Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: GRUNHERZ on December 18, 2002, 03:23:31 AM
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They get paid an incredibly large amount of money, always seem to be whining for more and threating strikes - but what exactly do they do in the cockpit in terms of flying the plane?
Any airliner pileits in here?
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next time you're on a plane, you should ask one.
you probably couldn't name a good paying job i couldn't trivialize too
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er, it's simple. They fly the plane from take off to landing. Without them it would never get off the ground.
I would've thought you'd known that.
If you're referring to the large amount of technological help they get in flying these behemoths round the skies, it is all there to improve passenger safety and comfort, not to make their lives easier.
They get paid large amounts of money because the buck stops with them and they are not allowed to make mistakes.
I don't get paid as much, because if I make a mistake at work, the worst thing that can happen is someone will read the help file I am writing and say "hey that's not right".
If they screw up, hundreds can die.
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I have talked with a few airline pilots and I really got the impression that they dont do much. They pretty much say except for a little work during take off and landing, one or both of which can be automatic IIRC, they don't do a lot.
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I know several airline pilots fairly well, and a couple of airline pilots very well.
Airline pilots get paid lots and lots of $$$ - to make the perfect call in about 1.5 seconds - about once every 10 years maybe. And in doing so they save 200-400 lives.
Like the time when the 3 guys up front landed an airliner that had no controls responding except the throttles...and made an approach and landed using 'differential thrust' - one of the most amazing stories I've ever heard involving aviation.
Also, landing is in no way 'automatic'. There are some very 'tricky' approaches in the world of commercial aviation. Think of it as taking a fully loaded passenger bus thru an icy S turn at high speed.
I have zero problems with airline pilots making tons of $$$. Pay the pencil pushers 50% of what they make and keep the damn pilots happy.
Mike/wulfie
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I have known quite a few airline pilots, or ones that have retired. One is a retired DC10 Captain (BA/BCal) who said he was glad to be retired. When I asked him why, I thought it was because he didn't like the company. That was not the reason. As he put it, the job of flying the plane was "...absolutely mind-numbingly diddlying boring. We used to have to twiddle a few knobs, but we don't do that any more - the knobs twiddle themselves". This gentleman used to have a race with his co-pilot to see how quickly each of them could finish the Telegraph crossword. Flying to/from the US, they would have a quick check round as they crossed every tenth meridian, and then carry on with the crossword. After solving 1 across, the captain told me he would think "nearly there - only another 9½ hours to go..."
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In the running for top 10 stupidest posts ever.
AKDejaVu
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GRUNHERZ: They get paid an incredibly large amount of money, always seem to be whining for more and threating strikes - but what exactly do they do in the cockpit in terms of flying the plane?
That would depend if you are referring to free market or monopolistic labor. We have both kinds practiced by different companies.
In a free market you have a very dull job that requires pretty high qualifications - just in case something goes wrong. Business pays just enough wages to attract people with such qualifications - which depends on the number of such people out there and other choices available to them.
In a (labor) monopoly case unions prevent qualified people willing to take the job for lower wages from entering the market. Then the same unions extort company to pay them whatever they can get - using threat of near-term ruin rather than long-term decline and bancrupcy. Since many companies are public rather than private, the CEOs have time horizon of a few quarters rather than a lifetime a private owner would - so they are not interested in saving a company in the long term by opposing unions.
The actual justifications for getting more money are irrelevant since they are extorted anyway, but ritual terms like "responcibilities", "hard-working", "deserving", "starving" etc. are thrown around.
miko
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Continue with the responses, all except Deja Vu's are exactly what I was looking for. Basically it seems they are there for emergencies or special situations?
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
except for a little work during take off and landing, one or both of which can be automatic IIRC, they don't do a lot.
You do not recall correctly.
Takeoffs are not "automatic"; in fact, FAA certification does not allow the autopilot to be engaged below a certain varying altitude dependant upon aircraft (autopilot) type.
Landings, OTOH, can be automatic and in some cases in some aircraft (CAT III weather) they must be made automatically..... unless of course the equipment isn't working.
Cute little thread though. Do continue.
I think all we do are eat first class meals and pinch the air hostesses. But we are underpaid for doing that.
:D
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Whenever there is some pilots strike I see the $150,000 yearly salaries and the demands for more and more. Then I hear pilots tell me how bored they are and that they dont much of anything so I get curious. I mean how many people who earn in the top 10-15% or more of US income groups go on strike? So what are the difficulties of these jobs? Do they fly 7 days a week and are never home? Again I did not get that impression from them? Are they overworked and the planes are hard to fly? Again I did not get the impression.. So whats the big deal if people getting paid $100,000, $150,000 etc are complaining or striking often? Certainly anybody who is able to get beyond their childish pilots are gods fantasies can see here a genuine honest question that can be adresses rather straightforwardly.
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The reason is simple. Airline companies are most suceptible to extortion of all other businesses.
Practically all their capital - which is mostly planes - is mortgaged. If you stop flying due to a strike, you save on fuel, operating expences, even salaries - but you still have to pay - what, $500,000 a year per plane - to the bank. Plus, the customers have a choice of switching to competitors easily but getting them back requires time - if only because most tickets are bought weeks in advance.
So a strike/lockout a few weeks long would ruin an airline like no other business.
miko
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Well, Grun it's like this old chum.
I could detail a lot of stuff that I felt would answer your question directly and justify my salary. It would take pages of electronic ink and quite a bit of time.
However, you already have you mind totally made up and locked tight. (Sort of a common situation when you post, IMO.) So there's not a single thing I could write that would change your opinion one bit.
Bottom line is why bother?
Much better to feed that green monster and encourage you in your stereotyping.
Did I ever tell you about the time we all got first class meals going over to Nice and the air hostesses were very friendly? And then we spent 48 hours laying over at an great hotel right on the beach, which is of course topless, with native women and our own air hostesses? We went out to dinner at a great seafood place and drank gallons of French wine and got the air hostesses tipsy. Then we flew back and had first class meals going that way too. And they paid all three of us $255,000 apiece just for that ONE trip. Of course, that's the only trip we had to fly that year.
That's how it is...... for real pal.
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:D
But why didn't you go on strike?
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We did! :p
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Toad..that is an awful lot of money for a Steward to make ;)
...and by the way, this pencil pusher is looking to buy the wife a new watch this Christmas...and I need to hit you up for a loan.
:D
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Originally posted by Toad
We did! :p
Phew, for a second I wasnt going to believe your story....
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Curval, the stewards get MORE! :D
But the baggage handlers top even the stewards!!!!
In fact, I think CEO's like Wolf...... who only took about an $18 million dollar bonus or something a few years back..... are the lowest paid airline employees of all.
