[TheFarmer]

^

Best post I’ve read for a long time.

The private sector seems to now be behaving in the same way the public sector has for decades.

[RisePilot]

I've always been of the opinion that if you don't like the deal you are on, you should go find a better one elsewhere. If you can't find a better deal elsewhere, the job is paying what it is worth.

Sooty is correct. Striking is a poor solution and part of a bygone era.

As for FlyingFemme's rant, I'd ask her to please point out that time in history when everything was great with British business - I'm certain I have a strong counter for any time frame chosen.

You don't make jobs just for the sake of making jobs. Society and industry changes over time; we will never go back to blue-collar unskilled labour making high incomes. In brief, if your job is repetitive, dirty or dangerous it is likely on the way out.

As for business practices and models, get more of my money by giving me something I want. Regarding public vs private, the first question should be is this a public good/service or a private good/service.

The airline pilot strikes are just the start of move that will progress. Airline pilots are overpaid for what they do (yes I said that out loud); their incomes will decline in the longer term. We have a short/mid-term shortage which is delaying the inevitable, but it is inevietable nonetheless. If you job is getting something from A to B, the glory days are over - no matter if with think of the glory days of public aviation with Frank Sinatra singing "Come Fly with Me" in the background.

[cockney steve]

@RisePilot Are you quietly forgetting the huge personal investment and risk, plus loss of income, that a Commercial pilot makes, in order to qualify?.........I can't think of another industry or profession, where the individual not only pays their own training, but realistically, cannot work during that time, thus shortening their working life and they don't get any tax-relief on that investment either.

If as @Flyingfemme mentioned, they invested that sum elsewhere, as a beancounter,- their sole objective would seem to be to inflate the company's balance-sheet "profit" cream-off an inflated pay and bonus and jump ship before the hollowed-out company crashes.
Mercedes -Benz...spent many years building an enviable reputation for quality, reliability and longevity. The bean-counters virtually destroyed that reputation in the '90's breakdowns, gearboxes, engines and flooded electronics abounded- those that did perform,soon turned into rust-buckets. They have subsequently revisited their core- values and survive.
Pilots,it seems, love their job, Management exploit this fact.
Working- hours are the envy of most. Train-drivers are driving a similarly high- value piece of machinery, but vastly more pax for a far longer working life. The responsibility must weigh heavily.

I concur that fares are the problem with scheduled air services. I did Manchester Schiphol return for under £60...and both flights were full...Couldn't get to London by train for that (or drive!)

[RisePilot]

Firstly, using the terms "suits" or "bean counters" quickly erodes any credibility in a conversation with people who actually work in finance as a profession. Many persons/professions put a large investment into themselves and their education. Doctors don't get to deduct medical school costs from their taxes - pilots are not some special class.

No, it is not fitting that a young regional airline pilot start on £19k year and be worked like a mule; neither is it fitting that major airline captains are treated like prima donnas and flashing around in Ferrari's and Maserati's. If the latter does get that; good for him/her (I don't begrudge that), but we should all note that it is not the long-term natural state.

[CloudHound]

and flashing around in Ferrari's and Maserati's.

Most of the one's I know run Jags.

[CloudHound]

And this just came to mind.

“Train people well enough so they can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.” Richard Branson

[Flyin'Dutch']

I totally disagree with groups holding the country to ransom, whether it be ATC's, pilots or tanker drivers, employers should be entitled to sack them on those grounds.

Indeed sack them and put them on a black list so they can never find work again, bloomin' trouble makers.

Witholding labour is the only 'power' employed people have - for employers to be able to sack people when they exercise that right would be the ultimate erosion of employment rights.

I don't know your background but unless you are part of the landed gentry I suggest you show some deference to those who have gone before and fought in the face of adversity to make sure that we are now (that is still yet) get treated a bit better than by our erstwhile feudal masters.

[Bill McCarthy]

Somewhere along the line commercial pilot had set the precedent when they paid for their own training.

[defcribed]

Airline pilots are overpaid for what they do (yes I said that out loud); their incomes will decline in the longer term. We have a short/mid-term shortage which is delaying the inevitable, but it is inevietable nonetheless.

