Are Pilots Idiots?
 

We have agreed to only get paid when the door is closed, gave up huge concessions while our parent companies make billions in profit, and agree to work for fast food wages while most of us have college degrees. And our Major counterparts have given their own jobs away in the form of scope. Not smart at all in my opinion. Maybe instead of pilots negotiating contracts we should hire professional businessmen to negotiate for us since we obviously dropped the ball on so many levels.

There's something going on under the table between the unions and airlines. It makes no sense for pilots to be making so little. Our wages could be fixed with a $4 dollar charge per passenger.

Greedy f-in idiots yes

Yeah there definitely is. It's a secret society of hording all the Part 91 repos for themselves. The union leadership flies shiny jets with no pax or annoying FAs for FREE while collecting your hard earned dues money on Association leave, and the company gets the low rates they desire.

You cracked the code.

Point less thread. Yes. ****

Thanks for being constructive.

I guess I didn't even need to ask :) What about having professional negotiators instead of pilots working on contracts? We obviously can fly planes without much of a problem, but fail miserably when it comes to business.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this why union members pay dues? To receive professional support? It's obviously an important part of "the process" to have line pilot reps involved in negotiations... but they certainly shouldn't be doing it without professional guidance.

I don't know how negotiations proceed - but if ALPA, IBT, etc. don't provide experienced negotiators to help, what's the point of paying dues in the first place?

Alpa= negotiators. Your MEC is made up of pilots who don't fly and negotiate. You tell the MEC what you want. Pilots don't fail at business, management handles that.

:rolleyes: So many pilots perpetuate this myth. There are pilots sitting at home or in a crashpad right now getting paid - not an aircraft door in sight. There are pilots on a 2-day layover sitting in a hotel right now on a trip with pay determined by the trip-rig in their contract. They're going to get paid the same whether they fly that day or go to the hotel gym. How about the guys on sick leave or airport standby?

The bottom line is, almost every airline pilot has some kind of monthly guarantee. Some have contracts with a min pay per day or at least a trip guarantee. They are all going to get paid something, even if the door of the aircraft never closes.

Now if you want to say - "We have agreed to only get paid more than the minimum for that day, trip or month when the door is closed" - I'll agree with you.

The large hourly wages of the jobs everyone wants are there in part to account for the "down" time between flights, pre-flight, etc. If we got paid for every hour we were actually on duty, do you really think a WB Captain at a major airline would make $260+ an hour?

We're basically salaried employees that get a bonus each month based on how much we actually work. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many pilots out there that get paid nothing if for some reason they don't fly.

I would have to say no. Most of us have 4 year aviation degrees. :)

A 75 hour guarantee for 350 hours On Duty. And yes I think a wide body captain hauling in over $300,000 per flight should be getting paid over 500/hr. We have just accepted low pay as the norm.

I'm not arguing pay rates with you - I agree they should all be higher.

You claimed (as many do) that we only get paid when the door is shut or more accurately - when we are blocked out. That is not a true statement.

My other side point was that pilots have always had their pay based on flight hours (which are NEVER as high as duty hours). Even if a WB Captain made $500/hour, he'd still be getting paid for his flight hours rather than his duty hours. I doubt he would be complaining, though, do you? (well, maybe - he is a pilot after all :D)

To an airline, pilot pay is basically a fixed cost - give or take a little. Even if you felt they were paying you fairly, they have an average figure in mind per pilot. If you wanted your compensation based on 350 monthly duty hours, your hourly pay would not be as high (regardless of whether you felt the rate was fair or not). In the end, it's very likely your pay at the end of most months would be very similar regardless of how it was calculated.

Yeah I hear what you are saying but why not just call it what it is. Instead of 20/hr for a 75 hour guarantee, just say 4/hr for time on duty. It might do us more justice to have headlines read "Pilot's make less than half minimum wage" Plus the fact that we are not being paid overtime. They worked it out so that we are salaried but under the "hourly" category minus the overtime benefits.

I agree with you 100% I've been saying that for years. Pay us by duty hour so that we can compare fairly to other workforce. I'm sure the pay rates would go up even if it take hiking up the ticket prices.

