I'm not questioning your credentials, and I'm not really interested in a whose is bigger contest. I was just saying that I fly for an organization that is known for training great leaders as well as great pilots. We tend to get jobs with many less hours than our peers because of our training. But, I don't want to work for a place that starts pilots out at 30k per year and doesn't get much better for a while. I make much more than that now, and I can get a management/corporate/sales job easily starting 80-90k/year. The bummer would be that it isn't flying, but airline flying isn't really that great of a job these days anyway. That was my whole point. Would I love for airlines to be a great job with great pay and QOL? Of course. I'd jump on the conveyor belt like you probably did some time ago since I believe you're a captain now. But, it's not the same as when you started. The market is flooded with cheap labor, and the airlines seem to have no issue with accepting it no matter what skill/training.

Back to my point on this thread, the airline unions (just like detroit unions) have made your industry difficult to enter and impossible to laterally transfer. The pay was once worth it. But, with the volatility of each airline, there is not even a slim chance of knowing if you will be able to stay with your company for the rest of your career. Since, you lose everything you had when you join a new organization, you have essentially set up your industry to be non-labor friendly. Throw on top of that your desires to artificially increase pilot wages in an industry that obviously does not support high wages, and you are just setting yourself up for failure. I know you probably have a lot of time invested in this career. Hopefully you are close to retirement because I would be shi*%ing myself if I was 45 in my 8-12th year as a major pilot in this industry. You cannot afford to start over with a different company. You need your company to survive. If you strike, you may cause your company to fail. If you don't strike, you may make less than you made 10 years ago. No win situation.

Don't take this the wrong way. I want to be an airline pilot. I'm just not willing to do it in the industry as it currently stands.

 

Good, the industry doesn't need you.

 

Yes, with individuals like Milky around we know that management will salivate at the possibility of locking us out in order to find such willing "permanent replacements" if only in the ideological sense..... Something to the effect of "don't insist on payraises, that would be bad for the company, or the industry or the consumer......." I look forward to flying in an industry with one less Milky.

 

Well, obviously, you're not going to actually read what I am saying, so I'll give up. I never once said you should not try to get the best QOL and pay for your efforts. My point is that your current system and the current market is stacked against you doing anything but taking it in the shorts. You've got pilots that are willing to take poverty wages to do their dream job of flying a large shiny airplane. They would probably pay the company for the honor if they let them.
You keep saying that you're glad I'm not there as if I was one of those guys. In fact, I will not come there because those guys are already there. That was my point. You've got a whole generation of young pilots that will do anything to fly and are just happy to have a job. I don't know your personal track there, and I hope you are not like many of these guys, but your young civilian-route pilots are basically hypocrites. They were willing to work for less than minimum wage to build hours to do whatever they could do to get on with a major/legacy airline. They wh0red themselves out because they wanted to get there. They drove down pilot wages because they thought if they could just get to that big airline, they would be set. Then, the payscales dropped, but they were still more than happy to take the job. THEY SET THE MARKET PRICE FOR BEING A PILOT. Then, they get into the job, and they look at the wages, and they say, "We need to stop getting screwed by management." No, you screwed yourselves. Management just paid what the going price is for a pilot.
Your union can do whatever you want it to do, but they are not going to change the value of being a pilot artificially because those young 'wh0re' pilots already set the price.
Like I said, I wanted to be an airline pilot as much as any of you. I just cannot afford the pay cut.

 

Milky,

It's a Friday night, and I don't have the time to respond. But, you are 100% correct. Our profession is cursed because so many people have a passion to fly airplanes. I know I did. By the time I was 12, I had decided to be an airline pilot. I did what it took, and here I am flying Captain for the world's largest airline.

As a result, management doesn't set pay to attract talent, the talent shows up and will work for (almost) whatever is offered. Thats what makes this particular profession so unique, and its also what will keep us from ever seeing decent wages again. We could delay this transition if we had a true national union, but the end result is a given.

Pay will keep dropping until people stop applying OR regional jets start crashing; and I suspect that's gonna be a long while before either of those happen.

