The training industry as it exists in Canada has an over abundance of instructors who are barely past the student stage then self' s.
See my concern?
Definitely. What do you think of an instructor grandfather system for experienced pilots?
The co-joes I've flown with have a steep learning curve when jumping into their first commercial machine, especially aircraft handling skills (myself included). But with time and a few grey hairs, all have met the standards (comfortably) to be captain. I'm still pretty new though, so I have no doubt there are exceptions.
I don't know how every one else feels, but I'm hell of a lot more comfortable flying on a canadian airline with canadian pilots because I know the vast majority got their chops in the north. I don't mind paying more for that experience and willingly do. But maybe I'm just biased
However today's multiple choice are not anywhere near the accuracy of the students knowledge of the subject as the exams were many decades ago.
When I wrote the ALTP license exams they were hand written answers.....not multiple choice.....far better measurement of the students grasp to the subject......by the way the airplane that was used in my ATPL was the Super Connie 1049' one of piston poundings greatest examples
I love Connies. Boy, would I love to just see one fly overhead right now. Well, it's dark right now, maybe tomorrow.
There have been many changes in the exams over the years. Not long ago on the instrument exam you had to draw the weather. I thought it was fun and a good way to kill some time.
Sometimes when I'm in a really old building or watching an old movie I'm astonished that once upon a time there were guys whose jobs were to actually drive elevators. They even had pretty spiffy uniforms. Maybe in the future, people will be equally astonished to learn that there were once guys whose job was to actually drive aeroplanes. Of course, one does not really drive an aeroplane. One FLIES an aeroplane.
I'm disappointed though, .. I thought you would have a good stout recipe.
The next time you watch your kids or Grand children get on that school bus I hope these thoughts go thru your mind. How much experience and training does that person have? Hopefully that person is getting paid enough that they only have to work 1 job with a maximum hours of 120 per month. Heaven forbid they are not over worked under paid working 2 or 3 jobs and 250 hours plus per month to make $35,000.00 per year. But really what does it matter they are just caring the most precious cargo in the world (KIDS) or meeting me you our families on the same roads we travel.
As for Flying aircraft and getting all our passengers home safely well we do it that even if it is just cargo behind us. The truth is none of us want to die. I doubt there is 1 pilot out there that handles an emergency situation 1 bit different because there is passengers back there. The Fact is we are trying to save our own Asses and all the rest behind will follow. Although it could be that some think Cargo pilots should make minimum wage as they only have their own butts in their hands.
In closing the next time you walk into Wal-Mart, McDonalds any restaurant or bar as those people how much they make a year and how many hours they have to work to make it. For get the fact that you are an educated pilot.
the elevator has a ton of failsafes if the electronics stop working. the airplane, not so much. look at how many drones have been lost due to some failure, I'm sure the Iranians will be happy to let you see their's. At the end of the day we are in the seat for when things go wrong.
godsrcrazy wrote:The next time you watch your kids or Grand children get on that school bus I hope these thoughts go thru your mind. How much experience and training does that person have? Hopefully that person is getting paid enough that they only have to work 1 job with a maximum hours of 120 per month. Heaven forbid they are not over worked under paid working 2 or 3 jobs and 250 hours plus per month to make $35,000.00 per year. But really what does it matter they are just caring the most precious cargo in the world (KIDS) or meeting me you our families on the same roads we travel.
This example isn't very similar.
If I was going into surgery, I would care a ton about how well the surgeon was paid, how rested they are, and how experienced they are. I don't really care too much about the janitor or technician who has to sanitize the operating room. Sure they do an important job, keeping germs out and such, but it's not a particularly difficult job, and I don't expect to pay too much for it. It's the surgeon, who is doing the difficult job, who I would actually care about their well being, experience, and pay.
slowstream wrote:I believe that all of those passengers on the Air France flight 447 that crashed into the Atlantic would have preferred someone at the controls who could have recognized an aircraft stall (without being told it was stalling) and they would have been more than willing to pay more for that experience especially after the fact.
