US Airlines Hiring Canadians

[Ash Ketchum]

I’m not defending low pay in any way. I’m embarrassed by the starting pay where I fly. Having said that, everyone knows the starting pay before they accept a job. If it’s not enough to survive on without doing OT then don’t take the job. Shortage of pilots willing to work for crap wages combined with nobody doing OT is the quickest way to get a pay raise.

32 years ago I had an offer from a regional, couldn't see how to make ends meet on that wage, I said no. I left aviation and went into engineering, turns out the pinky ring is worth WAY more than an ATPL ever will be.

A few years later, I was headed to an overseas client location, walking up to the terminal at YVR the boys from that regional were walking a picket line, I know most of them. They were hollering at me 'hey goldeneagle, you know how bad it is, dont cross the picket line, support us'. My response to them.

'You took the job in spite of the low wages. I had to leave flying because folks like you were willing to whore yourself out for next to nothing just to get some hours on a bigger airplane. You made your bed, now go lay in it'. With that I walked thru the picket line and went inside to check in at BA for a flight to London.

All the folks here whining about low wages and suggesting 'if only the other guys wouldn't take the job at such a low rate, then I could make more money'. What many of you dont seem to understand, you are 'that other guy' to everybody else. If you took the low paying job, then YOU are the problem.

Just wondering which branch of engineering you went into? I am looking at leaving this industry to go back to engineering (software) myself.

[We_tu_lo]

I’m not defending low pay in any way. I’m embarrassed by the starting pay where I fly. Having said that, everyone knows the starting pay before they accept a job. If it’s not enough to survive on without doing OT then don’t take the job. Shortage of pilots willing to work for crap wages combined with nobody doing OT is the quickest way to get a pay raise.

32 years ago I had an offer from a regional, couldn't see how to make ends meet on that wage, I said no. I left aviation and went into engineering, turns out the pinky ring is worth WAY more than an ATPL ever will be.

A few years later, I was headed to an overseas client location, walking up to the terminal at YVR the boys from that regional were walking a picket line, I know most of them. They were hollering at me 'hey goldeneagle, you know how bad it is, dont cross the picket line, support us'. My response to them.

'You took the job in spite of the low wages. I had to leave flying because folks like you were willing to whore yourself out for next to nothing just to get some hours on a bigger airplane. You made your bed, now go lay in it'. With that I walked thru the picket line and went inside to check in at BA for a flight to London.

All the folks here whining about low wages and suggesting 'if only the other guys wouldn't take the job at such a low rate, then I could make more money'. What many of you dont seem to understand, you are 'that other guy' to everybody else. If you took the low paying job, then YOU are the problem.

Thank you for getting out rather than licking management boots like you would be if you had stayed.

[mmm..bacon]

While it might be too late in my career to take advantage of working for an American carrier, I have just opened a twitter account, and have fired off a couple of tweets to the US Secretary of Transport (Pete Buttigieg) and to the VP Flight Ops of Envoy suggesting that a partial solution to staffing woes might be to hire Canadians. I would humbly suggest if you have a dog in this race (most of us do, I feel) that you do the same...

[‘Bob’]

I’m not defending low pay in any way. I’m embarrassed by the starting pay where I fly. Having said that, everyone knows the starting pay before they accept a job. If it’s not enough to survive on without doing OT then don’t take the job. Shortage of pilots willing to work for crap wages combined with nobody doing OT is the quickest way to get a pay raise.

32 years ago I had an offer from a regional, couldn't see how to make ends meet on that wage, I said no. I left aviation and went into engineering, turns out the pinky ring is worth WAY more than an ATPL ever will be.

A few years later, I was headed to an overseas client location, walking up to the terminal at YVR the boys from that regional were walking a picket line, I know most of them. They were hollering at me 'hey goldeneagle, you know how bad it is, dont cross the picket line, support us'. My response to them.

'You took the job in spite of the low wages. I had to leave flying because folks like you were willing to whore yourself out for next to nothing just to get some hours on a bigger airplane. You made your bed, now go lay in it'. With that I walked thru the picket line and went inside to check in at BA for a flight to London.

All the folks here whining about low wages and suggesting 'if only the other guys wouldn't take the job at such a low rate, then I could make more money'. What many of you dont seem to understand, you are 'that other guy' to everybody else. If you took the low paying job, then YOU are the problem.

Thank you for getting out rather than licking management boots like you would be if you had stayed.

Hahaha!

AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAAA!!!

