HA25
Tokyo Tokyo!
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2001
- Posts
- 3,643
I hope this thread gets some exposure here in the quiet union forum.. but I was just debating with a fellow pilot about the whole "raise the bar" concept and it got my wondering.. What happened?
In the past few years...
-Home prices have gone up 3-4 times..
-Gas is 2-3 times as much
-Food is 2 times as much
-Cars cost a lot more..
-Medical care is 3-4 times as much
...everything costs more.. everything!
All the while..
When I went to work for ASA in 1997, when $200,000 bought a very decent house in Atlanta, my first year pay was $15,000.. and by the time I left as an ATR captain with 3 years seniority, it was about $55K.. today that pay is the SAME!
I watched as pilots wages at the "Majors" went from the 180K/200K max range, to $300K (wow, finally!), and now all the way back down to half that..
Now, I am accepting a job at a "decent" and well established ACMI operator that has recently had to negotiate a pay cut to compete with many non-union start ups and pays the "Typical" Captain $100K and the FO's are in the 50's to 60's, again a pay cut and certainly not where the founding pilots of this company thought they'd be today.
Jet Blue, a darling of the industry and many of the members of this board pays half of what Southwest pays.. You have "SkyBus" out our CMH wanting to pay their A320 CP's $65K and Virgin America a whopping $90K to do what Southwest pilots get paid $200K+ for. Southwest, God bless their heart, is paying well, as is Fedex and UPS.. times are good there but how long can they remain competitive and pay these wages?
MaxJet, a 767 international ops upstart is paying $93K/yr for their Captains.. Many "Major" airline pilots are working with little or no retirement, and mid 100's salaries on "heavy's" at the "Legacy's"
Some ACMI operations are paying 747 captains under 90K/yr.. and making them pay for their hiring and training costs (drug tests, hotels, etc.). "Regional" airlines are paying today, what they were paying 6-8 years ago, and yet they're still growing like gang busters and having a hard time getting anyone with over 1000TT to apply..
I've got friends that graduated at SJSU with me back in the mid 90's in civil engineering and business degrees that are making strong 6 figure salaries and they're home every night, and they don't sign their name to a flying bomb worth millions of dollars, where one mistake can kill literally hundreds..
The worse part is that I find myself debating on this forum with pilot after pilot on the merits of unions, ALPA and holding the line... The guys on this board, who we can assume represent the pilot population seem quite content with the current situation.. so long as they can fly a fancy jet, and wear a fancy uniform, at least this is how I can rationalize it.
I don't get it.. can someone explain all this to me?
Is it time to re-visit the idea of a pilots work guild? Some kind of universal pilot wage agreement that if you don't abide by, you are self-black listed? The only way we can arrest this race to the bottom is from with-in.. it's us the pilots that are aiding and abetting in this race!
Don't kid yourself, you're airline may be on top today, but just ask the Delta Pilots who left to go to Eastern in the 70's what that means in the long run?
Happy New Year. May 2007 be the year we turn the corner on this downward spiral..
God Bless..
In the past few years...
-Home prices have gone up 3-4 times..
-Gas is 2-3 times as much
-Food is 2 times as much
-Cars cost a lot more..
-Medical care is 3-4 times as much
...everything costs more.. everything!
All the while..
When I went to work for ASA in 1997, when $200,000 bought a very decent house in Atlanta, my first year pay was $15,000.. and by the time I left as an ATR captain with 3 years seniority, it was about $55K.. today that pay is the SAME!
I watched as pilots wages at the "Majors" went from the 180K/200K max range, to $300K (wow, finally!), and now all the way back down to half that..
Now, I am accepting a job at a "decent" and well established ACMI operator that has recently had to negotiate a pay cut to compete with many non-union start ups and pays the "Typical" Captain $100K and the FO's are in the 50's to 60's, again a pay cut and certainly not where the founding pilots of this company thought they'd be today.
Jet Blue, a darling of the industry and many of the members of this board pays half of what Southwest pays.. You have "SkyBus" out our CMH wanting to pay their A320 CP's $65K and Virgin America a whopping $90K to do what Southwest pilots get paid $200K+ for. Southwest, God bless their heart, is paying well, as is Fedex and UPS.. times are good there but how long can they remain competitive and pay these wages?
MaxJet, a 767 international ops upstart is paying $93K/yr for their Captains.. Many "Major" airline pilots are working with little or no retirement, and mid 100's salaries on "heavy's" at the "Legacy's"
Some ACMI operations are paying 747 captains under 90K/yr.. and making them pay for their hiring and training costs (drug tests, hotels, etc.). "Regional" airlines are paying today, what they were paying 6-8 years ago, and yet they're still growing like gang busters and having a hard time getting anyone with over 1000TT to apply..
I've got friends that graduated at SJSU with me back in the mid 90's in civil engineering and business degrees that are making strong 6 figure salaries and they're home every night, and they don't sign their name to a flying bomb worth millions of dollars, where one mistake can kill literally hundreds..
The worse part is that I find myself debating on this forum with pilot after pilot on the merits of unions, ALPA and holding the line... The guys on this board, who we can assume represent the pilot population seem quite content with the current situation.. so long as they can fly a fancy jet, and wear a fancy uniform, at least this is how I can rationalize it.
I don't get it.. can someone explain all this to me?
Is it time to re-visit the idea of a pilots work guild? Some kind of universal pilot wage agreement that if you don't abide by, you are self-black listed? The only way we can arrest this race to the bottom is from with-in.. it's us the pilots that are aiding and abetting in this race!
Don't kid yourself, you're airline may be on top today, but just ask the Delta Pilots who left to go to Eastern in the 70's what that means in the long run?
Happy New Year. May 2007 be the year we turn the corner on this downward spiral..
God Bless..