Unfortunately I think the AF447 is not the best pilot salary argument. But more a type of licence one (cramming theory versus true practice)
Pilots at Air France are very well paid.
TG,
I guess I should have been more specific, I wasn't trying to refer to Air France's pay but rather relating to a crews experience level and that I would bet my last dollar that every passenger on board would have preferred to have a experienced crew member at the controls when the problem was encountered.
Experience is worth something and its experience you want when things go wrong.
godsrcrazy wrote:The next time you watch your kids or Grand children get on that school bus I hope these thoughts go thru your mind. How much experience and training does that person have? Hopefully that person is getting paid enough that they only have to work 1 job with a maximum hours of 120 per month. Heaven forbid they are not over worked under paid working 2 or 3 jobs and 250 hours plus per month to make $35,000.00 per year. But really what does it matter they are just caring the most precious cargo in the world (KIDS) or meeting me you our families on the same roads we travel.
As for Flying aircraft and getting all our passengers home safely well we do it that even if it is just cargo behind us. The truth is none of us want to die. I doubt there is 1 pilot out there that handles an emergency situation 1 bit different because there is passengers back there. The Fact is we are trying to save our own Asses and all the rest behind will follow. Although it could be that some think Cargo pilots should make minimum wage as they only have their own butts in their hands.
In closing the next time you walk into Wal-Mart, McDonalds any restaurant or bar as those people how much they make a year and how many hours they have to work to make it. For get the fact that you are an educated pilot.
Do you have a thing for bus drivers or what?
Since you are overpaid, I suggest you donate half your salary to the bus drivers retirement fund.
godsrcrazy wrote:
In closing the next time you walk into Wal-Mart, McDonalds any restaurant or bar as those people how much they make a year and how many hours they have to work to make it. For get the fact that you are an educated pilot.
I would like to think that I'm paid for my decision making not for my time.
When you have no critical decision to make at work, you can expect minimum wages. Otherwise, no.
slowstream wrote:Its a complex question and therefore requires a complex answer first off.
What's complex about it? As many posters have already pointed out: something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. This applies to selling your house as well as selling your services as a pilot.
Customers want the highest quality and cheapest prices, and management/owners won't pay you (or anyone else) more than they have to. It's not personal, it's business. Don't get all emotional about it.
The suit,
No worry, I won't get all emotional (lol),
I think it is complex, I think it has to do with a lot of perceptions, perceptions, as someone else pointed out do airlines view us as a commodity or not, or do they view us a high cost expense? How do pilots view their worth? How does the general public view our worth and our worth when it really counts? I think many of the players are distorting the value which is to be expected in this increasingly greedy world. I think that very, very few in the general public have no clue about our wages, time involved to get established, hours worked plus the times. I also think that vast majority of the traveling public roll the dice so to speak hoping they will have a very experienced crew up front for their flight.
I think if the general public and the airlines were asked and an honest answer was given they all would have offered up more money in the event of emergency arising for an experienced crew. But thats just my opinion.
I think your correct, the public wants the greatest level of service at the best times, with the best crews at the cheapest cost, I also don't see that changing without some sort of education or P.R program to educate people on the importance of experience and having crews that are well rested and not worrying about making their payments while their at work.
Unlike ANY other industry my job is in jeopardy 4 times a year and everyday when I fly. I am responsible for a great many lives and extremely expensive equipment and I think all that combined is worth more than the perceptions of airlines or the general public, but again thats just my opinion.
I also think your right that airlines won't pay you more than they absolutely have to and thats been proven. The airline I work for pays their Captains really rather well but it comes at the expense of the F/O's and those just entering the company regardless of experience and I think thats wrong.
I know the reality of the situation, nor can I argue that reality, but it does not make it right or moral.
As I expressed in my previous post I just sold my house, I had people try to low-ball me, I pointed out what made my house different, why it was worth more than market area and told them that maybe my house wasn't the house for them and wished them luck with their shopping on price. That was my option, which I exercised; I also had a lot of people who recognized the value and craftsmanship and as such was reflected in the offers.