Someone with the fortitude and ingenuity to pursue a real professional career… and to call a spade a spade… would be the LAST person licking management boots.

That’s what you’re doing and you don’t even realize it they have you so good.

If not? Vote with your feet. Vote to strike. If it doesn’t work, or you don’t get what you want, leave.

Start your own better paying professional career where only your own creativity is your and aversion to risk is your limit.

But no.. you and everyone in this thread wants to move to where the work has already been done.. and likely start licking management boots and putting downward pressure on WAWCON over there.

Ten Canadian pesos says you’d eagerly cross this picket line for existing WAWCON at this US Carrier.

[goldeneagle]

Just wondering which branch of engineering you went into? I am looking at leaving this industry to go back to engineering (software) myself.

I went to school in the 70's and 80's, my field was aerospace. Back then, a lot of flying jobs were seasonal, while my compatriots all joined the UIC Ski Team for the winter, I went off to school and learned to design the airplanes we flew in the summer.

One thing about various aspects of a career, a lot boils down to timing. My timing to go flying was really bad, it was tough getting that first flying job in the early 80's. Much like the last 2 years, the talk was more about furloughs than it was about hiring. But i too fell for the carrot and stick mantra, that 'shortage' was going to be just around the corner because the ww2 vets were all going to imminently retire. blah blah, heard various excuses over the years about the pending shortage, was always based on 'x generation is going to be retiring imminently'. These days the mantra is that the boomers are going to retire. blah blah, more of the same.

My timing on the move to engineering was excellent, the digital process control field was exploding, as was the pc industry. A hobby of mine during the flying years was fussing with code on the pc, specifically doing projects where the pc was controlling some external hardware. I spent the early 90's working at a couple of places, first was a video chipset design office where I wrote video drivers for a new video chipset. From there I moved on to an avionics company who poached me for the flying experience, and worked on the software inside autopilots for a few years. Those projects were interesting and fun, and the companies were great to work with. The video folks was an 'in the cubicle' type of place, the avionics was 'work from the home office, quarterly meetings at head office' kind of place, with occasional trips out to the airport to run flight tests on new product revisions.

During the late 90's I switched it up a bit, hung out the shingle and started taking on more clients, and tried to steer the company away from being wholly focussed on aviation as it's a perpetual boom and bust business cycle. Again the timing was good, my aviation clients had terrible times for a few years after 911.

What is today the 'bread and butter' of our operations came along as a fortunate meeting up. In the early 2000 timeframe wifi routers for the home were the up and coming fun gadgets to play with, and I was experimenting with writing firmware for some of them. Then one day got approached by a potential client, could we do a consumer level product in partnership with them, they would provide the hardware expertise for designing and building the boards, we would provide the software to turn it into a consumer product for home networking. And so a new journey began again, there wasn't a lot of spare cash available, so we took 'percentage of sales' instead of cash payment. That partnership is alive and well today, and going on a percentage of sales basis was eventually the golden goose for us.

Today I am the CEO of a Canadian software engineering firm, we do embedded systems process control and network routing software. I am also a managing partner in an international firm that mass produces consumer products for the retail market. I still dabble in aviation as a 'hobby job', involved in a 703 owned by an old friend. And for my other hobby, I own and operate a small farm, where I live and am slowly working my way into retirement here.

[EdgarAllanPIC]

Just wondering which branch of engineering you went into? I am looking at leaving this industry to go back to engineering (software) myself.

I went to school in the 70's and 80's, my field was aerospace. Back then, a lot of flying jobs were seasonal, while my compatriots all joined the UIC Ski Team for the winter, I went off to school and learned to design the airplanes we flew in the summer.

One thing about various aspects of a career, a lot boils down to timing. My timing to go flying was really bad, it was tough getting that first flying job in the early 80's. Much like the last 2 years, the talk was more about furloughs than it was about hiring. But i too fell for the carrot and stick mantra, that 'shortage' was going to be just around the corner because the ww2 vets were all going to imminently retire. blah blah, heard various excuses over the years about the pending shortage, was always based on 'x generation is going to be retiring imminently'. These days the mantra is that the boomers are going to retire. blah blah, more of the same.