Aviation Employment Salaries Index
Top Airline CEO Salaries - 2000
Carrier Name & Title of Executive Salary Bonus Total Direct Compensation
AirTran Joseph B. Leonard
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer $350,000 $525,000 $875,000
Alaska John F. Kelly
Chairman & CEO (Alaska Air Group) $518,269 $0 $518,269
America West William A. Franke
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Holdings; Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of AWA; Chairman of TLC $600,000 $0 $600,000
American Donald J. Carty
Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of the Corporation and American $772,500 $1,351,875 $2,124,375
Atlantic Coast Airlines *UA Kerry B. Skeen
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer $403,462 $59,949 $463,411
Continental Gordon M. Bethune
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer $966,879 $2,145,540 $3,112,419
Delta LEO F. MULLIN
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer $745,833 $1,400,000 $2,145,833
Frontier Samuel D. Addoms
Chief Executive Officer $172,508 $87,415 $259,923
Hawaiian John W. Adams
Chairman of the Board $200,000 $0 $200,000
Midway Robert R. Ferguson
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer $275,000 $0 $275,000
Midwest Timothy E. Hoeksema
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer $355,000 $25,803 $380,803
Northwest Richard H. Anderson
CEO, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer $481,630 $517,500 $999,130
Southwest Herbert D. Kelleher
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer $447,708 $172,000 $619,708
William F. Compton (1999 salary) President and Chief Executive Officer $428,341 $0 $428,341
United James E. Goodwin
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer $843,528 $225,000 $1,068,528
Vanguard Robert J. Spane
Former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President $226,923 $0 $226,923
US Airways Rakesh Gangwal (1999 salary) President and Chief Executive Officer $675,000 $675,000 $1,350,000
Imagine that... Kelleher of Southwest taking less than the guys running the majors into the ground...who'd a thunk it?
Of course, CEO's are the lowest paid of all employees, as I said.
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What do overblown CEO salaries have to do with overblown pilot salaries?
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This is the best though (and it's just typical of the whole industry).
US Air's leaders "Leading by Example". Showing the employees how to "save" an airline that they have led into BANKRUPTCY.
US Airways executives' fat exit strategy irks rank-and-file (http://www.post-gazette.com/businessnews/20010826shop0826bnp6.asp)
...There is more grist for the mill in a new Securities and Exchange Commission filing. It shows that Wolf, Gangwal and general counsel Lawrence Nagin have the right to resign this fall with severance packages totaling roughly $45 million....
..As a result, the three executives will have 30 days from Oct. 12 to consider whether to quit and accept the severances, which include three years' worth of salaries and bonuses as well as accelerated retirement benefits totaling about $16 million for Wolf, $21 million for Gangwal and $8 million for Nagin...
Wolf, 60, last year received a salary of $600,000 with no bonus. He also was awarded other annual compensation of $7.69 million, primarily to cover tax liabilities associated with stock incentives he received, as well as restricted stock awards valued at $3.1 million.
Gangwal's salary last year was $675,000, also with no bonus. The 48-year-old executive received other annual compensation of $7.47 million and restricted stock awards valued at $3.8 million.
Nagin earned a base salary of $410,000 last year with no bonus. He received other annual compensation totaling $890,529 and restricted stock awards valued at $705,938....
There's leadership in time of "economic belt-tightening" for you. US Air is bloody BANKRUPT and these guys comprise the leadership that got them there.
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Toad, I don't know what carrier you fly for but my close friend flies MD-80s for American Airlines. When he retired from the Guard after years of flying KC-135s, he expected to be hired in an instant by a national carrier. Well, being 40-something, a smoker and never in a union before, in was in for a lotta learning. I don't understand where most military guys think they'll be able to walk into a 747 job after years for military flying...I don't recall many examples of that happening.
In my flight training (and I'm pondering returning to school to get the degree and ratings at either Daniel Webster or Embry Riddle), all the pilots who came in to talk to us told us to expect waiter-wages on the worst carriers, in the worst aircraft if we decide to go the airline route. Lots of time away from home, and overnights in the Cockroach Inn.
Moving along to my friend, he finally has some seniority and is away a lot, home 4 days at a time then gone for 2 weeks again. I don't think Grun appeciates the amount of time you guys are away, and the nature of the work. There's a lot of nice things in the cockpit that make life easier in the cockpit...but I don't think you fellas are sitting around monitoring an autopilot setting. :)
If you guys are making that amount of money, good, you've earned it.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
What do overblown CEO salaries have to do with overblown pilot salaries?
You're absolutely right. It's the UNIONS that drive airlines into bankruptcy. Unions, unions, unions! Bad, bad, bad! :D
Check and see how much money US Air posted profit/loss in '98, the year Wolf and Gangwal gave themselves about $35 million EACH in bonus money.
The $34.2 million paid to Stephen Wolf, chairman of US Airways Group, and the $36 million paid to Rakesh Gangwal, chief executive officer, came despite a 17 percent drop in the value of the company's stock during 1998.
It's the unions! The Unions! THE UNIONS! :p
Oh, and by the way... did you ever notice how folks think anyone that makes more than they do is overpaid? :D
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A flight attendant I know told me of the few times she has gone to the cockpit and found the entire crew asleep !
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"Oh, and by the way... did you ever notice how folks think anyone that makes more than they do is overpaid?"
Sure did, some guy even went so far as posting his bosses' salaries on the internet to make that point..
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[QUOTE
Oh, and by the way... did you ever notice how folks think anyone that makes more than they do is overpaid? :D [/QUOTE]
Yup, usually folks who belch that are welcomed, arms open, to the Democratic Party. :p
Its *just not fair* others make more than you. We'll raise their taxes so after all that, they make the same as you. We'll put a stop to that, yessirreee! Who cares how much education or work it took that fella to get to that level of incoming earning. You're pumping gas and working hard, dammit...you deserve a BMW in the yard and a 4 bedroom house too.
Opps, did I describe Communism?
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Thanks. LePaul. Appreciate the kind words.
But don't sweat guys like Grun. They "know" the "hollywood" or "US media" version of my job right down to the most intimate details. Which makes them unassailable experts. :D
As I said, no matter who you are or what you do, a guy making less than you do figures you're overpaid.
Which brings up that nagging question..... how do all those overpaid guys get those overpaying jobs when I could do it just as well or better? ..... because it's sooooooooo easy.
:confused:
:D
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"I don't think Grun appeciates the amount of time you guys are away, and the nature of the work. There's a lot of nice things in the cockpit that make life easier in the cockpit...but I don't think you fellas are sitting around monitoring an autopilot setting. "
No I prolly don't and thats why I asked for some pilot's opinions here, but I only got a dodging answer from Toad, apparently the only current commercial pilot here.
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Threads like this are just great.
Maybe everyone posting could also share their career choice with everyone else so that it could be picked apart and critiqued simply because you were embarrassed in another thread.
AKDejaVu
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Originally posted by Toad
You're absolutely right. It's the UNIONS that drive airlines into bankruptcy. Unions, unions, unions! Bad, bad, bad! :D
It's the unions! The Unions! THE UNIONS! :p
LOL....I'm staying away from that argument from now on...after the virtual "reaming" you gave me last time. Geeze...and all I was trying to do was get a rise out of Creamo. It worked, but I got more of a rise from one of his fanboys. ;)
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Hollywood? What are you talking about..
I told you exactly where I got my info from a few airline pilots in casual conversation and from seeing the salaries and strikes on yes TV...
Now I see you are trying to say i'm jelous about your job because you earn lots of money. First of all thats incredibly petty of you and second I would sure hope an adult like you would make more money than a college student like me, otherwise you would be some kind of phenomenal looser.
Also I wasnt the one who posted my bosses' high salaries and squeaked about their job perrorrmance, that was you Toad.
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Just what do you do gruenherz... for a career?
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Embarrased in the other thread? As I recall the Toad's zinger was to say the annual reports were lies when they showed UAL had higher operating expenses than its rivals...
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I'm a student... That is my "career" for the moment.
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Brillant thread guys. :D
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Hmm, I'm almost commercially rated, does that count? I took the written and passed, just didn't do the flight test and such. Plus, even if I did, all I could really do is take folks out sight seeing. Boring, but...it does build up the logbook.
