Milesar
Well-Known Member
I’d like to bring a couple of quick points to the table here, as well as ask for others opinions on the matter as well. Occasionally as Great Lakes gets mentioned on the boards various comments get tossed out to different degrees; of those have been both positive and negative, however some I personally feel that are unwarranted.
Let me start by saying I am not defending the company by any means, but more the pilot group itself.
Its no secret that Lakes is a low paying carrier, infact I do believe it’s the lowest paying airline. For those unfamiliar with our operations I invite you to take a look at our market, better actually spend some time at one of our fabulous destinations and I think it will be quite apparent that we don’t move a whole lot of people. Its not in our scope to serve routes that can be served by a major airline, not only are the aircraft not suited to that but we’re a regional carrier and its kept at that.
Can the pay be better? Absolutely. Should we be paid more? Absolutely. However at times there appears to be an argument that we are “lowering the bar” or “bringing down the collective pilot group” by flying with these type of wages. I have to disagree because with the amount of people we fly at those speeds to those destinations I find it highly unlikely another airline will use that in a bargaining argument.
Before I signed that almighty training contract, I made sure I wasn’t stepping on anyones toes by working in such an environment, the rest of us here most likely shared similar thoughts. The pilot group is very pro active on improving the working conditions, unfortunately in the past few years being represented by IBT 747 didn’t allow us to get the leverage we wanted, a movement was started at the beginning of the year to make a change and we recently voted in a new union with 78% participation from the pilot group.
The work definitely isn’t for anyone, it is an embarrassing pay scale and I totally understand when someone would rather keep another job rather than, in many cases, take a pay cut to work for an airline; However for some it can work, and it’s a great opportunity to be able to capitalize on.
I’d really like to hear some opinions/thoughts from other airline pilots on how they feel about it. I’ve only been doing this for a short time and really don’t know much, I only started paying attention to the industry a few years back. If in anyway you feel we are lowering the bar, how could the pilot group remedy it? Although we work at different carries I do feel like we’re all in this together.
All just friendly, informative discussion.
Let me start by saying I am not defending the company by any means, but more the pilot group itself.
Its no secret that Lakes is a low paying carrier, infact I do believe it’s the lowest paying airline. For those unfamiliar with our operations I invite you to take a look at our market, better actually spend some time at one of our fabulous destinations and I think it will be quite apparent that we don’t move a whole lot of people. Its not in our scope to serve routes that can be served by a major airline, not only are the aircraft not suited to that but we’re a regional carrier and its kept at that.
Can the pay be better? Absolutely. Should we be paid more? Absolutely. However at times there appears to be an argument that we are “lowering the bar” or “bringing down the collective pilot group” by flying with these type of wages. I have to disagree because with the amount of people we fly at those speeds to those destinations I find it highly unlikely another airline will use that in a bargaining argument.
Before I signed that almighty training contract, I made sure I wasn’t stepping on anyones toes by working in such an environment, the rest of us here most likely shared similar thoughts. The pilot group is very pro active on improving the working conditions, unfortunately in the past few years being represented by IBT 747 didn’t allow us to get the leverage we wanted, a movement was started at the beginning of the year to make a change and we recently voted in a new union with 78% participation from the pilot group.
The work definitely isn’t for anyone, it is an embarrassing pay scale and I totally understand when someone would rather keep another job rather than, in many cases, take a pay cut to work for an airline; However for some it can work, and it’s a great opportunity to be able to capitalize on.
I’d really like to hear some opinions/thoughts from other airline pilots on how they feel about it. I’ve only been doing this for a short time and really don’t know much, I only started paying attention to the industry a few years back. If in anyway you feel we are lowering the bar, how could the pilot group remedy it? Although we work at different carries I do feel like we’re all in this together.
All just friendly, informative discussion.