My timing on the move to engineering was excellent, the digital process control field was exploding, as was the pc industry. A hobby of mine during the flying years was fussing with code on the pc, specifically doing projects where the pc was controlling some external hardware. I spent the early 90's working at a couple of places, first was a video chipset design office where I wrote video drivers for a new video chipset. From there I moved on to an avionics company who poached me for the flying experience, and worked on the software inside autopilots for a few years. Those projects were interesting and fun, and the companies were great to work with. The video folks was an 'in the cubicle' type of place, the avionics was 'work from the home office, quarterly meetings at head office' kind of place, with occasional trips out to the airport to run flight tests on new product revisions.

During the late 90's I switched it up a bit, hung out the shingle and started taking on more clients, and tried to steer the company away from being wholly focussed on aviation as it's a perpetual boom and bust business cycle. Again the timing was good, my aviation clients had terrible times for a few years after 911.

What is today the 'bread and butter' of our operations came along as a fortunate meeting up. In the early 2000 timeframe wifi routers for the home were the up and coming fun gadgets to play with, and I was experimenting with writing firmware for some of them. Then one day got approached by a potential client, could we do a consumer level product in partnership with them, they would provide the hardware expertise for designing and building the boards, we would provide the software to turn it into a consumer product for home networking. And so a new journey began again, there wasn't a lot of spare cash available, so we took 'percentage of sales' instead of cash payment. That partnership is alive and well today, and going on a percentage of sales basis was eventually the golden goose for us.

Today I am the CEO of a Canadian software engineering firm, we do embedded systems process control and network routing software. I am also a managing partner in an international firm that mass produces consumer products for the retail market. I still dabble in aviation as a 'hobby job', involved in a 703 owned by an old friend. And for my other hobby, I own and operate a small farm, where I live and am slowly working my way into retirement here.

Never been to Fort Bragg

[Ash Ketchum]

Just wondering which branch of engineering you went into? I am looking at leaving this industry to go back to engineering (software) myself.

I went to school in the 70's and 80's, my field was aerospace. Back then, a lot of flying jobs were seasonal, while my compatriots all joined the UIC Ski Team for the winter, I went off to school and learned to design the airplanes we flew in the summer.

One thing about various aspects of a career, a lot boils down to timing. My timing to go flying was really bad, it was tough getting that first flying job in the early 80's. Much like the last 2 years, the talk was more about furloughs than it was about hiring. But i too fell for the carrot and stick mantra, that 'shortage' was going to be just around the corner because the ww2 vets were all going to imminently retire. blah blah, heard various excuses over the years about the pending shortage, was always based on 'x generation is going to be retiring imminently'. These days the mantra is that the boomers are going to retire. blah blah, more of the same.

My timing on the move to engineering was excellent, the digital process control field was exploding, as was the pc industry. A hobby of mine during the flying years was fussing with code on the pc, specifically doing projects where the pc was controlling some external hardware. I spent the early 90's working at a couple of places, first was a video chipset design office where I wrote video drivers for a new video chipset. From there I moved on to an avionics company who poached me for the flying experience, and worked on the software inside autopilots for a few years. Those projects were interesting and fun, and the companies were great to work with. The video folks was an 'in the cubicle' type of place, the avionics was 'work from the home office, quarterly meetings at head office' kind of place, with occasional trips out to the airport to run flight tests on new product revisions.

During the late 90's I switched it up a bit, hung out the shingle and started taking on more clients, and tried to steer the company away from being wholly focussed on aviation as it's a perpetual boom and bust business cycle. Again the timing was good, my aviation clients had terrible times for a few years after 911.

What is today the 'bread and butter' of our operations came along as a fortunate meeting up. In the early 2000 timeframe wifi routers for the home were the up and coming fun gadgets to play with, and I was experimenting with writing firmware for some of them. Then one day got approached by a potential client, could we do a consumer level product in partnership with them, they would provide the hardware expertise for designing and building the boards, we would provide the software to turn it into a consumer product for home networking. And so a new journey began again, there wasn't a lot of spare cash available, so we took 'percentage of sales' instead of cash payment. That partnership is alive and well today, and going on a percentage of sales basis was eventually the golden goose for us.

Today I am the CEO of a Canadian software engineering firm, we do embedded systems process control and network routing software. I am also a managing partner in an international firm that mass produces consumer products for the retail market. I still dabble in aviation as a 'hobby job', involved in a 703 owned by an old friend. And for my other hobby, I own and operate a small farm, where I live and am slowly working my way into retirement here.

That's a great story, thanks for sharing. Definitely more opportunities for entrepreneurship in software as compared to aviation. I love flying but the pay, work conditions, and instability of aviation in Canada has me thinking of going back to my previous career in the software industry. I was hoping to get a job flying in the US but it still isn't easy for Canadians to go over.

