Just another typical person living beyond their means. I am always amazed by the number of people I fly with who need to be making 85-95 hours a month to make ends meet. Am I really the only pilot who budgets AND SAVES based on minimum pay guarantee? Sure the additional money when I get an 80-85 hour line is great on occasion but I don't need it to survive on a day-to-day basis like many guys I fly with seem to think they need.

I don't want to kill myself at work either or fly exhausted either. The company is going to do that to us 3 months out of the year during summer anyway.

Flew with a guy recently who was upset he got a "light" line for the month and couldn't find the extra 10 hours to pick up anywhere....EVEN IN FO OPEN TIME. He was already one of the opportunists from back in the 80's who benefited more than any group here and he still can't afford his life. Unbelievable.

Live within your needs, not just within your means.

 

I know their are a lot of Bush lovers out there, but when he signed the age 65 legislation into law, he SCREWED a LOT of pilots. I'm amazed too at the number of over age 60 guys who seem to have 110 credit hour months EVERY month because they're finding it so damn hard to survive on $17,000 a month and need it to make ends meet. So let me get this straight..............you've had from 25-35 years to put away for retirement and you STILL can't do it? Well, from my perspective, another 2-3 years isn't going to make a bit of difference because you'll NEVER be ready. I have ZERO sympathy for a guy who works like this and kicks the bucket at 62 or so. What they don't realize is that they CAN'T take their money with them. (Steve Jobs had all the money in the world..........but he didn't have his health, so what good did all that money do him?) At least these pilots kids and relatives will get to blow all their money for them! I've foregone the "pilot toys" so that I can leave BEFORE age 60. Theirs way too many things to do and see in this lifetime to spend it at work till I die. Yes, I love my job and the folks I work with, but not till my dying days. Sorry guys, but it's time to retire and enjoy life...........let someone else have a career and be able to support their family. Sorry for the thread drift.

 

That all sounds good ewr, but most of the age 60 I fly with have been hammered over their careers. Some are ex eastern, followed by esop and ch-11 so they really have not had a solid 25-30 years of service to put it away.

 

Very interesting discussion, with lots of good thoughts.

I've lived under the PBS regime long enough now to form some opinions. While I can certainly see the desire for some pilots to have more flexibility when it comes to amount of hours work, I'm experiencing that it's MUCH more of a benefit to the company than it is to the pilots. "The Spread" at UAL used to be 78-81. That was the number of hours all our lines were built to. Then the spread went to 65-95 (depending on fleet), and now it's back to 70-89, with the option to go to 95 (for the A320 fleet only. All other fleets are 70-87 flex 89). The company ROUTINELY forces our bottom line holders into the extremes by adjusting the amount of reserves it wants. Literally from month to month, I get a forced 70 hour line followed by a forced 89 hour line with 12 days off. How do they make it all fit? By building trips with 33 hour layovers. This makes the "fly 12 of 13 days over the holidays" possible. All this despite my standing bid of desiring to fly 75-80 hours a month with max days off. The company clearly likes having the flexibility more than the pilots. Sure for the senior folks it's nice to be able to get what you want month to month, but those of us on the bottom of the list are paying for it with our hides. Oh... and before you say "just be senior". That's not always an easy thing to do when you are at a shrinking company. You start out in the upper middle, and before you know it, you are holding onto the last line in your seat. So bid off you say? How! We rarely actually have a bid!

My biggest problem with this whole issue is the fatigue factor. I'm gearing up for my routine fatigue call around the holidays. Sorry, but I'm just not built to fly 12 of 13 days with 2 all nighters sandwiched in with early departures. I fear that I'm in the minority with my willingness to call in fatigued. It scares me to hear a pilot complain that he's exhausted all the time, but insisting that he/she keep up a 100 hour month. At some point, that's going to bit him/her. And when it does, it's going to be bad for ALL of us.

Just some Tuesday morning thoughts.

Total thread drift... sorry.

P.S. Since I'm adrift - how did the company so easily pull one over on ALPA with regards to work rules. The JNC is fighting hard (and meeting resistance) for UAL work rules as the superior contract they want to adopt. Umm.... those work rules were set in Ch 11 Bankruptcy. Depending on your perspective, they might be better than CAL's, but they still TOTALLY BLOW. Why are we considering draconian CH 11 work rules??

 

EXACTLY! Any pilot who doesn't have several months' savings to fall back on AND is actively saving a large portion of their current salary is a financial idiot. After what everyone experienced due to 9/11, there's no excuse to not be saving some of your pay every month in a rainy day fund on top of maxing out your Roth IRA and 401k if you're past second year wages.

I'll swap careers with them. I turn 51 in November. I have had four years of service since leaving the active duty military at 39 with 15 years active duty and am currently on furlough due to age 65.
Here's the irony. I've got quite a bit in savings, have paid for one child's college and am paying for a second so that they will have zero student loans. So excusing any pilot for a busted career doesn't hold water. It's been more than a decade since 9/11 - if that wasn't a huge wakeup call to pilots to start saving money, I don't know what is. Insert Ron White's tag line here.

Two comments on work rules:
1) ALPA gets 1.95% of your salary, not your work rules or benefits. Why do you think ALPA always advises 'xxx airline plus $1'? You never hear, 'we want xxx airline's work rules'.
2) Yes, UAL's work rules suck. CAL's suck worse. While it'd be nice to see the JCBA get work rules back to C2K, I think it's a bridge too far for a single contract. Hold the line at UAL work rules; that will probably be a fight as it is.

 

Well we will have to disagree with you here Andy on some of the age 60 folks.

 

Again, I'll swap careers with them. There are always ways to save money. My mom was a divorced secretary raising 4 kids. She was a tightwad who saved every chance she could; she retired a millionaire. I was saving most of my salary as an E-1 in the military back in 1980.
It's not your income level that dictates your ability to retire, it's the amount of savings that you do during your work years. If you choose to live at a standard of living where you don't save much money for retirement, it is you who are to blame, not your busted career.

Here's a better question, not aimed at you. Have many pilots learned from the financial follies of those older pilots and started to set aside a large chunk of their salaries for a rainy day? I'd say no if there are pilots who complain that they can't live on minimum guarantee.

 

So you know I am not for age 65 however I will defend some of those that choose to stay for the reasons I stated earlier. I assume that you don't need the job anymore and that you have saved enough to retire now at age 51 no matter how busted the career.

 

The only place the age 60+ issue has a validity is it caused an extra 5 years for retirements. Which means when furloughs came more pilots were furloughed and for longer periods. When the airline stopped growth and shrunk it meant more pilots stuck in lower paying positions for longer.

All age 60+ issues are separate from the issue of personal savings.

How to save money in this job?
1. Stay with your first airline.
2. Live in your F/O house (used to be S/O)
4. Don't buy those new BMWs or something similar.
3. Stay married to your first wife.

 

Good advice, but eaiser said than done.
1. I'm here, but junior (6 year)
2. I am, $107,000 home on small lot.
3. I drive a '99 Corrolla with 199,000 miles on it. Wife is in used SUV.
4. 20 years and counting, plus she works too.

I have nothing (toys, etc) and I still live paycheck to paycheck. There is always something: kids, car MX, waterheater out, school, braces, taxes, etc. It never ends. I don't even have cable/satellite.

A professional pilot at a major airline shouldn't be in this position. I made more at the regionals.