Well Toad, I know you have 3 BMW's back home...not bad for doing nothing :p
As for Unions, oh boy, don't get me going. As a UPS Teamster, I've seen ample cases where UPS just stuffs their foot into their mouth and deserves the Teamsters. Then again, the Teamsters are so misguided and afloat with mis-information, its painfully amusing. They've been blasting me for being a Republican for months. I told them, hey...I'm all for collective bargaining for higher wagers and better benefits. I just have a hard time with the Union endorsing Democrats who propose raising taxes....wouldn't an organization that wants higher wages for its members be against its members loosing them to higher taxes? Boy, ask them that and all I get are confused looks like "he has a point, but since he's a republican, he cant be allowed to be right" kinda stuff.
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This thread reminds me of a story.......
An old high rise building was having electrical trouble. No matter who they called the lights wouldn't come on. Finally someone called the old electrician that had done the original work on the building.
The old man arrived at the scene, looked thoughtfully up and down the magnificent structure, pulled out a little hammer, walked up to the outside wall, and tapped the wall with his hammer.
The lights came on immediately.
The owners of the building were ecstatic. They asked the old man how much they owed him.
"$20,002.00" the old man replied. The owners were shocked! "Why?" they asked.
"That'll be $2.00 for hittin it with the hammer" replied the old man "and $20,000 for knowin where to hit."
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This thread is kinda fun... Good way to get me riled up and kill time till LOTR.. :D
Toad which airline do you work for?
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
" but I only got a dodging answer from Toad, apparently the only current commercial pilot here.
Yep.
Because, IMO, you really aren't interested in learning anything.
Think on that, it'll come to you.
I'm still of that opinion despite your further posts.
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Which brings up that nagging question..... how do all those overpaid guys get those overpaying jobs when I could do it just as well or better? ..... because it's sooooooooo easy.
The answer is simple - the union will not allow you to have that job even if I am willing to accept less.
There is no such thing as "deserved" in economics. Just what the customer would want to pay and what a worker would be willing to accept if they were free to make a transaction.
Apparently there are plenty of qualified (ex-army) pilots willing to work for salaries somewhat less than prevalent in the industry - and unable to do so because of unions.
So unions screw up other workers by depriving them of jobs and also customers by making them pay extra.
CEOs are paid a lot - millions. How would those millions help airlines which are billions in the hole - Toad would have to explain. Anyway, CEO can be fired on a short notice and replaced with another guy, if one is available - unlike a unionised worker.
CEO's compensatioin may vary a lot from year to year if the planes fly half full - unlike a unionised pilot who is paid the same for flying an empty plane.
How much should a CEO be paid? Enough to attract a capable person from another position into a risky business of running an airline.
How many guys would create new airlines, turn profit and increase employment while employee-owned airlines go bust for the salart Toad think "fair"?
There are no miracles here. Increasing salary may only be accomplished by restricting access to labor market - increasing income of employed at the expence of having more unemployed. When things go badly for a company, salaries cannot decrease so that production could stay teh same and still be profitable.
So instead of fluctuation of prices and salaries in a free economy you have fluctuations in production and employment - which are very destructive for society.
miko
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
I told you exactly where I got my info from a few airline pilots in casual conversation and from seeing the salaries and strikes on yes TV...
[/b]
Ever wonder why I'm the only one here ... and there's many..... that even bothered to engage this thread? I know how airline pilots talk to non-pilots about the job. I'll wager I know just about what they told you and why. :D
Also I wasnt the one who posted my bosses' high salaries and squeaked about their job perrorrmance, that was you Toad.
That is mere counterpoint to your previous spew about unions.
Personally, I don't care what they make. I'm one of those who think that if you make more than I do then maybe I'm the one that screwed up.
Their job performance stands on its own. Suffice it to say that if we flew like they manage the traveling public would all be dead by now. :D
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Yea but I'm the guy who just asked a question, and not the one who turned this into an argument.
I guess the basic thing I was asking about is whats so hard in the pilots job than these highly paid proffessionals apparently go on strike so often.
And again you just say I'm being disingenous in my motives..
What airline do you work for Toad, if you care to say of course?
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Embarrased in the other thread? As I recall the Toad's zinger was to say the annual reports were lies when they showed UAL had higher operating expenses than its rivals...
Grun, did it ever occur to you that "standardized" accounting rules allow the companies to add in some costs to ASM cost that the Department of Transportation doesn't allow?
Did you ever stop to think why DOT numbers may not match annual report numbers?
The "standard" throughout the industry for ASM cost is the DOT numbers. I showed you those from two different sites.
But, hey... don't let that slow ya down.
Now, I'm off to the hospital to do some stuff to make the FAA happy about me doing my job. So, discuss amongst yerselfs.
I work for Leo the CEO, btw.
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Oops.. gotta go
Miko, I'll be back. Some good stuff there that deserves an answer.
For example the replacing the CEO bit.
How long do you think it would take to replace a trained and qualified, unionised B767 Captain?
Think you can just grab an ex-military guy off the street and slap him in there?
I'll be back. I think. :D
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Yeah. And it's those damn unions that keep wages high and qualifications down. Without them, corporations could get great prices on skilled labor. All they need to do is get together and fix some wages. After all, what's one unemployed schmuck gonna do against the combined corporate weight of an entire industry?
Pilots are a bunch of slobs. I mean look at these guys: they get paid a ridiculous sum of money. Even the freight dogs and puddle jumpers get paid at least as much as a high school teacher. And at the end of the day, they get to write their own hours in on the log. They're unionized, and they're regulated by the FAA, one of the most protective agencies in the world. So, for example, the FAA carefully regulates how many hours pilots can sleep between work shifts.
Sure, you might argue that a pilot does more work in the cockpit on the ground than in flight, but we don't have to worry about that. Let's just pay them while they're in the air. That way, they'll be sure not waste the passengers' time on the ground.
Plus these guys get vacations practically every week. Flying all over the country for a day, then spending the night in some sexy airport hotel with a minibar (that for $10, you can even open), I mean how cool is that.
Plus up there, you catch some sweet rays, and you get baby-soft skin. Man, just think how cool it must be to be around those sexy 45-year-old air hostesses all them time.
Modern cockpits make the job supereasy too. If you're lucky, you'll get one of those new airbus toys that are ergonomic wonder. Not even captain could make a landing like that.
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Curval, all you did was nearly trip over Rip in your shameless, retarded spiteful enthusiasm, thinking I worked for a failing carrier, over a simple bbs comment on union wages. Did it hurt your “important businessman libido with super secret clients” so bad?
Geezus, you couldn’t make a practical response on the issues when called on it, and now utter how it was all a “all I was trying to do was get a rise out of Creamo”.
How hard has anyone tried, in 3 or more different threads, to make me respond, and what’s your interest in me to make yourself sound so foolish to get my response? Weird.
Grun. You ARE looking for a argument. Just go see Lord of The Rings.
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Re: mismanagement, I'll never forget hearing a Northwest pilot explain 'Al Chechi' (sp? the guy ran for Gov. of CA. a few years back):
"He took an airline with millions in cash in the bank, brought his buddies in as 'consultants', blackmailed an entire State to keep Northwest basing and thus voters' jobs in that State, and somehow managed to have Northwest on the edge of disaster in only a few years."
