So let's keep the price of the pilot off of Priceline, Expedia, etc. Have a federally mandated pilot fee. If passengers are happy paying fees for a few more inches of leg room or to bring more baggage, then they should be fine with paying a few more dollars for a competent flight crew that's well rested, trained, and experienced to do what they bought the ticket for in the first place: To safely travel from airport A to airport B.

 

Since when is this the governments job to levy a "pilot tax" on airfare. I am all for higher pay but this is nonsense.

The government has ZERO business meddling in the pay issue. Anytime the federal government interferes with private business we take one step further away from the free market capitalist society that made us great.

This is nothing like the Federal Minimum Wage act which is intended to determine a minimum standard of living for all people. Pilots make more than this so it is not an issue.

 

It is not the job of the public to subsidize pay in the private sector. This is like how the public feels obligated to tip a server because we know they make $2.25 an hour and live off tips. It is not our job to pay a servers salary and it should not be the public's job to pay our bills.

Re-Regulate the industry if you want this

 

While the Fed should not be involved in setting rates of pay, they should be involved in requiring that airlines price point their operations at levels that ensure maintenance and other necessary reserves.

Want minimum rates of pay for pilots? It should be based upon weight, max range and passenger load. It could easily be determined by ALPA. It SHOULD be supported by ALL ALPA carriers as a sign of true union solidarity; legacies supporting their brothers.

Don't hold your breath with ALPA. Prater's too busy taking it back.

To a time before flight...

 

The government can not have the direct say on a minimum a company can charge if we want to live in a free market society, it can not happen.

Again, if they want to determine prices they will have to re-regulate the industry and then the free market is gone. What the government can do is raise safety standards across the board and this will force all airlines to raise fares to cope with the costs, the ones that do not will fail. This is a way the government can manipulate the market without destroying the free market aspect of it.

As much as I want more pay for us all I do not want it at this cost. Letting the government control business practices pushes us towards a quasi-socialist state where the government may not control business outright but can control what it does.

 

(sorry if my english is difficult to read. It is not my first language)

The problems is that it has to be a "responsible Capitalism" for Capitalism to work.

In an Ideal scenario Capitalism works fine without rules but the Airline industry is not an example of great or healthy capitalism.

The airline industry race to the bottom.......mostly due to almost every airline operating with loss while trying to compete....(not the best example of capitalism)....has lost all the respect for pilot compensation, quality and safety and when pilots are paid less than fast food workers and are entitled to food stamps then it has gone too far.

When there is noone to help or represent the pilots against the lack of respect that the airline industry shows for them, for what they have invested and for their skills and for the fact that they risk their life every day at work then the goverment has to do something about it.

When a goverment gets involved and stops a sick part of the system it has nothing to do with socialism it is just being responsible.

Capitalism has to be regulated in the areas needed when it gets out of balance or it becomes destructive instead of being productive.

I work out of Atlanta and most flights in and out of there are oversold almost every day at every hour.

When airlines are flying at full capacity and losing money then the system model they are operating by is sick. How can that be good capitalism?

The only way to stop the airlines from lowering their ticket prices and tryng to balance it by cutting salaries, etc is by regulation as they are not showing they know how to be responsible.

People are paying today the same prices for flying than 1978 while the salaries has increased many times since.

So many in the airline industry has said it is imposible to raise price on tickets but they did incrase the fees for bags and other fees did they not?.

Did people stop flying? No. The decrease in flying has to do with the general economic situation of the country and nothing to do with the fees so if the airlines could put all these fees and people kept flying does it not tell that there would not be any problem in raising ticket prices?

Just an example.....imagine If prices would be raised by all airlines 100%. Say then that 50% would stop flying (that is a lot) as they would feel they would not be able to afford flying. That would generate the same amount in revenue than today but it would release 50% more in capacity and it would lower all types of cost in bag handling, all other ground based operations and the overworked air trafic system would suddenly get a break................

I am not saying ticket prices should be raised 100% but how is it that people can take a 100% increase in the gas price for their car but cannot take any increase in airline ticket prices? that must be bs......

also...........many of the regionals that are making a profit are buying other companies or have tons of cash in the bank but they claim at the same time that they cannot pay their pilots more than these poverty salaries........

Should that not be looked at by the goverment? Maybe regulating a minimum salary for 121 pilots is the only way many airlines would respect what a pilot should be paid.

When do you think its enough? when do you think the goverment has to stop all this?

 

[quote=The Juice;633354] What the government can do is raise safety standards across the board and this will force all airlines to raise fares to cope with the costs, the ones that do not will fail. This is a way the government can manipulate the market without destroying the free market aspect of it.

I bet ya this is what will happen in the near future. equally plausible would be a modification of duty time regs, resulting in pilots flying even less, thus making less money. Wages may have to be raised to attract new hires or prevent atrition.

 

Double your flight crew salaries in one easy step.

Tip Jar by the exit/galley/key location.

I abhor the tip jar. You made my cappulattebreve after I ordered it? thanks. It's expensive enough as it is and it may be fine or it may be lukewarm by the time I first sip it. you did your job. no tip for you.

You dry cleaned my pants, got them done on time, thankyou...I pay for them, and you want a tip also? no tip for you.

You filled my growler with fresh draft IPA and what? you want a tip also?
no tip....wait. it IS beer after all. Okay a buck extra for rinsing and wiping down the outside of the now beer stained growler.

And now....

You flew me from point A to point B at yada-yada thousand feet up in the sky at 8 miles a minute, you got us there safely, and you make HOW MUCH??? Where's the tip jar. cheers....oh, you're gonna need a larger jar.

 

remember guys, passengers don't set ticket prices, airlines do..............

 

Free market capitalism? Hasn't existed in the airlines, since the the air commerce act of 1926.

ZERO meddling 'in the pay issue'? The Railway Labor Act is the government telling us that our unions cannot organise work action if we feel we are not fairly compensated.

I think they've got the wool pulled over your eyes Juice - free market capitalism has never existed in the modern airline industry. Don't let them fool you into thinking any different.

So its one way or the other. Remove the regulations all around, let labor do their thing and management do theirs - That'd be free market capitalism.