So I think it is complex, because your dealing with perceptions, reality, honesty, integrity and greed ........ and good luck solving it without unity.
We're talking about 'value' here as something that everyone agrees on. 'value' in your own head is completely irrelevant. Any one of you can put any value you want on anything and it is meaningless until you try and trade to get/give it.
The 'value' of a pilot is precisely what the market is paying for it today. Period. THERE'S NO OTHER WAY TO DEFINE IT.
Same goes for a human life, the environment, transcendental artistic experiences or any other thing morons trot out as having a value 'you can't put a price on'. Wanna know what the total value of a 747 with no empty seats is? There are several insurance brokers a phone call away who can probably tell you to the cent. The atmosphere that sustains all known life in the universe? Big Oil and the UN are talking about it. Great music? How many tracks did you pirate this month?
As for this 'sure worth a lot more during an emergency': WRONG. What are you gonna f***ing do - go on strike when the stove goes cold until the pax cough up a bonus? I imagine they'd be stepping on their own dicks in their haste to open their wallets. BUT, since you are gonna be first on the scene, I'm guessing you'd would work for free at that point. Funny.
We are talking about a transaction. Value is the number with the $ in front of it YOU agreed to. We live in a free market. Everyone LOVES to be free. Except in this one instance where we'd like some kind of political solution to distort the market in our favour. Maybe mandate 500 hrs for a CPL so I can owe $80K when I finish.
Everyone keeps talking about the value of pilots or their market value. However, isn't it a bit of both? It seems to me that the airline industry, as well as practically every other industries in a free market economy, pays their employees based on their perceived value, rather than their true value. Note that 'perceived value' is the key word there.
Perceived value in my mind, is the value an employer has on an employee. This might come in several different forms, such as pilots as a commodity and the training required to become one. Because the aviation industry doesn't limit the number of pilots that flight schools pump out, pilots will always be an undervalued commodity, as they're perceived to be a dime a dozen and easy to train. That perception of this profession is what seems to me to be degrading this industry.
Almost every other profession limits the number of people who able to enter into it. Law schools are very selective when choosing who can attend. Engineering schools usually weed out those unfit for the profession. Pilot's don't do this however, which will result in the continued degration of this industry. Almost anyone can get into it; there are no test that really weed out people. Due to this, the number of pilots versus jobs is overinflated, and the manager's perceived value of pilots decreases. Who can blame them? It seems like if some pilot isn't willing to take the crappy pay, there will be someone behind them who will.
So why doesn't the piloting profession follow suit? It's seems that every other respectable profession has already built some sort of system to weed people out, in order to increase their perceived value. Why not aviation? You may say that because pilot training isn't like the others in terms of difficulty; but it is. For example: medical school. The perception there is that it is insanely hard, and only the select few; the brightest and most hard work, are able to become doctors. This isn't true thought. Many people with bad university grades, who were unable to get into any Canadian medical schools, head down to a Caribbean school to study, and then are able to come back up to Canada and become doctors. So obviously students who were not able to make the cut here in Canada, can still become fine doctors. But the medical system weeded them out, so that doctors remain a valued commodity. I wholeheartedly think that aviation needs to do the same.
The 'value' of a pilot is precisely what the market is paying for it today. Period. THERE'S NO OTHER WAY TO DEFINE IT.
Ummm, no...
Do you usually talk yourself out of position like this?
Compensation, when it comes right down it, is usually discussed after a position has be "offered". It is usually discussed between two people separated by a desk and the ensuing discussion is called "dickering". Or, the union, has done this for you, if there is one. I can see your point, if that's what you mean, but then of course, can you strike? Then what good are they?
Pilots take much pride in learning everything there is to know about gaining employment with a specific operator. Including fleet, personnel, HR responses and, of course, advanced aviation related knowledge. The "I can do that" attitude is forcefully applied to all questioning. Except when it comes to the compensation, and the dickering. What's the problem?
