The best advice given to me was to get an education outside of aviation, get the most versatile, least expensive BS degree that you can get. And then get flight training afterwards. I came out of college with less than $8k debt. Flight training is very expensive of course but yes, getting an expensive degree coupled with flight training almost guarantees a life of debt servitude.

The economics of being a pilot are far out of equilibrium (thanks to the government's over-regulation) which means something will break soon.

Sore pilotcrusader, I haf phat fingels & and mi auto spel is in da wai !!!!!



Fat fingers and me !!!!

I think he is referring to the RLA. Hard to fight for higher wages when you are legally forbidden to strike...(because we are so "essential to commerce"). I think laws like these definitely benefit the companies more..For example they can make three wholly owned, B scale companies and whipsaw them 'til the cows come home, but we can't strike.

Or maybe I'm going too far with this.

I think the RLA is more of a devil you know situation. The fact that both parties have to be released to self help is a good thing for everyone involved. Imagine the 2000s if the companies could have just imposed all of their contracts and hired temporary pilots.

Except the companies ARE imposing changes.... And ALPA is saying fly it and grieve it....

Hmm even if I agree, that shows faults within the union, not the law. Cbreezy may have a point, but I still think we are getting poked by the bad end of the stick.

Same example. A company that hires pilots to fly passengers creates and owns three "separate" companies, all flying the same passengers that they were paying a union contracted pilot group to fly. Except now they pay WAY less to fly the same passengers AND use the companies against each other to secure pay cuts from the labor group. And legally we have ZERO protection from this, that I can see. Getting everyone to vote "No" hasn't worked and isn't the same as legal protection. Separate contract companies are one thing, but I have a huge problem with the parent company owning and managing B scale companies for the sole purpose of acquiring cheaper labor.

Once again, I've taken it too far. My apologies.

ALPA isn't saying it. The NLRB and the NMB are saying it. That "fly now, grieve later" exists in many forms like "obey now, grieve later" and "work now, grieve later." You're organized labor and in the 21st century, just be happy unions have been banned entirely as the Right would like. The protection that you have with the RLA prevents the company from imposing contract terms and sets up an organized way to resolving disputes instead of striking every time someone is improperly junior manned.

Good points, but they have more tools than we do in the legal system. Our ONLY leverage is labor. And the law says we can't take that away until all the red tape has been cut. Meanwhile they can make cheap labor (by themselves, for themselves, and outside of negotiation!!) by OWNING and MANAGING "separate" companies in order to cut labor costs, harming pilots everywhere!

The only solution to this I see is a larger unified union (like ALPA) accepting only one contract for its pilots (yea right). Then we would have legal protection. Yes I know this is a stretch from our current reality. But so many of us are "ALPA" pilots yet there are so many different payscales. What's the point of unionizing, especially with these large national unions, if we are all on our own anyway???

Somewhere along the lines of this industry being formed into what it currently is, the scales of legal protection (and flexibility) were left unbalanced. IMHO