And as long as they keep marching in, the wage will remain low. When young people and career changers decide to do something else besides aviation, the wages will rise.

 

Mainline isn't entry level. When a 23 year old non college grad can fill the position it isn't going to pay a lot to start. Especially when regionals have no problems filling their classes. Will that change in 6 year or so? Maybe.

 

ALPA?

Sorry friend, I am trying to stop laughing and fight back tears at the same time. The first thing you guys should do is show your AFLCIO lap dog airline manager's union the door.

Then, tell the age 65 fart dust crowd at Delta and United to eat feces and die. ALPA has done nothing but run from every single fight that mattered. Those that came before you had no right to bargain away your future and you guys need to find the stones to walk off the property or quit showing up for interviews. This is a simple concept and yes, its painful, but the only thing you guys have is your feet...

use them.

 

If I read that and thought "gee, that'd be a higher amount than we're getting paid now" did I miss your point?

I agree with your point 100% that government does play a role in regulation to avoid accidents. But lets be honest, no minimum wage law applies to pilots. The government has truly dropped the ball on that. They would be kidding themselves if they think there aren't sleepy pilots in the cockpit. But to play out your laissez faire economist theory. Lets remember that airlines sell tickets based on their image, and suppose more accidents with underpaid fatigued pilots were happening. At some point the airline would have to address the image problem of underpaid fatigued pilots in order to make more money. Not that I'm advocating for more accidents. I'm just saying if certain companies started having image problems they'd have to address that.

 

I am not absolutely sure about this but I suspect Colgan 3407 may have been a result of market failure to adequately create reasonable wages for low end airline pilots. It certainly looks that way to me. My point is again, that boundaries need to be defined when and if the markets run afoul of sensible minimums. If a full time worker earns less than enough to sleep and eat each day, something is wrong. We can eliminate the job which is not good for the greater majority, this case the traveling public, or we can regulate wages to a safe minimum. Hopefully the people and their government are smart enough to do this before airplanes crash. This is not always the case unfortunately, as reactive regulation is more common than proactive regulation.

 

There is only one real way IMO. Less pilots and higher ticket prices. The only way you're going to get there is to strike. That's the only thing powerful enough to make a dent with airlines IMO. Sure, it means losing your job and getting shuffled around in the madness as they try to hire on pilots to fill the void, but that's really the kind of solidarity it would take to do this. This is the only thing that would "scare" the airlines to change or do something different. Most people aren't interested in losing their job and feel that "some kind of job" is better than no job. Until that day where people have had enough, we'll still see fast-food wages.

 

Why so low? Seriously. They are replacing DC-9's and 737-200's. Those aircraft never paid that low.

 

It's hard enough as it is convincing pilots to vote on their own and their fellow brethren's behalf in house. I can't even fathom what kind of challenges that we would have to overcome to make the vast majority of regional pilots strike en masse for one another as you so eloquently describe. It's a fanciful scenario though, wish that we could see it happen.

 

Cubdriver,

Would Colgan 3407 crew been better prepared for the situation, they created, by having a bigger paycheck? Would it be more accurate to say it was a regulatory failure to ensure correct training, a systemic failure to weed out pilots who are not capable of being captains and acting responsibly in matters of rest and adherence to procedure?

Ultimately, money doesn't guarantee professional conduct, only high ethical standards does.

GF

 

If minimum pay is too low don't take the job. Accepting a job at an airline that pays "too low" insures the rate will not improve. Did anyone get hired and then find out the pay rates. Let the market dictate what's fair. If airlines can't find people they will be forced to adapt. Eventually they will just get rid of pilots altogether but that's another matter. In the meantime don't accept employment at a company that doesn't offer fair wages. Everyone who takes a job and the complains about the wage after the fact should reflect on their decision making ability.