Whats wrong with the pilot profession.
 

Found this article online and it seems to explain the problems with our profession. Please let me know if you agree or disagree.

Unions and Airlines

Completely wrong in every section. I gave up reading 1/2 way through since his conclusions were so wrong.

It's five years old AND poorly written.

Several years ago, I emailed the author my points disagreeing with him on basically everything he had written. He never responded. Not surprised.

It reads like he had a deadline he'd forgotten about until an hour before. And was being paid for by some organization with the word "freedom" in it's name.

I can sum it up....Railway Labor Act.

A 79 year old outdated act which should have been repealed years ago

I think the far bigger problem is/was the existence and proliferation of out sourced flying - the existence of jet regionals.

So the RLA isn't in effect and you can strike sooner. Management caves in and you get a good contract. Airline B underbids your airline and gets growth. Your airline shrinks. Newco grows and attracts pilots to low wages in the pursuit of turbine PIC. All so you can hopefully start over at the mainline after a decade working at a C scale operation or two.

ALPA used to have decision 83 as a back stop for pilot pay. Now ALPA pilots have to negotiate against each other to be the cheapest. Pattern bargaining only works when there is meaningful scope.

Fix the profession. Kill the regionals.

Accepting slave wages for the privilege of flying a shiny jet is the biggest problem.

What's killed it really was 911 and management greed and realization that they can turn flying into a greyhound operation meaning low wages for employees. That's what they want to pay you 50k, they don't want us to have a career. Problem is that doesn't work for the piloting profession, they either need to pay or they won't find pilots it's pretty simple.

Pathetic
 

I am a B757 Captain at FDX (for reference to the article only).

After reading this article, the question beckons, "if this rubbish were true (it isn't) why do we continually receive (on average) less than 3% raises/yr. [Of note, we at FDX, haven't received a new contract (read pay raise) in over 2 1/2 years (read pay cut with inflation).

Our company NETS $3 Billion in profits annually for the last 5+ years. The 95% profit sharing the author bases his premise on, is non-existent, voiding the remainder of blabber, pointless.

Why would a 1st Officer with a College degree and $50,000-$150,000 in post graduate training only make $20,000/yr? (Manager at McDonald's with far less credentials earns $35,0000

The article portrays that pilots hold all the cards via a Union. Because of the RLA, Unions aren't allowed to strike (when's the last airline strike recorded?). Contracts via RLA have amendable dates and therefore have no teeth and managements are far too aware of the fact.

The Author is _________ (insert your favorite pejorative) and knows very little how the big leagues operate.

Just ask any United, Delta, AA, USAIR pilot about their Union power and the Pension they lost to the PGBC and 50% pay cut during the last round of bankruptcies, which mgmts received millions in bonuses post exiting bankruptcy.

Article is totally bogus.

Yea, guy needs to do some homework. Airlines WOULD have more power but congress neutered that with the RLA. Manufacturing and refining can be operated on skeleton crews not to mention they can prepare for strike by storing capacity, and still have product to sell during a strike.
I think in reality striking wouldn't help to much though Europe does it a lot and they haven't outpaced America. What actually happened was deregulation and lower margins. In the 70's only the wealthy flew so the pilots could make much more, because the margins were there for the amount of work being done. Now that a McDonalds manager can fly somewhere on vacation the model couldn't support the pay.
If half of all flights were canceled and every ticket cost $1,000 bucks the pilots that were left could make double their current pay scale. Problem is shareholders want growth, just look at Chipotle. For an airline growth means more work for the same amount of money. The pendulum will swing ULCC wont be able to staff their growth and margins will go up and with that the pay scales.

In a nutshell, this statement explains absolutely everything, and presents THE solution for most of the problems. We must do this.

Which is what the author of the article is making the point on. Scope was given up by the unions of the time in exchange for X that would benefit current members. While parts of the article are off base I can say as a management puke that the easiest way to get savings with a union is offering current folks one thing in exchange for screwing new folks (B scales, differing work rules, etc.).

The definition of a seniority based system is the senior guys get the perks and the bottom pays for it.

This is an old article but the authors conclusions are well thought out. I agree with nearly everything he says in the article. I especially like his analysis of a growing pilot force having a lowering total labor cost while a shrinking force increasing as the lower cost labor is eliminated from the bottom up.

I love to watch breast milk for a friend and prepare myself for the carnege.


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I also thought that to be true Firstclass. I must agree Redeyz though that some things said in the article are complete crap. The point about pilots taking 95% of airline profits seems ludicrous to me.

Spirit Airlines, 2010, if I recall correctly.

It's going to be hard to kill off the regionals considering a lot of the pilots are lifers now and majors can fly 75 to 90 seat aircraft for the fraction of a price of a 73 or Airbus. These articles pop up once in a while but they're just pie in the sky thoughts. Pilots lack any fortitude to do anything and managemt knows this. Our only hope is supply and demand.