Article on Fox News

Enterprising.... I actually like the sleeping in the airport quest where he says the media makes it seem like im sipping coffee all night. I'm getting sleep. Its just not very restful.
 
This article is why this career / industry is in the can. Yes, I like going to work in the morning, but it is work, and we should be compensated for our expertise. My passion and 'enterprising' ability is not worth 60k annually. Oh, I forgot, I am building experience so I can go do the exact same job, at the airline whose aircrafts livery is strikingly similar to ours, for six times the pay...

Sorry, rant over, I wish that they would not have interviewed a new hire without rose glasses!

Cheers!
 
In our continuing series interviewing airline personnel Airfarewatchdog.com asked a regional jet pilot about his work. The answers may surprise--and perhaps disturb—you.
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Me?

Is it true that you get paid less than some flight attendants?
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Yes, but it depends on the airline. Most of us are doing this because we have a passion for aviation and plan to move up in the industry. We do not plan to fly 50-seat regional jets all of our life. While the hefty salaries of experienced pilots may not stay as high as they once were, we are not doing this for the pay. We earn experience by flying regional jets and that experience will help us fly for larger airlines with mainline aircraft where the pay is higher.
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However the trends, unfortunately, are having regionals fly to the domestic legs to hubs to the point that the international codeshare flies from the hubs to cities beyond. 15 years ago, putting up with the rigors of regional flying in order to step up was acceptable, but if the current trends continue, a regional may sadly become the alpha and the omega of a professional airline pilots career.



How do you earn the hours needed to qualify to be an airline pilot?
Many of us begin very early taking flight lessons and earning our hours. Others come through the military and earn their hours flying during their training or in school. They are the lucky ones because their training is paid for; school is the biggest expense for non-military pilots. It is a double whammy to have loans to pay for school and survive on such little pay. But, we love what we do so much that we deal with it.

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The military aren't necessarily the "lucky ones". Applying, meeting standards, not washing out of training, being deployed, surviving war actions etc, has nothing to do with "luck".




How do you survive on such a small salary?
For one thing, we are like flight attendants, and we have crash pads in our bases. These are apartments, houses, or sometimes even trailers that we all share as pilots. We are never all there at once meaning we all pay a portion of the rent, and then we use the beds a few nights a month. It is a lot cheaper than a hotel or paying for an apartment. Secondly, almost all of my friends have a second job. They are real estate agents, temporary workers, part-time coaches, or even eBay pros. We do what we have to do to survive, but our lifestyle is not glamorous. It is all fueled by the hope to grow our career while building our skills as a pilot.
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The salaries can be small, higher up the food chain as well. I think it's important to realize that just getting out of a regional isn't going to necessarily be the "Shangri-La" that many people hope it will be.

Is it true that you sometimes sleep in the airport?
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There have been times when crew scheduling has us operate flights into cities that arrive after midnight and depart around 4-5 am. In these instances, it makes little sense for us to take a shuttle to a hotel, check in, sleep for only a few hours, and then have a wake-up call an hour and a half before departure. What ends up happening is that we have "quiet rooms" in some terminals with La-Z-Boy style loungers, pitch-black surroundings, and absolute quiet. We get more rest knowing that we are at the airport, but it never qualifies as sound sleep. The media likes to make it seem that we slurp coffee in the airport bar all night, but we do have a place to sleep. It is not entirely restful, and our schedule only allows for one of these on a multi-day trip, but it does happen. This is becoming rare, but it happens. We will have more extended rest periods built into the trip later down the line.
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SOMETIMES, if you're fortunate, you may have a "Quiet Room" and if you do, they widely vary in quality and sanitation. I've never known a "Quiet Room" to be quiet. Usually there's someone snoring, noises from the janitors, jackwads on their bluetooth earpieces yammering on about whatnot, etc.

Explain the parking lot trailer park at LAX.
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It's true. Some crew members based in the LAX area don't even bother looking for crash pads in town. Instead, they pay rent to sleep in one of a series of trailers in a parking lot under the approach path at LAX. These are popular with pilots on reserve who need to be within close proximity to the airport and those who don't want to deal with the city traffic.
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I thought LAX booted them all. Ehh, what do I know.

