$100,000 Minimum Regional First Officer
 

I started at a regional and am now in my 30th year as a Delta pilot. (Former Northwest)

To some, I'm sure it sounds crazy that the minimum starting salary for a first officer in a 50 seat jet needs to be $100,000 and $160,000 for a first year captain.

Open your mind and embrace the value of your education, training and experience.

THE MYTH

The regionals can't afford to pay those wages.

Imagine jet fuel goes to $4.00 a gallon. Your management says to the supplier, "we cannot afford $4.00 per gallon, you will have to accept $2.00 per gallon."

Do you think this would fly?

The supply of pilots was so strong that management got used to paying us little to nothing.

THE PARTY IS OVER

LIABILITY

If a $750,000 per year surgeon accidentally kills a patient, what is the liability?

If the pilots of a 50 seat jet make a mistake and kill 53 passengers and crew, what it the liability? Why is the cost?

Tens, if not hundreds of millions.

I ask you, what other job has this kind of responsibility? This kind of pressure?

What does your CEO make?

If he makes a mistake, he could get a paper cut and possibly an infection.

Management makes excellent money to run the airline. To cope with $4.00 jet fuel. To cope with paying professional pilots what they are worth.

THIS IS NOT YOUR PROBLEM

Buying into management's story that they cannot afford to pay you what you are worth is nonsense. The legacy carriers need the feed and will pay for it. They are printing money.

One penny less than these numbers must be a no vote.

Every word from your management's mouth is pure manipulation.

PILOTS COST WHAT PILOTS COST

LANDING FEES COST WHAT LANDING FEES COST

SPARE PARTS COST WHAT SPARE PARTS COST

If you hold your ground, there are two possible outcomes.

1) they will agree to these wages

2) they will move all the flying to mainline

Legacy management cannot have hundreds of cancelled flights every day due to lack of pilots.

You have all the leverage you need and more.

Take a stand and restore the profession forever.

Jerry Fielding

But...but...the union and management says it's not possible.

When mainline raises first year FO pay to 150,000 then maybe we can expect to see first year regional pay go up...

But in all seriousness, never going to happen. There is no shortage of pilots. And there certainly isn't any unity. If regional pilots want to see better wages, better get a new union with the interests of REGIONAL pilots first and foremost on it's agenda.

Pilots are their own worst enemies... People will stab each other in the back at this level to get to a mainline faster than the next guy rather than fight to make the place where there at a place worth being. I refuse to be a part of that problem (short of quitting my job...), but I'm only one person. The airline pilots in industry lack unity. Sad but true.

I really think this is spot on. Great post. However, I do not believe the pilot group is United enough to ever pull off such a feat. If pay were raised to as little as 50,000/year for first year people will start to become complacent with that. Not that people aren't complacent as it is.

Ps. If you really want to look out for regional pilots you should let me get a delta rec.

I can't argue with that. ALPA has failed the regionals 100%.

In my opinion, Moak and now Canoll, would let you work for all the Oreo's you can eat.

They are puppets for management.

It needs to be a grassroots movement.

Solving their problem is a huge mistake. All your leverage will disappear.

.......
 

Alpo has not only failed the regionals--look what they tried to sell to the Delta pilots. I applaud the Delta guys. They sacked up and took a stand. Now they really have a chance to do something good for this sad profession. And everyone is watching.

Great post btw I completely agree with everything he said.

Best thing that could ever happen is for all the flying to return to mainline.

........
 

Hahahahaha. I see what you did there!! this young man has it together.

That's the core issue....most would rather flee to greener pastures, where the heavy lifting has ready been done, then roll up their sleeves, and expend the effort necessary that's involved with improving their current professional space.

Delta pilots have a huge chunk of profit sharing under their current contract so they are in no hurry to vote in garbage and know mgmt needs to pass a TA to reduce the pilots share of PS. We have no such leverage. That said, I wish regional pilots as a whole would band together, demand more unanimously, and burn the FFD model down and send the flying to mainline. By retirements alone, not accounting for growth, we will all be at majors in the next 5 years anyway.

I heard from a buddy that a guy brought a cake to a delta interview the other day. Amazing how low we will go to get a job these days.

If by interview you meant booth at obap...


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You should form OWAP and/or MAI to level the playing field.

Here here!!! Your value is what you define it as! This profession is in the toilet and it doesn't have to be. People who liken flying an airliner to playing a video game or driving a bus do not have a grasp on reality. Do not fall into the self fulfilling prophecy that you are worth $20,000. We need to make this a respectable well compensated profession again!!