There are times when I'm not fond of unions, but for every greed induced screwing of the public by a union there's at least one greed induced screwing of the public by corporate officers I'd say.
Mike/wulfie
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planes that are easy to fly are much more likley to end up w/ wheel on the tarmac - anyone think pilots would end up asleep in the cockpit if they thought they were about to die as a result?
airlines can get cheapo pilots if they want it, but they paid $100million for the plane & who-knows what for the insurance (which will go up if they use lesser pilots). on the botton line a pilot who knows hes worth six figures & is willing to hold out for it is probably ceaper than Mr. 'i'll fly for $35k if you dont ask about the discharge'
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Originally posted by Creamo
Curval, all you did was nearly trip over Rip in your shameless, retarded spiteful enthusiasm, thinking I worked for a failing carrier, over a simple bbs comment on union wages. Did it hurt your “important businessman libido with super secret clients” so bad?
Geezus, you couldn’t make a practical response on the issues when called on it, and now utter how it was all a “all I was trying to do was get a rise out of Creamo”.
How hard has anyone tried, in 3 or more different threads, to make me respond, and what’s your interest in me to make yourself sound so foolish to get my response? Weird.
Creamo...in all honesty I regret that thread and am not afraid to admit it. I did make myself look foolish and I apologise. Okay? Can we kiss and make up now? You can even put that in your signature...I kinda deserve it.
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Toad tell me what operating expenses are not allowed under the DOT rules and possibly where I could look these rules up.
No dodging this time please, just give me the info I asked fof.
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what do CEO's do ?
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Grunherz get a book on aviation or something. They do a very complicated job and have the lives of thousands of people in their hands every day.
I'm sure that en route, their job is often boring and simple.
But approach and departure and taxiing are very complicated and have a very fast tempo of decision making and reactions.
And if there is an emergency, they have to have an incredible knowledge of the plane's systems and make decisions very quickly. And often in an emergency they get to show off that "pilot stuff".
Do you think doctors are overpaid? Airline pilots have similar levels of education and affect the life or death of far more people than any doctor could imagine.
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Seems fair to me, sure. (not the kissing stuff and sig though)
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Airline pilots are overpaid only when they screw up....
:)
-SW
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Toad: Miko, I'll be back. Some good stuff there that deserves an answer.
For example the replacing the CEO bit.
How long do you think it would take to replace a trained and qualified, unionised B767 Captain?
I never said that some particular profession or an individual in some profession is not underpaid under union rules. If qualified B767 captains are such a rare catch, their free-market salaries would be high enough to balance supply and demand.
Forget ex-military. Your company could add flights, hire qualified willing B767 captains laid-off by bancrupt competitors and make money on their flights - if it hired them for wages lower than union-set wages in your company.
Dinger: And it's those damn unions that keep wages high and qualifications down. Without them, corporations could get great prices on skilled labor. All they need to do is get together and fix some wages. After all, what's one unemployed schmuck gonna do against the combined corporate weight of an entire industry?
Nobody here is arguin that capital monopoly is any better than labor monopoly. Both are only possible when entry for labor and capital is artificially restricted.
BTW, do you really beliveve that higher union wages come out of pocket of a capitalist? Not really.
The guy who pays for it most is someone who cannot get a job at all because it is not profitable to hire any more people at union wages and not legal to give him a job at lower wages even if he is willing to take it.
The customer pays for it too through higher expence.
Then the guys who lose jobs/income because customer paid extra money for union wages and does not have it to pay for their services.
In some situations a capitalist does suffer some of the losses too - by getting lowre return on capital. So an your elderly lady who has no income other than pansion fund could turn that thermostat down a few degrees so that a union worker would have better salary.
Of course extra money paid to the union worker go to the economy too. But it is not a customer who is now freely determining who should get what but some union boss.
Also, unions cannot operate in conditions of free competition - as a non-unionised company would compete their company out of business. That's why unions along with capitalists lobby politicians to restrict competition in their industry - then they can jack prices as high as they want and happily divide the monopolistic spoills. Unions are friends of capitalist monopoly - they depend on it.
Companies that are capable of restricting compenition, establishing monopoly and setting fixed prices on labor against union opposition would be much more likely - and earlier - to establish a monopoly and set fixed prices on products with union support. When airlines and union lobbied work together rather than against each other - to prevent new airlines opening, to restrict access of foreign airlines to our market, etc. - they are much more successfull.
Besides, only free competition ensures the most efficient utilisation of resources in a society. Moving money from one pocket to another is not a zero-sum game. It costs growth and job creation, not counting restrictions on freedom of choice for employees and customers.
Free market is based on chance but it does provide security of opportunity. By limiting that opportunity, security for unionised labor is increased at the expence of the rest - who's insecurity must increase.
miko
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doctors have malpractice insurance, the AMA and a hospital that will stand behind them in all but the most blatant cases of incompetence.
but those evil Airline Pilots have a union instead.
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Grun do you even have the slightest clue how many hours and years of training it takes to become an airline pilot?
Besides doctors, how many other professions put you in control of hundreds of lives and require tens of thousands of hours of training?
To just get my basic commercial license it will cost me close to $15,000.
thats at 200 hours of training
To get hired by the local commuter airline, CapeAir, I'll need 1000 hours, multiengine too.
So now I've spent prolly at least 50k or so in training expenses, guess what my starting pay there would be?
$9 an HOUR
Airline pilots work for what they make.
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moose: So now I've spent prolly at least 50k or so in training expenses, guess what my starting pay there would be?
$9 an HOUR
That would indicate to me that either they do not really need pilots but are willing to hire a guy for $18,000 a year - rather than leave him unemployed.
Or there are so many people willing to spend money and time training and so much desire to become a pilot that they are would take $18,000.
Or maybe both.
If you moved to NYC and got education as a nurse, you could have had your choice of $45,000 a year jobs.
If the big companies could hire pilots for less, they could offer cheaper fares and fly more planes and need more pilots. Their top-seniority pilots would probably be paid less but there would be jobs for new pilots at better rates.
God forbid, they could experience a shortage of pilots and offer you even more money and training at their own expence - not an unheard of business practice. But of course the union would never allow that.
miko
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You think These guys are overpaid? The average pay for a pilot at "Airtrans" is like 29k. They are flying Dc9's and 717. There a lot of guys outhere willing to get screwed just to aquire jet time. Thats the entire business model for the Regional Jet carriers. Screw the pilot by paying him 18k. Some of thier family's are on welfare. WELFARE for the PILOT OF A RJ jet!!! Those guys put up with it to get jet time. Seriously, the sacrifices a guy must endure to get to the "big time" are very serious ( yes even in the military).
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Besides doctors, how many other professions put you in control of hundreds of lives and require tens of thousands of hours of training? To just get my basic commercial license it will cost me close to $15,000.
thats at 200 hours of training
Wait a minute, tens of thousands of hours of training? You can do it in only 200? What do you have over those other dimwits? :)
No, it doesnt take tens of thousands of hours. Yes, it takes only 200 hrs, or maybe 250 if you dont go through an approved school, but do it at the local airport. With that, you can start flying commercially. You can even fly right seat in an airliner, legally anyway if you can get someone willing to put you there.
To fly as Capt in an airliner, you need an ATP. That requires 1500 hrs total time, not total training time. Try not to exagerrate.
HELL yes todays airline pilots are overpaid. They might try and justify it, but when United agreed to pay their senior Capts in excess of $400,000 a year, I thought that was just plain stupid. They are now suffering the consequences of bad financial decisions such as that.