Why would you even accept this job if the schedule is so intense?
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This is a stepping-stone for almost all of us. The major airlines typically hire from the regional carriers so this is a great avenue for growth. Sadly, there are also a lot of pilots who have been furloughed from their jobs flying the big jets at the majors who accept jobs flying for regional carriers because that is their only option.
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Stepping stone for some of us that are networked and prepared to take on new opportunities. End of the road for many of us because they may not meet the minimum qualifications, or did the career preparation (networking) for the next level. "Stepping back" from a major to a regional is your only option if it's your only option because you failed to make a "Plan B" and did more 'negative' networking than 'positive' networking. Lots of guys get a job, forget their friends and talk a lot of smack in their social circles, only to find themselves in a situation where they're out of work, out of ideas and out of people that are able to help.

I cannot stress that last (run-on) sentence enough. I see it every day.

Could you accept a pay cut from $90,000 to $30,000 in a year?
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Most people could not, but we pilots are an enterprising bunch.
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Do tell.

Why do pilots have to go through the same security checks that passengers do? Isn't that counter-intuitive?
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That's exactly what we think! If we have the controls of the aircraft anyway, it makes more sense to ease the lines by clearing pilots in advance. Some airports have a test program and waive us through (Baltimore has this in some terminals for example), but others are still struggling to implement it. For now, we must go through the same charades as passengers except it really is pointless for us.
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Use the term "Kabuki Theater" next time and leave it at that. Your intended audience will understand, those that don't never will.

Ehh, I'm bored, that's all I have.
 
If you took the job knowing the pay, STOP bitching. I can not stand people who constantly bitch about their paychecks and how bad they are treated. There are a lot of flight schools with starting pay over 30k (some well over 40k) in need of flight instructors. Freight companies are looking, air ambo, jump pilots, hell go fly the pipe. All of these were and are viable alternatives. Of course you will not be in a shiny RJ.

-RANT OVER-
 
Flight attendants start at $17-18/hr. What regional airline has pilots making less than flight attendants?
 
js0305 said:
If you took the job knowing the pay, STOP bitching. I can not stand people who constantly bitch about their paychecks and how bad they are treated. There are a lot of flight schools with starting pay over 30k (some well over 40k) in need of flight instructors. Freight companies are looking, air ambo, jump pilots, hell go fly the pipe. All of these were and are viable alternatives. Of course you will not be in a shiny RJ.

-RANT OVER-
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And people who bitch about people bitching are what I cannot stand. Thanks to Jetcareers I came into my job with what I thought was a pretty realistic set of expectations. Yet I was completely underwhelmed. Again, I love the job. Hate the BS that comes with it. Things actually weren't so bad when I started, but when the leadership at my company decided they thought it would be cool to drive with their eyes closed, much uncertainty has developed.

Nobody comes to a regional intending for it to be the end all of their careers. They do it because if their goal is to end up at a major airline, experience at a regional is valued much more than any of those jobs you listed above, no matter how well they pay.
 
It's funny how the article doesn't name who is being interviewed/quoted. They don't even say "interviewee works for X airline and wants to remain anonymous". Seems kind of unusual. The guy who wrote the article could have read an ATP flight school marketing ad and talked to one of their recruiters to come up with this stuff.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
And people who bitch about people bitching are what I cannot stand........Nobody comes to a regional intending for it to be the end all of their careers. They do it because if their goal is to end up at a major airline, experience at a regional is valued much more than any of those jobs you listed above, no matter how well they pay.
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I was simply stating that there are a lot of jobs that pay much better yet people still go to a regional in debt and no money in the bank and then bitch about pay. They knew full well what they were getting into. Why not, instead of bitching, go work at a better paying job and pay off some debt and/or get a bank account in the black then go get your experience at a regional? I realize that this might offset your dreams by 5 years but its better than constantly complaining about how bad you have it. In a perfect world regional pay and QOL would be much better, but until the flow of resume's slows its not going to be. We are our own worst enemy.

Nothing personal, just my opinions here.
 
Trip7 said:
Flight attendants start at $17-18/hr. What regional airline has pilots making less than flight attendants?
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Great Lakes and Key Lime probably but I'm not sure and don't care enough to look it up. Gulstream, err, Silver, still doing their PFJ or do they also pay exceptionally poor?
 
Somebody explain to me how a job that requires years of training, a $60,000+ investment, and involves flying a multimillion dollar aircraft and being responsible for dozens of lives pays less than Starbucks? Unfortunately I would take that job too...
 
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