You are not a bus driver! We can do better!

This is a real job!! It should be a real career!! Let our compensation be commensurate with our responsibilities!!

What we need is a regional pilots union, with regional pilots interests in mind... Then we need the regionals to go away.

I totally agree..Regional FO's should start at a 100k..Captains at 150-160k...

Majors should start at 160k for a first year FO, 250k for senior FO's...starting CA pay at 350k...Top Captain pay should exceed 400k..

This is where we were supposed to be...

You do of course realize most lawyers and doctors don't make anywhere close to that much right? And I can tell you that being an airline pilot requires less school, less financial investment, and is less work on an hour-by-hour basis than either of those professions. We are delusional to think that this is something other than a "higher-level" blue collar job. We operate heavy machinery and are members of unions. Everyone should read Flying the Line volumes 1 and 2... Automation is coming in the next decades and all it takes is another financial downturn or major war to happen and we're all out on the street again. This profession will never be "what it was". The truth is I try and discourage people from becoming professional pilots. I enjoy what I do, but this industry isn't that great. And the lifestyle will wear on you after a while. And there is no real hope of making it significantly better for future generations of pilots because time and technology simply aren't on our side.

.....and janitors should all make 90k a year.....

And we're all one more pathetic regional voting in concessions/pay caps away from more downward pressure on the rest of us.

If this is the attitude you have towards your own career then you are a loser and always will be.

Furthermore, anyone who pursues a job that they wouldn't recommend to others is either a martyr or a fool.

Go away.

so let's get something organized! i'm down for informational picketing. we can start with I have $200,000 in debt I make $30,000 a year, I collect $280 in food stamps a month! and I'm on Obamacare!!! what a joke. The problem is as others have said there is zero unity between the pilots. ALPA has done an amazing job at playing us and getting us to hate each other, while stabbing each other in the backs. I think it's time to take a stand and change this industry back to what it used to be! what are they going to do fire me? Great keep your $30,000 year job I'll go work at Walmart make more and be home at night. all while watching my kids grow up

I don't understand why there ever was a large supply of pilots. If flight training is so expensive no matter where you got your training. Shouldn't that be a high barrier to entry and reduce supply?

You are exactly what's wrong with this profession. What a disgrace.

You do of course realize most law schools don't exceed 3 years. Med school is typically anywhere from 4-5 years (obviously this isn't counting undergrad). Generally, to get to the majors it's about a 10 - 15 year plan and you have a whole hell of a lot more resonsibilty. As far as financial investments go I beg to differ on that as well.

Your wasting your breath. Pilots are simply feeding their addictions. They'll do anything for a different kind of fix.

Let's just hope the laws of supply and demand simply work as intended and dumb pilots simply benefit through no cause of their own.

Nobody owes anybody anything.

The maximum change for the profit sharing would have been a reduction of 5.74%. The number could be less but not more. The pay raises and DC change brought the pay up 23.5% in the first 30 months. I doubt the thought of having to pay 5.74% more in profit sharing will weigh very heavy on managements mind.

paaalllleeaassseee.

Man, I'd love to see this! The only problem is what is the true reality of something like this happening? - slim to none.

I just love looking at my ALPA magazine and seeing the words "unified" or "union", but when it came to regionals or majors going into concessions I remember hearing "well we are an association and we can't stop this". ***???? What ever happened to being a "UNION"??

Like one mentioned on here so many other "ALPA" pilots will stab each other in the back to get to XYZ rather than hold a line and set a standard for all.

If ALPA wants to really represent and stand "united" they should work to set a pay, QOL, and benefits all across the board. This is very difficult in itself and should have been established from day one, but then the only benefit of going flying one company vs another would be base or seniority movement.

Haven't heard talk about a "national" seniority system - that's opening up a whole different can of worms :eek:.

You know, I was thinking about this earlier. If I somehow went back in time to 1999, and presented DAL's last annual report, and the last TA to you. The first thing out of your mouth, after you picked yourself up from the floor, would be this is conspiracy. What has happened to the profession is so bad, it couldn't be incompetence.

Great post agree 100% Tell you what, how about you and ALPA take back scope and stop all farming out. This is what opened pandora's box anyway. Just absorb all regional pilots immediately and all flying is to be mainline flying regardless of size and everyone can have a normal progression as they should. No more cutting in line getting hired at a mid-level position as happens now and everyone must start at the true bottom. Get that in your mainline TA!