[FlightInstructionGTA]

Hi,

Yes I think there would be plenty of reason to strike.


1) We actually have no idea what would be the consequences because the last strike in Canadian aviation was in 1765.
why would the company would negociate anything if they do not have anything to lose? I would not negociate anything if I was in the shoes of management.

2) Essential services : i am really not sure it is still a thing. But, if it is the case, All the unions together (pilots, FA, mechanics etc) could argue that it is essential for Canadian to travel within the country....but not internationnaly.

3) trying nothing will give us nothing anyway...

4) If it is not already the case. Work all together to remove this nonsense has the no strike policy.
A real shame as we all saw during the pandemic that we were absolutly not "Essentials"

What a joke, come on

[TeePeeCreeper]

Just wondering which branch of engineering you went into? I am looking at leaving this industry to go back to engineering (software) myself.

I went to school in the 70's and 80's, my field was aerospace. Back then, a lot of flying jobs were seasonal, while my compatriots all joined the UIC Ski Team for the winter, I went off to school and learned to design the airplanes we flew in the summer.

One thing about various aspects of a career, a lot boils down to timing. My timing to go flying was really bad, it was tough getting that first flying job in the early 80's. Much like the last 2 years, the talk was more about furloughs than it was about hiring. But i too fell for the carrot and stick mantra, that 'shortage' was going to be just around the corner because the ww2 vets were all going to imminently retire. blah blah, heard various excuses over the years about the pending shortage, was always based on 'x generation is going to be retiring imminently'. These days the mantra is that the boomers are going to retire. blah blah, more of the same.

My timing on the move to engineering was excellent, the digital process control field was exploding, as was the pc industry. A hobby of mine during the flying years was fussing with code on the pc, specifically doing projects where the pc was controlling some external hardware. I spent the early 90's working at a couple of places, first was a video chipset design office where I wrote video drivers for a new video chipset. From there I moved on to an avionics company who poached me for the flying experience, and worked on the software inside autopilots for a few years. Those projects were interesting and fun, and the companies were great to work with. The video folks was an 'in the cubicle' type of place, the avionics was 'work from the home office, quarterly meetings at head office' kind of place, with occasional trips out to the airport to run flight tests on new product revisions.

During the late 90's I switched it up a bit, hung out the shingle and started taking on more clients, and tried to steer the company away from being wholly focussed on aviation as it's a perpetual boom and bust business cycle. Again the timing was good, my aviation clients had terrible times for a few years after 911.

What is today the 'bread and butter' of our operations came along as a fortunate meeting up. In the early 2000 timeframe wifi routers for the home were the up and coming fun gadgets to play with, and I was experimenting with writing firmware for some of them. Then one day got approached by a potential client, could we do a consumer level product in partnership with them, they would provide the hardware expertise for designing and building the boards, we would provide the software to turn it into a consumer product for home networking. And so a new journey began again, there wasn't a lot of spare cash available, so we took 'percentage of sales' instead of cash payment. That partnership is alive and well today, and going on a percentage of sales basis was eventually the golden goose for us.

Today I am the CEO of a Canadian software engineering firm, we do embedded systems process control and network routing software. I am also a managing partner in an international firm that mass produces consumer products for the retail market. I still dabble in aviation as a 'hobby job', involved in a 703 owned by an old friend. And for my other hobby, I own and operate a small farm, where I live and am slowly working my way into retirement here.

Never been to Fort Bragg

EAPIC,

Although funny word play, your comment is douchenozzle like. How about trying to contribute rather than putting down someone whom is?

TPC

[FelixGustof]

What is the best way to the US so I can be a pilot there?

[firstofficer]

Hi,

Yes I think there would be plenty of reason to strike.


1) We actually have no idea what would be the consequences because the last strike in Canadian aviation was in 1765.
why would the company would negociate anything if they do not have anything to lose? I would not negociate anything if I was in the shoes of management.

2) Essential services : i am really not sure it is still a thing. But, if it is the case, All the unions together (pilots, FA, mechanics etc) could argue that it is essential for Canadian to travel within the country....but not internationnaly.

3) trying nothing will give us nothing anyway...

