eligible to fly 121.
That would weed out the silver spoon brats.

Let's see... all those airlines still use the seniority system.

Just curious... are you familiar with pay and compensation packages of pilots outside of the US? Let's just stick to the airlines. I don't want to make your head spin with "sky butler" salaries in certain parts of the world.

... or imagine... a certain place actually pays better, and treats their pilots better simply because they know pilots CAN LEAVE without having to go back to poverty again! :eek:

Yeah i hate to say it, but having a castrated union can be worse than having no union at all. Any union bargaining under the RLA is completely ineffective.

Having a company seniority system means that your ability to market your skill set dies the day your company dies. You can be the best captain on earth, but in the eyes of your next employer, your a first year F.O just like the 250 wonder kid sitting next to you in ground school.

This isn't 1930 anymore. The airlines aren't just a nice to have industry, they are an essential part of the economic infrastructure of the country.
Having ALPA bargain for contracts under the RLA is an insanely ineffective, and outdated practice.

I think pilots have been beaten down so thoroughly that they forget they are providing an essential service, that this country cannot do without.

You should be able to market yourselves to a better company without losing the ability to feed your family. First year wages and bargaining under the RLA will never allow that. That's not alpa's fault, but it has crippled alpa.

Yes alpa can save your job, but with MEC approved contracts that allow mandatory overtime, 15+ hour work days, and sub $20k salaries, all on less than 6 hours of sleep per night, what regional jobs are really worth saving?

I'm with you...even the best of regionals should probably go away...

Seniority System
 

You are right. Take away the seniority system and captains would be paid less than first officers.

I sure hope that corporate guys are paid well. I remember being told once that the hardest part of the job is learning how to properly set a table while in flight facing the VIP.

Airline pilots sit around the hotel. Corporate guys spend their day sitting around the FBO eating the free popcorn waiting for the cell phine to ring. It is not an easy job.

Skyhigh

No. Take away the seniority system, and you just might get paid what you're worth. If you think your experience, your flight time, your type ratings are worth minimum wage, I feel sorry for you and you're in the right place - let ALPA take care of you. I value my experience and get paid appropriately FROM THE START... without seniority system or union.

I thought you said you flew corporate and you thought regionals were better. I should have clarified - corporate meaning flying something that burns Jet-A and requires a type rating. Different strokes for different folks.

Psssst.... we actually pay for popcorn. $4.75 per small bag. Those rat bastards charge more for popcorn than the movie theatres! If Mr. Big Shot is late, I spend my entire paycheck on stale popcorn in just a couple of hours. Keep telling your friends how horrible things are for corporate pilots and how regionals are way better! I'm just dying for that airport ready reserve and hangin' out at crew rooms as they're so much better than FBO's. Also for those Holiday Inn Express and Super 8 motels... you should see some of the ratholes they put us corporate pukes in. :D:rolleyes:

Oh, to be in the regionals and being broke again.... I guess I'll just stick to being a "sky butler." :D