Just wanted to let you know there are those out here who recognize the validity of your statements.

PG

 

Thanks, PG. I never said it was good news or an easy pill to swallow. I've been planning on transitioning to airlines for the past 3 years. Now, I am inside a year from making big life decisions with no big career that I'm excited to tackle. Right now, I'm probably going to stay where I am. QOL isn't perfect, but the pay is good, and the retirement is second to none. I wish flying big airplanes was a good way to live and make huge stacks of money like it once was. Maybe someday people will understand that 300 hours in the right seat of a jet is a scary proposition. Sure, the jets fly themselves, but making good decisions is what the pilot is the reason for the pilot. I just read a thread on here that a regional pilot didn't get hired at Mesa because he smarted off to his interviewer. In his mind, he didn't get the job because he wasn't wearing a jacket. What the hell is that guy going to do when things start falling apart in the cockpit? Honestly, I am scared to let my family fly because only regional jets fly into the airports we fly from.

Sorry for the thread hijack, but if the pilots union should really consider hiring standards as their big push. That would directly affect wages. I still don't believe pilots should support FA unions. I don't really support pilot unions, but they already exist. I definitely would not want my ability to earn a paycheck directly tied to a non-professional unionized group. Scary stuff.

 

...and thats why your position says: "job hunting".
Believe it or not but its because of unions that work groups are able to enjoy what they have today, some have it better than others because in the past couple of years this industry has gone thru some hard times...

You think that Delta would have given its pilots the United+1 contract in the 90s if the pilot group wasn't unionized??? Are you kidding? Do you think crews would have adequate rest facilities on TATL flights if it wasn't for the union? Do you think that work rules would be anywhere but F.A.R. minimums if it wasn't for the unions??? Maybe you should read up on how beneficial unions have been to the workforce in the past...

Maybe you should read this....

The title is: Wage Determination in the U.S. Airline Industry: Union Power under Product Market Constraints
Georgia State University dept of Economics
SSRN-Wage Determination in the U.S. Airline Industry: Union Power under Product Market Constraints by Barry Hirsch

 

What validity? The guys a management wanna-be who doesn't give a flying-fudge who he screws over as long as he can claw his way up the ladder.

Sadly he's also primed for scab-dom.

 

I give up. You guys are correct. Unions are perfect. Detroit is probably failing because nobody wants to buy or drive cars. If it's pro-labor, there can be nothing wrong with it. Thanks for changing my mind.

 

Milky,

Without writing a treatise, let me summarize a few of my main thoughts.

1. Unions do have value in that they level the playing field with management. They ensure that workers actually benefit when times are good. However, wage/benefit creep does slowly occur as compared with non union employees who are powerless to obtain fair wage increases to the point that eventually the definition of a "fair" wage gets re-defined to whatever the non union employees make, and then it will take a bankruptcy to reset the union contract back down to that lower level. That happened in the steel industries, then the airlines, and soon the auto makers. Unions will delay the process, but can't prevent it.

2. Many pilots are still living in denial. Our wages aren't ever going to return to the wages of the past. So long as you have a seemingly unlimited supply of 20 somethings willing to work for peanuts, why should the airlines pay any more than that? Having said that, I do believe wages have been reset and we are at/near the bottom.

When the average 22 year old looks at what it will take to reach a decent wage, many are realizing the journey is not worth it. Not sure how old you are, but you have made that same statement. You love to fly, would love to do it as a career, but aren't willing to go through so many lean years just for the HOPE of something someday. I don't blame you.

In fact, when asked by teenagers or young adults whether they should pursue this career, my answer is simple. If that person has a true passion for flying, then yes, pursue it and you will be happy. Making $90k for a regional (or ultimately $150k for a major) beats selling insurance or being a lawyer, even if you're making $250k doing that. Money really isn't everything. Many of my non pilot friends attest to that. The only sad thing is I used to make what they are making AND I got to be a pilot. But that's history now.

3. As for F/A's - I'll leave that to others to discuss. Sorry for the thread hijack.

PG