I don't think it's a big secret that regional pilots are underpaid - however you want to do the math. The headlines are there and easy to find.
What Can New Pilots Make? Near Minimum Wage - WSJ.com

This just doesn't fly: Some airline pilots barely make living wage - NBC News

The public who reads these articles may be surprised and even sympathetic but they don't negotiate your contracts. They're the ones who have expected to fly across the country for the equivalent of bus fare for the last 30 years. They also know that no one put a gun to your head and made you take the job. It's doubtful the pay scale was a secret when you took it either.

It's not going to change unless you make it happen. Overtime is something you negotiate. Some of us have it in some form or another. Don't vote for your next contract unless it's there (along with proper pay rates). Vote no until it's right, strike over it, leave or deal with it. Your choice - sounds harsh but that's the way it is.

I agree. That's why I think we shouldn't be doing the negotiating ourselves. We have proven that we are more than poor at it. I have had apps in for years at other carriers and have heard nothing. I've watched fellow pilots (good pilots) leave the industry completely, and I'm contemplating the same. I voted no but it seems like everyone at the regional level is brainwashed, or just clawing at whatever they can get to hopefully someday move on. It's disgusting! I do like what Eagle just did though.

Agree 100%. I have yet to work for an airline where this isn't a huge problem.

Unfortunately, as long as these jobs are viewed as a stepping stone instead of a potential career location, it probably won't change.

Majority?
 

You make quite a comparison here between widebody captains and what most are earning. I doubt anyone on this thread is wining about the pay at the majors, but rather the weak pay at regional levels.

Regradless of what you refer to as getting paid to sit or sleep in a hotel room, the pay is too low. How can wages well below what it takes to pay a modest mortgage and save for retirement be considered acceptable by any means.

Pilots commonly make the mistake of assuming that years of low pay after accummalating massive debt will be "made up for" later. Later may never come!! You could easily never get hired by a major or even get furloughed when you do finally get hired. Just look at those UA guys who had been on furlough for the better part of a decade.

I really think pilots shoud stop looking at themselves as "future widebody captains", and take a good hard look at their current situation and try to make improvements from there.

Look, I'm trying to say that a regional pilot has the same job and responsibility as a major, so why work for such low wages?

I'm no dummy. So there.

First (in case you only read the first line) - I agree with you 100% that regional pilots are grossly underpaid.

If I was your high school English teacher, you'd get an F for reading comprehension. :D Did you actually read my entire first post in this thread or just skim it?

I was merely commenting on HOW most of us are actually paid - not WHAT any of us are paid. So, there were no comparisons made between WB Captain pay at a major and regional pilot pay as you seem to be claiming.

I think if you read the posts I made here this afternoon, you'll see that I basically agree with just about everything you just posted (except the mischaracterization of my original post).

Exactly, the reality is that this is no longer a stepping stone for many since that ship has sailed long ago, which is part of the problem since they don't want to start over so they vote however they can to keep the company in business. Even if it is just scare tactics. We aren't flying B1900's anymore, we are flying planes with capacity close to the DC-9/B717 on mainline routes (JFK-ORD) for example. The whole "regional" name is a misconception in itself. I've flown in 4 time zones covering a distance over 4,000 NM at my "regional". If we are going to fly mainline routes then we should get mainline pay, and fight tooth and nail to get it!! In the end Major airlines will no longer see it economically viable to outsource and will take the flying back under contracts that are livable.

Hence the reason airline pilot collectively are idiots. They pay good money to worthless unions set-up to line their pockets at pilots expense and collude with managements and the NMB to maintain the present "system" where everyone makes out but the poor idiots whose cluelessly produced labor foots the bill.

I couldn't have summed it up any better. Now is the best time ever to make things right. Major's posting record profit, strong demand for pilots, and an even larger demand for air travel. Let's make this happen. I think if we flood ALPA with emails and letters they might actually get the point.

Lots of logical problems in this thread.

First, the whole misconception that pilot unions don't provide professional negotiators. This is almost universally believed by people with no Union volunteer experience.

When a contract is being negotiated, ALPA provides all the professional help the Committee needs from legal advice to financial services that include evaluating an airline's books. The provide recommendations as to the tactics and what's acceptable.

At that point it is up the the PILOTS on the Negotiating Committee and the line PILOTS who ratify the contract to make their decisions. If you have a poor contract it isn't because you didn't have professional support, its because YOU made poor decisions.

Second: As long as there are young guys willing to sell their souls for flight time the regionals will never pay squat. If you're working for $20 an hour, you have no one but yourself to blame. There's a whole big world of aviation out there, but YOU are willing to prostitute yourself for substandard wages and then come on the Internet and whine about it.