However mainline contracts flying to the cheapest bidder, taking aircraft from one company to the next because they got a cheaper rate. Mainline carriers have a lot of blame in this one. If they paid more for the flying regionals did they could in turn pay better. Endeavor is wholly owned and mainline still doesn't pay them well either.

Simple. Cheap, easy money.

Lenders have everyone by the cajones since they made private loans undischargable in bankruptcy court. If they were actually worried about you not repaying your loan (instead they will garnish your wages and ruin your credit for the rest of your life) the pool of money would dry up. The pilot-mills would go out of business and then maybe a real shortage would develop.

Any yes vote for wages less than this harms everyone in two ways.

1) you accept pathetic compensation

2) you delay going to mainline (if that is your goal)

By using today's leverage, we can make most flying jobs worth having.

Agreeing to substandard contracts, enables management and destroys the profession.

No one does what we do. No one.

Name one profession where a mistake costs this many lives and millions of dollars.

We have let management take us for granted.

No more.

Do not let this opportunity pass.

Wow. Just wow. I am never ceased to be amazed at the "simpleton" mentality of "We deserve it" in our profession. While I don't disagree with the value of the cost involved to be well qualified as a captain, it is only worth what it is worth. Bus Drivers (as in motor-coach) make under $15 an hour in many cities. They have to take care 40-50 passengers as well. Is driving a "Bus" equivalent to flying at 50 seat RJ? Of course not! But let's take a look at the realities of economics. There are a boatload of people with the required drivers license who can operate a public bus. And there is a government certification required to fly an airliner. Virtually NO ONE says 'I'm not flying on "Garbage Airways" because they are unsafe.' So the brand differentiation because of safety is basically moot. (Right or wrong) So management might be looking at someone who can safely and with qualification, get the equipment from A to B. It is very easy to assemble a group of qualified candidates who are physically and legally able to go from A to B. I live in fear that the pendulum swings the OTHER way. How about if Delta decided they were only going to hire newbies with a compensation cap of $50,000 a year for 10 years. With the green grass in the future the stack of applications might be a little shorter. Do you think they couldn't fill their classes? As long as we continue to act like unionists instead of executives and partners this will be our fate. Or we could just strike forever. How'd that work out for Eastern and Patco.

The fact is, pilots perform a service. And they are compensated based on how accurately and reliably they provide that service against their competition. Sadly, the airline business is now a commodity. While there is a group of people who wish for "Quality Service", the vast majority of passengers are starting to favor carriers like Allegiant. Why? They want to get from A to B in a cheap as a fashion as possible. They are looking to spend their money with Mickey Mouse not in the air. They spend 6 hours in the air and tough it out. Cheap = good. If I were a corporate travel person that's what I'd tell my traveling guy. "Get over it. We ain't dropping another $200 Bucks to American. How about a $50 "pain in the ass" next check?

If you got a few minutes in your off time, maybe you could help the fast food folks with their quest for $15.

It's not like I won't buy a $7.00 Big Mac. Good Luck.

Mods, Go ahead and ban me now. I accept your sentence.

Sadly that's still more than what 1st year FO's make. How much training goes into a bus driver as well? Yes they both transport people and have responsibility over their passengers but the level of skill is vastly different.

Can you please forward this to psa?

Airline Pilots in the U.S if UNITED, have tremendous power..The 80,000 Airline Pilots in America can entirely shut down the air transportation system if they acted as a whole...That's how much power pilots have collectively...Sad thing is that a useless institution like ALPA is the one who U.S Pilots have batting for them...And they are constantly striking out....

Maybe a nationwide strike would start a serious dialogue with managements all across the board...You must realize that the U.S economy CANNOT survive with the entire air transportation sector shut down...That's how powerful Airline Pilots CAN be if they focus and organize....It can honestly be done....If these 2 paragraphs can go viral across the Airline industry then there is a chance things can change for the better once and for all...Someone has to organize on a nationwide scale so that Pilots from all airlines walk off...I am willing to bet Pilots WILL get what they want if this was to happen....The pay rates I mentioned earlier can be achieved....Air Transportation is a necessity not a luxury, therefore Pilots are in demand whether we believe it or not....

I don't think any more concessions should be taken, and I won't vote for any. And your name-calling doesn't change facts.