I thought it was obvious that they were over paid? Six figure salaries in a job with no academic barrier to entry was never going to last. Airlines realised this and started making people buy their way into it, which at least offset some of their costs, while at the same time reducing the pay such that those starting now will never make that money.

There is no shortage, not even close. There is just less of a surplus than there was. A shortage would be when the airlines are banging on the front doors of anyone who can fly and offering to pay for their ATPL exams, CPL, ME-IR and type rating.

If an airline is hiring pilots, how may applicants are there for one job? Not as many as there were, but still an awful lot.

In my professional role (which genuinely does have a shortage and always has done) if you interview for a job with a competitor then Prob90 you are the only candidate and they will need to offer a chunky salary hike to induce you to move.

[Human Factor]

We’re not paid for what we do. We’re paid for what we can do.

That will be my sole contribution to this topic I’m afraid.

[TheFarmer]

Wow, heavy...

[Sooty25]

I totally disagree with groups holding the country to ransom, whether it be ATC's, pilots or tanker drivers, employers should be entitled to sack them on those grounds.

Indeed sack them and put them on a black list so they can never find work again, bloomin' trouble makers.

Witholding labour is the only 'power' employed people have - for employers to be able to sack people when they exercise that right would be the ultimate erosion of employment rights.

I don't know your background but unless you are part of the landed gentry I suggest you show some deference to those who have gone before and fought in the face of adversity to make sure that we are now (that is still yet) get treated a bit better than by our erstwhile feudal masters.

Could you highlight where I said BLACKLIST?

[MichaelP]

We love to fly, we love our jobs, why would we need to be paid anything more than enough to exist?

Sobering for me to have paid a little more than the going rate to the instructors I employed in 2008, and I even paid a monthly base pay.
Did my best.

2019 and the school now pays less!
Though $1 CAD more per hour than the major school on the field.
And now the airlines are so called short of pilots, and maybe it’s true as instructors are sucked up, and pilots are beginning to be paid.
Your first job flying a Q400 will pay more than $30k CAD a year where as a couple of years ago you’d be lucky with anything over $20k.

You don’t even need the instructor route any more. Bring your CPL and go to work.
Good for the rental market too... Airline pilots need PIC time, and Night time too, and so need the Piper Tomahawk to get this important time in their logbooks to upgrade from right seat to left seat in the turboprop or non Max 737.

Thousands of hours, and a seaplane rating and in my day bring 1,500 hours floats for a job on the wet coast. 500 might do if they liked you, now see a pilot with fresh CPL and 70 hours seaplane get the job you would have cherished twenty years ago.

Corners are cut, pay rises a little, but never to 1980’s levels, and pilots get jobs flying Airbuses.
Will pilots flying 737 Max’s get more, danger pay?
Will airlines be able to service the insurance costs for such an aircraft?

[Josh]

The only reason Ryanair pilots are striking now is that it has taken this long to get to a point where they have union recognition and the legal ability to do so. The entire corporate structure and domicile choice of Ryanair has explicitly been constructed to thwart any form of organised labour. The shortage of labour is what forced them to recognise union. That strikes would happen was entirely predictable to anyone who has seen the Ryanair approach to labour relations.

The stories about pilots wealth in the papers are starting to make my wife wonder if I have a hidden bank account!

[MichaelP]

Governments set tariffs I believe.

Maybe in order to protect the industry Governments should set minimum standards for airlines that include minimum charges.
A problem with lower and lower fare prices might be in reduced safety standards.
Even reading Sully’s book, where he had to bring sandwiches to work!, the IMSAFE check must often be broken in so many ways.

Illness (Mental?), Medication (stress medicine?), Stress (discontent), Alcohol (United), Fatigue (duty time loopholes used often here in Canada), Eating (forgot my sandwiches today!).

Slobs getting on board your aircraft, flip flops, hairy stomachs sagging over the belts, rude people, smelly people...
In the ‘overpaid’ 80’s and especially before, people would be ashamed to board an airliner looking like that.
It’s a culture descending into “I don’t care”.

Standards.