"As per company sh!t pay scale" "Yea..yea, sure, no problem..
How about, "I think that you need to find a younger, less experienced pilot for this position. I couldn't in good conscience accept this position for any less than (+ 1/3)"
This is the other side of the HR coin. How about doing some research and dry practice runs on that. Learn those techniques, study that portion of the interview process. Remember, they already want you. A position has been offered.
I once turned down a job 3 times over a 7 day period, but I knew that they needed me, and the pay just kept going up until I had to say yes. 80thou to fly a ho.
Remember the "I can do that" attitude. The employer wants to see confidence when he asks about your experience landing on pot-lights, in a blizzard, in the dead of winter at 4am on a medevac.
You'd think that you could give him a little bit of that confidence when it comes to your compensation!!!
No profession is perfectly managed, or is immune to economics.
Start with doctors. Frosty makes an important point - a huge number of doctors are forgeign trained. The reason for this is the incredibly high cost of medical training. The spaces are limited to the number of students the school can afford to train, so instead of spending to open more medical schools, it's cheaper to just steal trained doctors from other countries. This isn't much different from what Sunwing does, except the demand for doctors is so large the college of physicians is just happy they're able to manage the shortfall.
Move from the shortage of doctors to the more balanced engineering profession. Engineering schools are quite expensive to run, but not horrifically so like medical schools. They fail a huge number of students out in the early years to book some revenue but still keep the quality of graduates up, which keeps salaries up, which keeps people applying to be failed out. The problem now is that the brutal reputation is turning off applicants, and many of the brightest students who make it through enter finance or management which is much more lucrative (and easier). Companies piss and moan about having to provide competitive salaries to retain talent and cry about shortages, but in the end they usually pay which is why any top 10 paying college majors list is dominated by engineering degrees.
Now, move to lawyers. It seems fitting that lawyers are the least ethical in how they manage their profession, which is in crisis in the US. Law schools are extremely cheap to run and rake in loads of cash for the university and the professors. There are so many law schools in the states the market is completely saturated, so if you google "law school scam" you will find an endless list of blogs started by militant, angry law graduates who flip hamburgers. NY Times did a pretty good peice on it last year.
TheSuit, those were some great points. Personally, I would prefer aviation to be like medicine, because it just seems like they have everything down perfect.
What all these of professions seem to have in common, which aviation doesn't have, is the ability to weed out people before they enter the job field. If we continue to allow the industry to weed out pilots as it is right now, the perceived value of these pilots will continue to decline. I hope someday in the near future a college of sorts will be created to fix some of this issue. I would be more than willing to embrace a more difficult and expensive training regime, if it meant better job prospects and better pay in the future.
Find something you enjoy that there's a market for and stick with it. Everyone flocks to the airlines, but quite frankly I think in 10 or 20 years airlines will be a dead end. Find something to have fun at that a computer can't do.
Have any of you ever done any real research to answer the original question, what is a pilot worth ? I have, on behalf of clients, it's a topic that's been run thru the mill a number of times. My information comes from history, and, for those who dont look at history, it's going to repeat itself again, and again, and again.
History tells us this. Back in the 60's and 70's, a senior pilot at an airline, was taking home an annual sum in the low 6 figures range, on the order of 125K. Regular increases were the norm, and, that number started to sneak north of 150K. When the number started to hit 175K, airlines started to feel the pinch. During the 70's, the market reacted in a most unique manner, the two tier pay scale was introduced, new hires on tier 2, old timers on tier 1. This brought the scales back considerably, so that the senior folks would once again be capped off in the 125K range. This was the first major market correction regarding the cost of pilots to the airlines.
The second major correction came later, the manufacturers went to the 2 pilot cockpit, and airlines gobbled up 2 pilot airplanes. This allowed a significant reduction in crew cost for the cockpit crew, yet another type of market adjustment, but this time by changing the equipment rather than the pay scales. Diesel 8, dc10, 707, 727 et al were all headed to the desert storage, replaced by the 2 pilot replacements, and pilot costs were reducing for airlines. The tier 2 folks moved onto this equipment, and regularily negotiated pay increases till a senior driver was once again reaching into the 175K range, and the market started the next round of corrections.