Reality is this, the average Capt does not have it to darn hard, but he does carry a serious load of responsibility. Should they be paid so much, probably not.
While not an airline pilot, I work for an airline, and I am a licensed pilot. I have ridden the jump seat on alot of airline flights. They got it pretty darn good.
Pilots should be paid on the basis of supply and demand like so many other jobs, not because they have a strong union. dont you think if you offered to let a pilot fly a 747 for, oh say, $125k a year, you could get a fair amount of takers? Sure dont need to pay $400k.
dago
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Miko, you ramble on here, touching on some points you obviously have no hands on knowledge of, explaining other points with impossible vagueness, all the while generalizing your own roadkill to a incomprehensible babble of really hard to understand nonsense. Yet it's delivered like it should be Gods word and the truth.
Entertaining enough, but still amazing!
I gotta work on the boozonics, you are WAY ahead.
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"If you moved to NYC and got education as a nurse, you could have had your choice of $45,000 a year jobs."
Damn, your Nurses are underpaid.;)
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Yeah, let's go bust all the unions and pay everybody 12k/year. Don't like being paid $12k/year? Go work for someone else. Oh, wait, they're paying crappy wages too. Afraid we'll run out of skilled labour? No problem. We will always need nurses and pilots, so it'll be no problem finding them. Just cut down on the training required. Besides we got computers to do the hard part of their jobs. Now if we could just reform the legal system to get rid of those pesky punitive damages that are holding back america's corporations....
Unions are why there are 20-year-old males without jobs. If we just let companies run businesses as businesses, we wouldn't have that problem. Women are a drag on the bottom line. They get pregnant and suddenly they're having kids. Now their cost tot he company is higher, since we're paying for "sick leave", child care, maternity leave, and all the hidden expenses. So let's pay chicks less to reflect the added cost they incur us.
Oh yeah, and experience is good to a point. But really, after about age 40, the metabolism slows down and for most jobs, a younger person is a better choice. So let's just fire old people. Afraid of lawsuits? Well, A. change the law to favor the employers (once again those nasty punitive damages. Get rid of them I say). B. bust the unions. Who cares what the law says if the victim is a single unemployed schmuck who can't afford representation? Corporations are like loving parents to their employees; always forgiving their ungrateful transgressions. It's just one big happy family. We don't need no stinking unions.
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Originally posted by Ripsnort
"If you moved to NYC and got education as a nurse, you could have had your choice of $45,000 a year jobs."
Damn, your Nurses are underpaid.;)
Good thing housing in cheap in the Big Apple...oh wait...:rolleyes:
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Miko, you are way off. The salary of two pilots are "neglectible" compared to the operating cost of the plane.
Add ground crew, ground equipment, mechanics, scheduled maintenance, fuel and fluids, insurance compared to pilot wage/pilot training.
In Europe it's not incomon to have the co-pilot who is actually a guy in training PAYING for his training, and plane tickets prices are still higher than in USA.
Aviation is a funy business. It's not like :
- I invest 30k in a computer engeneering bachelor degree and 4 years later I go work for T.I. at $4,000/month.
it's more like :
- I invest 50K to be a flight instructor, I have 300h single engine.
- Then I need to work 900h as a flight instructor at $10/h (if you fly 4h a day u are lucky).
- Now I have 1200h I can work for a little cargo/charter wohoo!!! oh wait ... I need 200h of multi-engine time, I have only 20h ... if not working for a flight school who has twin engines, take a loan $200/h.
- Yeah I got a job paid $80/day waking up at 5am coming home at 7pm flying cargo!
- wohoo I have 2000h 1 year later, now I can apply for an airline and hope I can make it as a first officer making $2000/month.
- I have 3000h, I just upgraded to captain, I make $5000/month (5 years later after graduation). I think I can afford to pay back my 50k loan and get a payment in a car.
- 3002h ... Oups toejam, just got a letter, in 2 weeks company is furloading me ... I have no job :( ... maybe I'll find a job in an another airline, how lucky I would be!!! Off course, I';ll start back at the bottom of the seniority wage ladder:cool:
Aviation AT ANY LEVEL is a diddlyed up world to work for, but it has great rewards from time to time.
As far as the pilot thread. When you fly L.A. - Tokyo, yeah it's borring as hell. The next reporting point is 2h of flight away. Autopilot is set on NAV/GPS, all systems ok, navigation ok ... let me look by the window ... ohhhhh ocean everywhere ... like the last 5h..... radio ... no radio, we in the middle of nowhere.
Now, if you fly national, that's work on those commuters. Take off from here, checks, talk ATC, monitor, climb, talk, checks, monitor, tune, lvl, checks, talk, set, already descend, talk, monitor, fly obey orders, find ur way in, be as told, land, talk, check . ... run to an another plane .... do it again ... land , run to an another plane ... fly 3rd route of the day ... land ... drive home, sleep.
As far as a doctor and a pilot. When the doctor is operating you and you ear "OUPS" ... the doctor goes home to his brunch with his friends. When you are on final at JFK in the winter fog and you say "OUPS", you are not coming home nor are your passengers. Moreover, the airline you work for lost a $$$plane, lost a carrier for it's route, lost faith from it's customers, and has to pay XXX$ in law suits ... in a word, if you are a medium airline, you are going in.
Aces High is pretty good for the example, I dare ANYONE FLYING ACES HIGH, not at least one time crashed his plane for no reason, coming in for landing w/out gears, stalling/spining while turning final, runing off the runway on take off hitting the reload pad, crashing in a hill while chatting ... well ... it's not much different in real life, except that at best you loose your job and can throw your licences to the trash can while still having to pay back your loans.
my 2cts:p
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hmm lots of money to oversee machinery according to some...
thats why i willk become one (might have to have a m16 in the cockpit but still)
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Originally posted by Creamo
Miko, you ramble on here, touching on some points you obviously have no hands on knowledge of, explaining other points with impossible vagueness, all the while generalizing your own roadkill to a incomprehensible babble of really hard to understand nonsense. Yet it's delivered like it should be Gods word and the truth.
Fricking brilliant post!
You've just summed up half of the posts in this forum.
AKDejaVu
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1. I like having former military pilots in the cockpit if I'm being given a ride, for a number of reasons. Some of the main reasons being that anyone who learns to fly in the military:
1. Isn't paying money to the school or the instructor(s).
2. The school and the instructors don't need the student to become a pilot. If they don't think the student has what it takes, bye bye to the student.
2A. There aren't cases of applicants 'failing the bar' 21 times and *then* becoming a military pilot.
2. I don't care for 'supply and demand' when it comes to Doctors, Pilots, and certain other things. I'd never want anyone I cared for (anyone I didn't want dead for that matter) flying on an airline with the unofficial motto of 'We save you $$$ on tickets because our pilots were hired by the lowest bidder'.
In some things, you get what you pay for, and there's no 'maximum value'. A very, very good friend of my Dad's (one of the guys who *really* 'taught him to fly' after he got his license) was the #1 pilot for United for no small period of time some years back. He made a ton of $$$. Considering that he did the check rides for alot of the younger pilots at United - overpay the guy and I don't mind that cost going to my tickets on United.
How can anyone accurately gauge the worth of a good airline pilot? Accidents are random and unexpected almost every time. There are numerous occasions where the pilots of an airliner alone saved the lives of hundreds of people. Not all pilots are equal. If you had pilots that couldn't get hired (due to competition) in those same emergency situations you'd have alot more fatalities more likely than not.