Check the mirror. There's the guy you need to blame for your crappy job.

In my experience, many people here lack high school reading comprehension skills. I'm more surprised someone didn't accuse you of being a "yes" voter or management. That seems to be the inerudite response to challenging the group-think present here.

I do agree with you. There are a few regionals with generous soft time built into their contracts. I think it would be advantageous to look into raising our wages that way first as a means of encouraging scheduling to use us as efficiently as possible.

$8 beer at the hotel bar? Better only get three.

Yes pilots are idiots.

Regional pilots are a textbook case of tragedy of the commons. The only way to insulate yourself from selfish behavior is to opt out of the industry. Otherwise you have to live with the water line the collective imposes on you.

You want to insulate yourself from the dilution of your labor value? You have to do something others cannot do or something others are not willing to do. Otherwise you live and die by the collective herd. It is what it is.

Bingo...there is no reason to differentiate regional from mainline anymore. We do the same damn job, and pay/benefits should be commensurate with that.

Then STOP working for $20 an hour HOPING to go to the big league someday.

Or KEEP working for $20 an hour and quit belly aching. There are plenty of other options besides regional flying.

You're not slave labor and are free to quit.

I agree that, with large RJs, pilots should get paid more. The only effective way to do that is if the majors take over their regional feed. Unfortunately, the economics will not allow this. If we got pay and benefits commensurate with the majors, it would be in their best interest to do it themselves as it would defeat the purpose of subcontracted labor. You need only look at American/AE to see that we are nowhere near getting the benefits we deserve (the bankruptcy court encouraged American to "diversify" their regional feed to remain competitive--or, in other words, seek out a lowest bidder contract)

The ONLY true way to do this would be at the mainline level. As subcontracted labor, we have no rights. We will always work in the grey area between black and red as we compete against each other to provide "lowest bidder" services. Legacy pilots complain all the time that we took their flying but their greed allowed the lawyers and penny-pinchers to allow RJs to proliferate outside of their contract protections. The mainline pilots needs to negotiate significant changes in their contract to reduce the amount of RJs flying. Until that happens, we can whine and complain until we are blue in the face. It won't change anything.

Don't forget signing on for a lifetime of student loan debt.

:D Hard left rudder - we're going on a tangent!!
What's that make the other businessmen, weary travelers, convention attendees, etc. all sitting at the bar with you? You could go wandering off into the night to save a couple bucks a beer at some local watering hole (if there's even one nearby). Or, you could pay a few extra bucks for the convenience of leaving your room without a coat, tossing back a few and hitting the sack so you can do it all over again the next day.

Or - don't. Slam-click and save your money. Personally, I've learned almost as much about flying over a beer as I have in a cockpit or classroom. If I wasn't in that hotel, I wouldn't be getting per diem. I'll spend it if I want - life's too short. :cool:

I agree that we have "made our beds" so to speak, but I would like to challenge you to find a flying career path that new pilots can seek out that provides better QOL/benefits, earnings potential, job security, and career accessibility as a Part 121 carrier.

**For those that would argue that a regional has terrible QOL, I would like to remind you of the perks and benefits outside of year 1. Remember that regional airlines are the least economically vulnerable aviation jobs out of the starter careers. The pay potential can be great assuming an eventual upgrade to captain. Days off for senior FOs can reach into the 15-17 days off mark and no one can argue about the ability to jumpseat anywhere in the world.

I think most pilots are smart individuals. I think as a group we are idiots. We all know that if all walked out tomorrow in protest that the consequences would be minor and the results would be quick and positive. Now good luck being the one to organize it or getting everyone on board. Not that it would take more than 15 or 20 % of the pilot group.

Well put.....

Yes look at PSA. They took pay cuts in order to fly shiny Jets.

Yeah that's a great idea! Stick it to the man and quit. No unemployment, no health care, no paycheck!!! Not to mention ultimately ending your career investment. I take it you don't think we should have a union either? With your philosophy what would be the point? Instead of negotiating better pay we would just stop coming to work? No one on here ever said they were being forced to work at the regional level, but all these other options you speak of are what exactly? Last I checked the Major's hire predominantly military and regional 121 pilots. Since the military is out of the question at my age that only leaves one option. But according to you we should all throw in the towel or shut up.

Adlerdriver I agree with you 100%. I think I was speaking from the eyes of the first year regional FO.