Posted on 01/10/2010 5:35:00 PM PST by KeyLargo
A pilot's life: exhausting hours for meagre wages
$20,000 pay and lengthy commutes to work renew fears for passengers' safety Chris McGreal
guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 January 2010
Some co-pilots say they now have second jobs to make ends meet. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
The old hands say there was never much glamour in piloting several tonnes of metal thousands of feet in the air.
But there's no denying that to the earthbound back in the jet-set era half a century ago – when Pan Am's "Clippers" ruled the air lanes and service was modelled on transatlantic ocean liners – pilots were regarded with an awe just short of that accorded to astronauts.
The exotic blend of international travel, the authority of commanding the ever larger and faster airliners, and those dashing uniforms turned heads, drew autograph hunters and attracted groupies. Pilots also made a lot of money.
Today it is different. Captain Dave Ryter earned so little when he was a co-pilot for a major airline that he lived in a gang area of Los Angeles, commuted for hours to work and made less money than a bus driver.
"I was standing at a gate waiting to commute a few years ago. I was in uniform and a passenger walks over to me and strikes up a conversation as people often do. He said: where's your second home? I looked at him, thinking he was making a joke. He was serious. I said: actually, it's my parents'," said Ryter. "I was living in a very small town home in a gang area and my wife also worked for the two of us to support our family."
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
hahaha
I flew the A320 and the B777. You are off by a mile. Do some research before you post.
And as far as the hours,most of the time pilots spend at work (away from home) are unpaid. Pilots only get paid when the airplane is moving. The 70ish hours per month number is pretty meaningless.
There is a good reason to buy a more expensive car - it lasts longer and runs better. There is a good reason to go to a more expensive doctor, he will give you better treatment. There is a good reason to work with a good lawyer, he may save you 10x his fee. Those are lasting effects, something that you pay for once and appreciate the results for many years later.
Travel, however, has no lasting effects, just like dining in a restaurant. You may be better serviced if you pay more, but that pleasure is brief, and then the money is spent and you are returning home with a lighter wallet and quickly fading memories. The memories will be gone tomorrow, but the empty wallet will be still with you.
Once you get your basic seat for, say, $1,000, then additional pleasures of being in the 1st class (wider seats, better food, quicker service) are not comparable to the additional cost of the ticket. For most people money matters far more than a temporary experience of a sardine in a can. Most people are not Snow Whites and can take it.
Not any more. $150K tops if lucky. Suggest Sully Sullenberger's book.
gets into a 777, they are going make a base rate of 320K
*******
Who’s making $320 K?
Even Sully has a second job..
Hey why dont you add to that”You want the mechanics paid well”too.
I fly several times a month for work - much of it on regional carriers to Canada and New England. I absolutely want my pilots to be paid well - VERY well.
Sometimes I look up in the cockpit and literally see kids behind the stick. And those of you who say that they have the prospect of moving up over time, those opportunities are greatly reduced now that regionals handle most of the load. There’s only so many coast-to-coast and overseas flights available for people who want to move up to the big carriers and equipment - and most of those jobs are already filled.
Research? I was there. Of course ‘you guys’ as a group always want to keep the details of those contracts hidden from the public as much as possible. The noble savage, the noble pilot, both mythology.
I know several years back at UAL, a 5 year FO on a 737-300 would already be up at 90K, no one should have needed a second job on those wages at that time at all unless they were not managing their money well.
I was there for 25 years from 1984. I’ve ridden on the flight decks of most all of those planes from the DC-8, 727, the 747-SP on up to the 777 and 747-400 hundreds of times. And I saw what was in those contracts for the pilots, it was obscene.
Management is always an easy scapegoat to place the blame on. But it was those pilot contracts, the way their retirement benefits were set up, their thuggish strongarm tactics lead by ‘mad dog’ Dubinksy, later the summer of 2000, and their take over attempts were what ultimately bankrupted UAL.
What about the guys who wrench on the birds as well?Both go hand in hand.Both sides have aspects that suck.
Cool “glamour” jobs that pay big bucks at the top pay for crap at the bottom. Pilots, radio djs, tv reporters, baseball players. People are willing to put up with low pay on the gamble that they will make big bucks later on.
So ... how much do you pay to fly? First class, or lowest-bidder cattle class?
So ... how much do you pay to fly? First class, or lowest-bidder cattle class?
//Airline union contracts are the parasites that kill off the host airlines.//
I totally agree on that one.
Come on Mag the reason those guys up front look like kids is because we are twice their age.Right?
I know a 737 pilot with thousands of multi-engine hours from the Air Force (instructor pilot, the whole deal). He has had to work 2 jobs for years to keep his mortgage paid. Your figures are way off the mark. There’s no longer a “golden ring” in the airlines.
You betcha
They only get paid when the back away from the gate.Sitting in a hotel room on layover pays squat.
“I absolutely want my pilots to be paid well - VERY well.”
I have to chortle to myself on this one. Not laughing at you, but I must make a point. I’ve had businessmen tell me this same thing as I was deadheading, and I always told them that my income was governed by my labor contract. However, I did point out that there was a loophole in said contract that did not preclude me from accepting gratuities from passengers.....SUBSTANTIAL GRATUITIES. It was fascinating how quickly these profligates began edging away from the subject when they were offered a method of making their wishes come true. Well, it just makes my point. Many folks feel safer if their pilot is well paid. Of course, they have no real motivation to make that happen with their own funds.
But good wishes are always appreciated, I suppose.
Transportation is a least cost equation for most consumers. Pilots now find themselves in a free market system, that is quite different than for those that cut their aeronautical teeth in the regulated airlines. I do not agree that there is any shortage of pilots to fill the seats at the major carriers. Well, I’ve been at this job since the 70’s, and I have never seen a shortage of pilots in any of the equipment I flew right up to the Boeings. Making it to there, had less to do with true merit (there were plenty with that who never made it). Much of it had to do with a happy conjunction of experience, industrial health and timing. Past a certain point, ability becomes less important in your progression.
Many of my “brethren” will disagree, but you can actually be too smart to be a good pilot. Most of the really good ones I’ve flown with were of surprisingly average intellect. So much so, that those of us with advanced academic degrees had/have to hide our “light” lest we intimidate those we fly with. No one wants to spend four days with a “smarty pants”, so the brainiacs go back into the closet as soon as they hit the cockpit. It makes the trip run so much better. So the superman theory of what makes a good pilot has been discounted by me for some time.
Oh, yes. Do you know how many passengers offered me a gratuity over that 20+ year span (even after the crew and I occasionally saved hundreds of their lives, and our own, just doing our jobs)?
Yeah. I’m sure the class has guessed correctly on that one. Ok, it was a gimme’. :-)
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