Mike/wulfie
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Only trust fund babies deserve to have any money. The rest of you can just go ahead and die in the street.
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Hey, SFRT - Frenchy
Did u really fly cargo for 80$ a day? I got a cushy job making 60k and have always thought flying cargo would be kinda of romantic . I would luv to give up my easy job here and put on a Indian Jones uniform...jump into a Dc-3 and fly cargo over the Himalayas. After arriving-bang some chicks- drink some jack and coke-get into a few bar-room fights and do it all over again....ahhh the life...........
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'We save you $$$ on tickets because our pilots were hired by the lowest bidder'.
Funny, people think the aircraft should be flown by the highest paid pilot in the world, but they seem comfortable with airlines farming out the maintenance of those aircraft to the lowest bidding third world maintenance base.
Given the reasoning of some, why pilots should be paid huge sums, how about we pay them all a million bucks a year? Aren't our lives worth it?
Its a sad fact, most Americans consider the most important issue when choosing an airline to fly on to be the price of the ticket, not the quality of the crew or the operation.
dago
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Dago,
Maintenance is as important. I would have mentioned that but the thread was about the pilots.
Mike/wulfie
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Creamo: Miko, you ramble on here, touching on some points you obviously have no hands on knowledge of
Who do you think have a hands on knowlege of how market economy works? God? Universal spirit? Owner of Adam Smith's "Invisible Hand"?
I may not be as good at explaining advantages of the free market and dangers of collectivism as Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman, but then again - even they needed hundreds of pages, not a dozen line post.
In fact a person in a free market society does not have to have any knowlege beyong his/her narrow speciality for the economy to work effectively - interplay of individual margunal utility functions resulting in supply and demand ensures the most efficient allocation of resources - uncluding labor.
Dinger: Yeah, let's go bust all the unions and pay everybody 12k/year. Don't like being paid $12k/year? Go work for someone else.
Maybe let's study some economics first. Economy is a closed system - with lower salaries the products will cost less, so the effective real wages would stay the same - everything produced will be consumed.
It's because of union restrictions that a pilot cannot start with a decent airline for $50K and has to go for crappy one for $18K.
Competition exists for labor as well as the customers - and there would be more of it, not less without unions.
Now if we could just reform the legal system to get rid of those pesky punitive damages
What do those have to do with a free market?
Corporations are like loving parents to their employees; always forgiving their ungrateful transgressions. It's just one big happy family. We don't need no stinking unions.
You think you will love it better living in a socialist country? When everyone is in the union and you have no people to take advantage of?
I bet that in your personal spending you absolutely do not care about all that high-mimded crap you've just said. When you have two groceries selling the identical apples for $1.50 and $2.00, you will sey that the second guy is trying to rip you off and go buy from the first one - rather than inquire if the second one has three employee on maternity leave unlike the first one.
Companies pay for work. If we as a society decide that certain people are entitled to be paid while not working - sick, pregnant, elderly, etc. - fine. But a society as a whole should be saddled with that cost rather than a hapless fellow who happened to be their employer at the moment.
SFRT - Frenchy: Miko, you are way off. The salary of two pilots are "neglectible" compared to the operating cost of the plane.
Add ground crew, ground equipment, mechanics, scheduled maintenance, fuel and fluids, insurance compared to pilot wage/pilot training.
Quite possible that overpaid union labor other than pilots contrubutes much more to the airlines problems. I stand for the free market in general - not just for pilots.
miko
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Originally posted by miko2d
Maybe let's study some economics first. Economy is a closed system - with lower salaries the products will cost less, so the effective real
You mean all the super benevolent corpoations won't just pocket the profits?? But pass it on to the consumers?? :eek:
That's a relief, sign me up! :p
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they use te autopilot to make just about every maneuver. it's like programming a computer. I agree sometimes they have to take over and actually land the plane, but it's not hard at all.
I believe anybody with dough and motivation can become an airline pilot ...it takes ABSOLUTELY no special skills, just not to be a blind deaf uncoordinated dimwit.
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Originally posted by Thrawn
You mean all the super benevolent corpoations won't just pocket the profits??
Only if the corporations in the market are conspiring to fix prices, which is generally illegal. Otherwise they will lower their price to beat their competitors. Supply and demand. Lower price, more volume, more profit.
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Thrawn: You mean all the super benevolent corpoations won't just pocket the profits?? But pass it on to the consumers?? :eek:
With a free market they can't - "extra" profits will create additional insentive for competition and lower capital costs - thus making entry into competition even cheaper.
Corporations do not have to be benevolent to fulfill customers' needs for product and workers' needs for employment. That's teh beauty of a free market system.
No commitee of people deciding how much people are supposed to work and earn would do any better - theoretical impossibility too complex to explain here.
How does giving a Captain extra $100,000 make him more qualified/responcible than he was before the raise?
Usually salary is raised to attract more applicants. It seems there are plenty of willing applicants already. What, are they not good enough?
miko
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Miko2d - may I be permitted to offer a crumb of comfort? You have Creamo and AKDejaVu firing salvos across your bows. For my part, I would say that I've read your posts, and your profile, and have found your posts to be well constructed and interesting, as is your profile. I'm afraid that my support comes at a price, and that is that I'm pretty much a pariah on this board, so by being my friend you could become "guilty by association". Hehe - diddly 'em. Creamo flies N1Ks - LOL! And AKDejaVu is inconsistent: He said that this was amongst the 10 dumbest threads of all time, but he's still here... :rolleyes: They're a pair of c***s - two of the overall "bunch" - the official collective noun for their kind.
When I went for a TB9 checkride at Westchester,NY in 1995 (TB10 was in the workshop - Annual Inspection) my instructor was great. He really made me work hard - the best kind of instructor. But he recognised what I could do and how well I could do it, and didn't let me get away with second best - he would make me repeat an exercise if he knew I could do better. Anyhow, he left Westchester to take a commercial pilot job. His salary: $8000. But worst of all, he had to BUY the job from his new employer - $10,000. I talked to him on the phone after he told me this, and asked him if he was sure he was doing the right thing by entering into a deal like this, but he went ahead anyway. :confused:
Seems like the airlines know that there is a steady pool of jet-jockey wannabes such that the airlines don't have to pay for the training of the people they take on. I've seen many go the "commercial route", to be expensively disappointed.
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The Free Market economy is a myth, and has always been so.
If I'm in a position of power in a corporation, if I rely on the forces of the free market, I am going to lose to my competitors. A successful business doesn't merely cater to a market, it creates the most profitable environment for that market. That means, among other things, manipulating government to get the most advantageous playing field possible and influencing public opinion (marketing in a very gbroad sense).
If you eliminate a government that's independent of the capitalists, you create a situation where businesses compete with each other to sell their brand of human misery. Pollution a problem? Nonsense, we at DeathCo international spend millions a year planting trees in the rainforests so the bunnies and hippies can play.
Your wages too low? We'll boost your credit rating. Now go grab some nice toys at 30% interest and book a hotel on fleet street.
If you eliminate marketing, you just killed free speech.
So we've got some government regulation, which of course, is heavily influenced by the corporations is purports to regulate.
Eliminated the competition? Now invest some of that excess capital to convince the government that you're not a harmful monopoly.
Selling defense toys domestically and abroad? Well, nothing like a war to showcase the tachnology and boost sales.