4) If it is not already the case. Work all together to remove this nonsense has the no strike policy.
A real shame as we all saw during the pandemic that we were absolutly not "Essentials"

What a joke, come on

While American Aviators are demonstrating across several airports. Canadians are demonstrating on avcanada. The true laughing stock

[firstofficer]

https://twitter.com/fedexpilots/status/ ... 9iGD9MXxyA

[lenaumade]

Hi,

Yes I think there would be plenty of reason to strike.


1) We actually have no idea what would be the consequences because the last strike in Canadian aviation was in 1765.
why would the company would negociate anything if they do not have anything to lose? I would not negociate anything if I was in the shoes of management.

2) Essential services : i am really not sure it is still a thing. But, if it is the case, All the unions together (pilots, FA, mechanics etc) could argue that it is essential for Canadian to travel within the country....but not internationnaly.

3) trying nothing will give us nothing anyway...

4) If it is not already the case. Work all together to remove this nonsense has the no strike policy.
A real shame as we all saw during the pandemic that we were absolutly not "Essentials"

What a joke, come on

While American Aviators are demonstrating across several airports. Canadians are demonstrating on avcanada. The true laughing stock

American and European pilots. Even in the low cost airlines.

BUT pilots in those parts of the world really engage within the union and the company. When we see that some Canadian pilots complains but have no interest in voting when they need to vote for important things within the company. We have the leaders that we deserve and it is sending a strong signal to the union leaders to not do too much. And a strong signal to management that everybody is happy since the Union don't say anything.
Also the fact that Union member are accessing management position within the company after working for the union is a huge conflict of interest and should absolutly be banned. But nobody is talking about it neither.
So as a working group, we really need to engage within our union, all of us and work in some extense with other unions.
It seems that Canadian Union are mixing their role of representation for the best interest or the workers to a link between the company and the workers. It is really not the same things.

Also I am not sure I would believe the situation in the Us would open for Canadian pilots. The increase in wages is due to a lack of pilots. If Canadian pilots are flooding the US market, those increases will stop. So I guess the pilot union are pushing really hard to not make anybody coming to the US.

[Blueontop]

Hi,

Yes I think there would be plenty of reason to strike.


1) We actually have no idea what would be the consequences because the last strike in Canadian aviation was in 1765.
why would the company would negociate anything if they do not have anything to lose? I would not negociate anything if I was in the shoes of management.

2) Essential services : i am really not sure it is still a thing. But, if it is the case, All the unions together (pilots, FA, mechanics etc) could argue that it is essential for Canadian to travel within the country....but not internationnaly.

3) trying nothing will give us nothing anyway...

4) If it is not already the case. Work all together to remove this nonsense has the no strike policy.
A real shame as we all saw during the pandemic that we were absolutly not "Essentials"

What a joke, come on

While American Aviators are demonstrating across several airports. Canadians are demonstrating on avcanada. The true laughing stock

American and European pilots. Even in the low cost airlines.

BUT pilots in those parts of the world really engage within the union and the company. When we see that some Canadian pilots complains but have no interest in voting when they need to vote for important things within the company. We have the leaders that we deserve and it is sending a strong signal to the union leaders to not do too much. And a strong signal to management that everybody is happy since the Union don't say anything.
Also the fact that Union member are accessing management position within the company after working for the union is a huge conflict of interest and should absolutly be banned. But nobody is talking about it neither.
So as a working group, we really need to engage within our union, all of us and work in some extense with other unions.
It seems that Canadian Union are mixing their role of representation for the best interest or the workers to a link between the company and the workers. It is really not the same things.

Also I am not sure I would believe the situation in the Us would open for Canadian pilots. The increase in wages is due to a lack of pilots. If Canadian pilots are flooding the US market, those increases will stop. So I guess the pilot union are pushing really hard to not make anybody coming to the US.

That is a point to make however if the US opened up to Canadian pilots the total heading down would be essentially a drop in the bucket. I doubt it would have an appreciable effect on their WAWCONS. Plus, I would say that it could be mutually beneficial to US pilots trying to get that coveted 1500 hr ATPL as they could have more opportunities north of the border. The real enemy here is the industry lobbyists on both sides of the border trying to prevent WAWCONS from going up on either side.

[FlightInstructionGTA]

A difference between Canadian Union ALPA or ACPA. The US ALPA are lobbying directly the government. The Canadian union are not.
So if ALPA US strongly lobby to not make Canadian Pilot come, then it will weight in the balance.

[digits_]

Plus, I would say that it could be mutually beneficial to US pilots trying to get that coveted 1500 hr ATPL as they could have more opportunities north of the border.

That could be a great selling point!