Building our Profession
 

When will our associations spend some of our money on building the passengers attitude about airline pilots?

Here my example...

A flight on Delta from MSP to MCO costs (SideStep.com) $144 one-way. How much do your professional pilots cost?

A320 Captain - $150 per hour - flight 3.5 hrs
A320 First Officer - $100 per hour - flight 3.5 hrs
Benefits and reserve costs - 50% - $125 per hour - flight 3.5 hrs
A320 carrys - 140 passengers

A320 flight crew costs to fly MSP-MCO is $1312.50
or $9.37 per passenger

6.5% of your ticket


Federal taxes are $10.60 per passenger
Check your first bag is $15 per passenger
Check your second bag is $20 per passenger

We are cheap by a number of measures, highly trained professionals, with no fatalities in the majors since 2003. We needs to spend part of our dues on building and maintaining the level of our profession. That goes for IBT747,APA too.

I honestly believe that most passengers think highly of airline pilots. I just flew from JFK to TPA last night (as a revenue passenger) and when we touched down, quite a few people clapped. I hadn't heard this in this while.

People think Sully is Jesus' brother it seems, auctioning off his cap, book deal, etc.

However, in the trenches of the work-a-day world, it will always come down to money. People generally exhibit very little loyalty to an airline brand. As such, cost, route structure, availability of non stop options, etc are what people see. An airplane ride is an airplane ride. Whether that ends up being on JetBlue, Airtran, UA, AA, SWA, or whoever else is of little importance so long as the name is recognizable as a known brand.

To increase the percentage of crew wages to revenue, either costs must drop more in the face of fixed CBA compensation, or pilot wages must go up. Considering the present state of difficulty in the industry and the gluttony of pilots looking for work, neither is going to happen in the short term.

In summary: I don't think that passengers think lowly of pilots. Its just that the airlines must endure cutthroat competition to stay alive. The market will set prices/wages in an unregulated industry.

I think that the issue is the there is an emotional disconnect when you reach certin levels of compensation. Example, who has it tougher?

Worker A went from $300,000 a year to $150,000 or

Worker B went from $40,000 a year to $35,000

Most would choose B although worker A took a far bigger hit in terms of total dollars and percentage.

Management will always win this PR battle.

Today's traveler knows the cost of everything and understands the value of nothing. The same goes for the bean-counting mismanagement teams. When their ineptitude allows somebody to fly cross country in 6 hours for cheaper than it would cost to drive cross country in 4 days...we need to stand back and ask "***?!"

It's going to be an uphill battle, IMO, to change the attitudes of the Clampitts who expect to fly from LA to Miami for $99 with a 7 course meal and all the bags they want for no extra fees.

We need to go back to some form of regulation, IMO.

Yep, ticket cost is the bottom line. Management just likes to cut the fat from our paychecks.

However....

It is an industry wide issue...

No matter how d@mn professional we are as Pilots it doesn't mean a darn thing when the gate agent in EWR hasn't shaved in 3 days and hasn't had a haircut in the last month and flight attendants don't speak proper English. And I can't forget about the TSA hiring former gang members. Pilots are only one piece of the pie.

Strangely enough Gordon Bethune said it best,

"It isn't about making money, just beating the competition."

If all airlines lose money, the airline that lost the least actually wins...

So sad.

I am with Bryris, I think the passengers think highly of pilots. I also believe they think we are paid really well. Most of them have no clue how the pay scale works and how long it takes pilots to actually earn a salary they can support a family on. I think if we want to change the compensation, then we have to learn how to be better at negotiating our worth. Does the company feel that getting the plane to the destination is only worth a little over 1300 dollars. If that's how they feel than as pilots we either have to accept that and take it, or we can do something about it. When we do nothing it just says we are okay with the current way things are done.