Those guys in prisons aren't doing the goverment any good. Let's contract the work out to private firms who will charge far above the market value for their service, and exploit the labor of prisoners for such useful activities as telemarketing.
Sorry, the free market as such doesn't exist. If you want to be successful in business, you create the environment and the demand for your product; you don't find it.
And you don't give a damn about the human condition. That's for hippies and democrats to worry about, not business.
Anyway, that's how I'd run a business.
And, sorry, that $2.00 apple actually tastes like an apple.
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Originally posted by udet
they use te autopilot to make just about every maneuver. it's like programming a computer. I agree sometimes they have to take over and actually land the plane, but it's not hard at all.
I believe anybody with dough and motivation can become an airline pilot ...it takes ABSOLUTELY no special skills, just not to be a blind deaf uncoordinated dimwit.
In a world when you have very little traffic yes. For take off and landing it's all manual, climb/descend/cruise it's generally autopilot off course.
Heck how many of you in AH physically fly the plane to 30k?
There are times you don't mess with autopilot or the programing of the computer. Like if you go around in an IFR approach, don't spend 30 seconds your head down typing stuff, you better off fly the plane. Or if just just have been given a new approach to fly.
As far as the no special skill, that's not really true ... I know a lot of very smart people who cannot keep track of several things in a cockpit in a NORMAL situation... not even talking about toejam starting to get wrong.
Now if you were saying :It takes no extras special skill to a IFR pilot to be an airline pilot" ... I may agree.
The big thing with pilots are all the knowledge they need to acquire EXCEPT flying the plane. All the systems, all the procedures, all the emergencies, all the companies policies, all the paperwork, all the ATC lingo, all the FAA/ICAO regulation, all the weather basics and systems, the navigational methods... and like I already said, 1 mistake with any of those and you may loose your licence, thus your job.... still not talking of how fast u need to get yourself together when an emergency arises.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
I'm a student... That is my "career" for the moment.
So.. basically you don't do anything. Ironic.
AKDejaVu
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I've read that a starting wage for a pilot @ American Eagle was $16,800. Delta's commuter airlines starting wage: $15,000, Continental Express: $13,000.
I'd be interested to know if thats actually true? If so....they need a better union!
Tronsky
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Airline pilot = free, easy, guaranteed sex.
Seriously folks, I dont think Ive ever met a girl that was not attracted to pilots, be they fighter jocks or airline pilots.
So stop complaining already. Focus on the important things in life.
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So why do I hear of all these $150,000 year pilots, on strike?
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Dago: yeah, at 200 - 250 hours (depending on the type flight school) you can get a commercial job. I'll probably be doing scenic rides and towing banners next summer for minimum wage.
The reason most airlines start at such a low pay is because the pilots need the flight hours to move on to a better job. You don't get the $$ till you've got the hours, and the type of pilots asking for a hundred fifty grand a year don't just have a couple thousand in the books.
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Toad, don't forget...the last ride you will make, before you die, will be through Atlanta...:D
Thorns
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
Toad tell me what operating expenses are not allowed under the DOT rules and possibly where I could look these rules up.
No dodging this time please, just give me the info I asked fof.
Grun, I didn't dodge. I gave you ASM Cost stats from two well-respected industry sites that use DOT stats. You didn't like what they showed, so you went to individual airline annual reports. You feel the annual reports are more accurate. Fine. Too bad the rest of the industry and wall street analysts use DOT data. I'm sure you can help them out.
Do a little research on your own. Go here:
Bureau of Transportation Statistics Airline Information (http://www.bts.gov/oai/)
and use the search function for "Available Seat Mile Cost".
I'm sure it will turn up something for you.
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Originally posted by miko2d
The answer is simple - the union will not allow you to have that job even if I am willing to accept less.
Incorrect. The COMPANY can hire you.. they can hire whoever they want. They must pay you the rates agreed upon in negotiation with the pilots representatives after your first year. Pilots at most majors are represented by ALPA but SW and AA have their own unions.
Again: the company and the union mutually agree upon rates in negotiation. It's contractual. The union doesn't set rates unilaterally.
Apparently there are plenty of qualified (ex-army) pilots willing to work for salaries somewhat less than prevalent in the industry - and unable to do so because of unions.
Again incorrect. The company can hire anyone they want and pay whatever they choose in the first "probationary" year. After that, mutually negotiated rates apply to all pilots.
So unions screw up other workers by depriving them of jobs and also customers by making them pay extra.
Two points here:
1. Unions don't deprive anyone of a job. Pilot needs are determined by management. If anything, unions create more jobs because if it were up to management all pilots would fly to FAA mandated maximum hours per month. Negotiated maximum hours are always lower.. and that's a good thing for safety. Those of you who haven't flown a month on the line doing 7 legs a day don't know enough to comment intelligently on that, either.
2. Making customers pay extra? It is to laugh. First of all, savings in crew cost aren't "passed on" to the consumer. SW pays their pilots what Delta does but has lower fares. Jet Blue pays less than SW but has ~ the same fares. Hmmmm.
Secondly, do you know how much of your ticket goes to crew? A two hour flight on a full B767 has a crew cost of about $4 per seat.. a bit less I think. So, even half full.. which is well below the company average load factor, it'd be $8 of your ticket. Comparison? A "tourist" evening meal.. when we used to serve those... cost the company @ $13.
How would those millions help airlines which are billions in the hole - Toad would have to explain.
Hey, you're the one so concerned about passing on the savings to the consumer. :)
CEO's compensatioin may vary a lot from year to year if the planes fly half full - unlike a unionised pilot who is paid the same for flying an empty plane.
CEO salary rarely varies. Bonus money varies. Look at Wolf and Gangwal.. they only split $70 million when things were bad and the stock dropped 17%.
Here's an old saw for ya: How much do you tip a taxi driver on a $50 fare? I'll work for that same % as a tip on your fare and take no wages. I'm not worried about the load factor either. :D
How many guys would create new airlines, turn profit and increase employment while employee-owned airlines go bust for the salart Toad think "fair"?
The economic landscape is littered with the wreckage of airline companies that think it's that simple. I'd run out of electronic ink listing them all.
There are no miracles here. Increasing salary may only be accomplished by restricting access to labor market - increasing income of employed at the expence of having more unemployed.
The labor market is restricted...... by the FAA, not the unions. Take the age 60 rule for example. Medical requirements are another. It isn't the unions.
Further, you assume an infinite capacity in the market place. One of the biggest problems in the industry is overcapacity and it is well documented by the Wall Street airline pundits. Overcapacity is the reason most "startups" don't make it.
When things go badly for a company, salaries cannot decrease
Once again, incorrect. Take a look at how many airline workers, union and non-union have taken pay cuts since 9/11. United pilots being a recent example of huge reductions in pay.
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Originally posted by miko2d
Forget ex-military. Your company could add flights, hire qualified willing B767 captains laid-off by bancrupt competitors and make money on their flights - if it hired them for wages lower than union-set wages in your company.
Nope. The company itself says we have too many airplanes for the current market and we're parking them in the desert. We can't fill enough seats at any price. Further, allow me to remind you that pilot crew cost is generally less than the price of a hot meal on a flight.
Working for half pay.. IF the company put all the savings into lowering fares...... would drop the ticket price maybe $5.
The guy who pays for it most is someone who cannot get a job at all because it is not profitable to hire any more people at union wages and not legal to give him a job at lower wages even if he is willing to take it.