The next round of corrections came from a completely different direction. Long standing traditional carriers suddenly found themselves in competition with 'low cost' carriers, which were offering pilot salaries about half what the traditional carriers were paying. The low cost carriers cut corners everywhere, and, every job at one of those outfits paid substantially less than the equivalent at a legacy carrier. The net result of that over time, legacy carriers started going bankrupt, and, pilots went from high paying jobs, to no job at all. Those that stuck with flying, went from a low seniority number at the legacy carrier, to a very high number at the newcomers, and, took the associated cut in pay to make that jump. Many of them learned an important lesson along the way, better to keep the current job at a lower salary, than to be looking at a new hire position with another carrier, because in a seniority driven environment, it doesn't pay to be at the bottom of the heap.
The most recent round of market adjustments for pilot salary / cost (depends on your viewpoint which is the correct verbiage) started again as the senior folks started to edge up into the 175K range, with airlines making noise about unsustainable costs, and a crop of pilots that still remembered what happened when airlines went broke. Those pilots did not want to end up at the bottom of the list at 'the other guys', so, they took cuts to try help stave off the inevitable.
So, just look at history, and, you can find the answer to the question of 'what is a pilot worth?'. History tells us, a senior pilot at the seniority driven operation, is worth 150K per year. When the numbers start sneaking up above that value, the market corrects in one fashion or another, and pushes it back to 125K, so that it can sneak up again over a few years. The other detail to remember, the diesel 8 driver making 150K per annum, did so at a time when that was a LOT of money, more than enough to buy a moderately plush house. Today, that number represents a much smaller buying power than it did many years ago, and, it actually takes a few years of those wages to buy the same moderately plush house. With history as a guide, in 20 years, a senior pilot will STILL be worth roughly 150K, and, that salary will not even pay the rent on a small apartment.
A senior pilot is worth 150K to an airline. When the numbers go above that value, the market will correct it in some way, shape or form, and push it back down to the 125K range, at which point it will start to sneak back up annually, until it hits 175 or thereabouts again. Once the mainline senior guys are in that range, market will react, and push it back down somehow. This process has been going thru the 'lather, rinse, repeat' cycle since the late 60's, and, nothing is going to change that. As long as the puppy mills are grinding out fresh young ppl candidates, a senior position at an airline is worth 150K, and, that number will NOT keep up with inflation.
I am glad you mentioned inflation at the end...In the 1960s, 150k , after tax bought a pretty nice hourse. Now a 150k (at a higher tax rate) is hardly a downpayment on a house....Inflation has a very eroding effect on numbers.
Perhaps rework your numbers in 1960 dollars, and see what the average airline pilot is really making.
The question I originally posed, was based on the fact that pilots seem to feel they are worth so much money, yet the reality is they will work fro virtually nothing. If you think you are worth 60k a year drving a navajo, why would you t ake a job at 15k a year...Or work on the ramp?
The puppy mills keep selling the story, and to many pilots buy into it.
The other thing about comparing pilots to other professions. I dont know that doctors, bus drivers etc, come in private and commercial licenses...It is a fundamental, but important difference, as generally pilots initial training is not to a working standard. And training , no matter how good at the innitial stages will replace experience...a fact to many 703 operators know and take advantage of.
As to the public. They believe that if the pilot is properly licensed and qualified by TC and the company, they are safe. It is that simple. They have no idea that the kid in the right seat finished flight school three months ago and has never flown in a cloud...just like his instructor.
Maybe, if we really do believe our own BS, pilots will stop working for nothing.
Just quickly crunched the numbers. $150,000 in 2012 is equivalent to $20,703.47 in 1960. The Inverse would be that $150,000 in 1960 would now be worth $1,190,322.58 in 2012