Again you assume unlimited demand. It's just not there.. not since 9/11 in the airline industry.
Also, unions cannot operate in conditions of free competition - as a non-unionised company would compete their company out of business.
Then where are all the non-union airlines that have started? They're GONE, that's where. No longer in existence. There's a few exceptions but the "disappeared" ones vastly outnumber the few still flying. And of those, only one or two is making money. Don't use SW either.. they're mostly union now. JetBlue is about the only one I can think of and that'll change as they expand. It's easy to make bucks with 20 airplanes by cherry-picking destinations.. when you get big, there's the challenge.
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Originally posted by Dinger
The Free Market economy is a myth, and has always been so.
:rolleyes:
Plenty of empirical evidence of competitive behavior out there. Yes, government meddling makes it a bit impure. On the other hand, the government actively prevents monopolies and other noncompetitive practices.
There are still vast portions of the economy in which real competition demonstrably occurs.
You're a man of letters, do some reading.
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$13 ?!?!?!
ƒµ€kïñg unionized chefs
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Have I seen you on forums.Flightinfo Toad?
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beet1e - ;)
Dinger - assuming everything is as you've said and it is impossible to have a government that would stay out of economic planning (health, safety, ecological and many other regulations by the government are perfectly compatible with a free matket since they do not preference certain group and they do not change often) - why do you think that throwing union into the mix helps any?
Unions bosses will be the same scoundrels that other institutions have - nothing special about the unions tp prevent that.
Unions do not care in the least about the customers or people left unemployed by their policies.
Union leaders do not always care even about their own members.
Unions cannot exist/function for long without capitalist monopoly - so they are a major defender of monopoly and help lobby government for it alongside with the capitalists.
Free marked does not exist, that's true. It does not mean it cannot exist.
Incorrect. The COMPANY can hire you.. they can hire whoever they want. They must pay you the rates agreed upon in negotiation with the pilots representatives after your first year.
What if I am less attractive to an employer but really want to get the job and prove my worth and willing to sacrifice - say an ugly girl striving to be a salesperson or a programmer with not so-fluent English? I can lower the risk and increase attraction for an employer by lowering my price - but if he is forced to pay high price anyway, why would he care to give me a chance rather than go with more "suitable" candidate?
The "first year" rule specific in airline industry does not change the situation that much.
Again: the company and the union mutually agree upon rates in negotiation.
After the company is blackmailed by a threat of a strike.
1. Unions don't deprive anyone of a job. Pilot needs are determined by management.
Of course they do - in order to keep price up you must limit suppy.
Employer stops hiring once cost of an employee exceeds his marginal utility. There may be plenty of people willing to work for less but if the employer is not allowed to pay less, he would lose money on any new hiree even if he is "free" to do so.
One of the biggest problems in the industry is overcapacity
I bet that if the prices were cut, the planes would be fuller. In order to cut prices you cut expences - and salaries is one of them.
miko
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Thrawn: You mean all the super benevolent corpoations won't just pocket the profits?? But pass it on to the consumers??
As the products get cheaper to build/services to produce - for whatever reason, cheaper materials, labor, better technology - they get cheaper and increase in quality.
Look around you - microprocessors, computers, food, drugs, etc. - everything gets cheaper every year. How come the companies don't just pocket the profits?
You can't be so blind not to see competition all around you driving the prices down.
miko
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Originally posted by miko2d
Look around you - microprocessors, computers, food, drugs, etc. - everything gets cheaper every year. How come the companies don't just pocket the profits?
food isnt getting any cheaper.
drugs only get cheap when the drug patent expires, until then the manufacturer just pockets the profits.
microprocessors & computers are only cheaper when they're obsolecent. top end models are as expensive as they ever were.
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whgates3: food isnt getting any cheaper.
There is a huge load of BS in this single statement.
First. Is it getting cheaper to produce? Most foods are produced by mature technology. The main expence are fuel, electricity, labor and fertilisers. Neither of those get cheaper, so why would this group of foods get cheaper.
Second, you know very well that foods price support is a government policy. Just recently a supermarlet chain got sued for selling the milk too cheap. When government artificially mandates higher food prices in order to keep producers/farmers in business, you are barking up the wrong tree when you blame the free market for that.
Third. Our agriculture is protected from competition. We could buy food much cheaper from 3rd world countries - thus providing them with vital income as well as benafitting our consumers and using freed human labor for more productive pursuits our high-tech economy could provide. Same goes for Europe. Same as (2) - no free market.
Fourth, where there is a progress - like the GM seeds not requiring expensive labor and pesticides/herbicides - food does get cheaper. That is why stores and food chains buy those GM grains despite all the bad publicity. So they must be cheaper, otherwise why would they bother. Now you can claim that it's those food chains and supermarkets who are pocketing the difference - McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's etc. - but that would be a lie. Their prices do go down or quantity goes up or both - especially after inflation.
drugs only get cheap when the drug patent expires, until then the manufacturer just pockets the profits.
You are plain lying again. Drug industry's risk-adjusted return on investment is not notably higher - if not lower - than economy's average. Just check the financial numbers. Intel has higher margins than drug manufacturers, same is true for many other companies/industries. Drug companies have profits but they also have a lot of expense - mostly on research.
If for some reason drugs got more profitable, why would not that cause huge inflow of capital, opening more businesses, increase in competition and drop of prices? Exactly what happened with computer manufacturing, telecom, wireles, etc. just recently.
microprocessors & computers are only cheaper when they're obsolecent. top end models are as expensive as they ever were.
That's pure BS too, not only do top end models get cheaper all the rime, increase in quality is really the same as decrease in price.
Your simplistic mind may count processors as "thingies with legs" and as long as you have one, you do not care what they are capable of.
But people who need those processors for something count in instructions per second per dollar, megabytes of memory per dollar, gigabytes of disk space per dollar - all those get less expensive.
miko
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Originally posted by miko2d
After the company is blackmailed by a threat of a strike.
That pretty much says it all. Enjoy the thread.
Too bad the good old days of "no unions" are past.
Because we could still have the 12 hour work day like we did in the 1820's. That darn strike for the 8 hour day in 1886 was the beginning of ruination.
1900 was great too. Approximately two million children were working in mills, mines, fields, factories, stores, and on city streets across the United States; that could work again! We could put them little basteegees to work!
And we could have blocked safety exits like they had at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in 1911.
And a 52 hour work week like they had in Lawrence, Mass in 1912.
Why should anyone get overtime pay either? Congress with the support of those Evil Unions passed the Fair Labor Standards Act ni 1938. Now those lazy SOBs had a maximum workweek without overtime at 44 hours. The act also established a minimum wage and a ban on child labor. The injustice of it all!
Worker's Compensation...... retirement and health plans......health and safety regulations on the job.
That stuff is all the fault of those nasty UNIONS. Why, without them, everything could still be like the "good old days".
Because you can d*mn sure make book on the fact that "managment" didn't give up a single one of those without a bloody (literally in many instances) fight and would take them back as fast as they could if given the chance.
Oh, yeah... one other thing.
I bet that if the prices were cut, the planes would be fuller.
Check the Air Transport Association industry sight. They're saying fares are the lowest they've been in many years and there's still overcapacity.
Now, I'm out of here. The Pollyanna thinking that Unions aren't necessary and that management has any sort of concern for the worker other than to use him like a Kleenex is beyond my ken.
Sorry. Good luck returning to the "good old days".