Let the industry professionals have a chat, mmm'kay? There's plenty of places to go play Ayn Rand in the Lavatory.
So about that Delta + $1
- Thread starter OldTownPilot
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Let the industry professionals have a chat, mmm'kay? There's plenty of places to go play Ayn Rand in the Lavatory.
CaptBill
Well-Known Member
I can absolutely see how Skydog2, and others not familiar with the industry, would see management / labor issues in this light. In a typical job scenario, that is essentially how things would work. However, when you are hired as a professional pilot things are a bit different. From the early days of ALPA and organized labor, management has been forced to see new hire pilots more or less as partners. After being hired they go on to join the whole of the pilot group and operate in accordance with work rules and pay rates that were negotiated in the current labor contract. Management deals with the pilot group as a whole and doesn't manage via individuals like Home Depot might. A pilot can be disciplined individually for certain behavior, but otherwise falls under the umbrella of the entire pilot group. What affects one pilot typically affects all pilots. Pilots have invested their entire being into this career and once established at a carrier their chances of going to another airline becomes improbable at best. So in essence, management agrees to be partners with the pilot group and the pilot group agrees to provide a high quality and standardized product for management. If management had the ability or luxury of simply throwing away one labor group for a less expensive labor group, there would be chaos in the industry on many levels and nobody wants that, including most management teams. So in a strange way, it is OUR job and we all work hard to protect working conditions so that those who follow us will be able to claim THEIR job. A clerk at Home Depot can be replaced overnight, not so with a professional pilot.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
jynxyjoe
Queso King
surreal1221
Well-Known Member
Don't feed the troll Chitlins.
I had just under seven years at AWAC, and was offered a job at CAL. But I declined it because I decided that I had had enough of the professional aviation business.
CalCapt, you make a fair point. I admit that many of my perspectives have evolved. When I was in, I thought as many here did. But when I left, I had a change of perspective. Mostly now, I think about things from the businessman/entrepeneur's perspective.
Simply put, it's the entrepeneur who is taking the risk. Take for example, Hulas Kanodia at Trans States. Love him or hate him, he created several hundred pilot jobs over the course of almost 3 decades. Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of pilots were able to get in, get their time, and move on to something better because of the risk HK took. All the while, those pilots and other employees were the first to get paid. HK onlyu got paid if TSA turned a profit, and I'm sure there were years that he didn't. I don't particularly like HK, but I respect that he is the person who would have lost everything if TSA had gone the way most small aviation businesses do.
Someone is going to say that pilots and employees take risks too. I don't see it that way. Any pilot who leaves the company takes with him exactly what he brought,and perhaps leaves with something more: a type rating, bought and paid for by HK. What exactly did the pilot lose?
4 years ago, I made the choice to take a different path, and despite a couple of hard years where I was worse off than when I was there, I am now happier and more prosperous than I ever was in the airlines. Perhaps I don't earn as much as I could have, but I also don't constantly worry about the future. You're only stuck if you choose to be.
CalCapt, you make a fair point. I admit that many of my perspectives have evolved. When I was in, I thought as many here did. But when I left, I had a change of perspective. Mostly now, I think about things from the businessman/entrepeneur's perspective.
Simply put, it's the entrepeneur who is taking the risk. Take for example, Hulas Kanodia at Trans States. Love him or hate him, he created several hundred pilot jobs over the course of almost 3 decades. Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of pilots were able to get in, get their time, and move on to something better because of the risk HK took. All the while, those pilots and other employees were the first to get paid. HK onlyu got paid if TSA turned a profit, and I'm sure there were years that he didn't. I don't particularly like HK, but I respect that he is the person who would have lost everything if TSA had gone the way most small aviation businesses do.
Someone is going to say that pilots and employees take risks too. I don't see it that way. Any pilot who leaves the company takes with him exactly what he brought,and perhaps leaves with something more: a type rating, bought and paid for by HK. What exactly did the pilot lose?
4 years ago, I made the choice to take a different path, and despite a couple of hard years where I was worse off than when I was there, I am now happier and more prosperous than I ever was in the airlines. Perhaps I don't earn as much as I could have, but I also don't constantly worry about the future. You're only stuck if you choose to be.
cmill
Cold Ass Honky
How noble of HK to do all those pilots a favor by giving out a type rating.
Its that attitude of get your time and move on that has made regionals such a crappy place to be, and now pilots arent even moving on. What did the pilots lose? Their dignity, for starters.
But who are you blaming for that? That attitude reflects what commuters/regionals have historically always been......the "get your time and move on" airlines; the gateway to mainline from the civilian route. Both management and the pilots have all known this. It's only very recently that there's started to be a shift in that thinking. So for somone to have that attitude, really isn't that far off, based on what the regional concept has historically been.
cmill
Cold Ass Honky
I cant really argue with that. Its true that it has always been like that, but things are changing. It just kinda irked me for someone to imply that management was out doing favors by giving away type ratings.
Even when i was working for a flight school that shall remain nameless, we were required to go to meetings with the owners of the school and the HR department of SkyWest. Basically it was just a kool-aid drinking session. Put your time in at this school, then put in your time at skywest, and move on. The point is, even the company was spewing the line about get your time and move on. "6 months from FO to captain." Four years later and my instructor's instructor is still an FO on the 120.
We all bought in to it. I think five years ago no one even bothered to look past the third year pay scale, because no one planned on being anywhere that long.
To answer your question, its mostly the pilot's fault. Management sold the idea and the pilot's bought it. I dont think either group knew the merry-go-round would stop where it did, bit thats the way it is. So now pilots are looking at spending a career for a company they thought they would last five years with. Hopefully they can negotiate something better.
I fully agree, times are definitely a changinhg. Before I went to the AF as a pilot, I started on the civilian route. Doug and I were in college at the time, about '90-'91-ish, and sitting at the airport restaurant, we planned to finish our ratings and school, probably instruct, and get on to the "big leagues" which at that very moment was taxiing in: the Mesa Airlines C-208B Caravan that served our airport. THAT was the beginning of the big leagues, yet was still a stepping stone to the Major Leagues.......at the time, UAL hands-down.
Of course, our paths diverged wildly from that planned direction, but still, that a reflection of what the going thought process was back then. Fast forward to the story you tell, and even further forward to what we're seeing now. Been an interesting evolution.
cmill
Cold Ass Honky
Yeah, im still pretty new at this, but its interesting to talk to my buddies and look back at our "grand plans." If nothing else its been a wild ride, but we all consider ourselves fortunate to still be working.
SlumTodd_Millionaire
Most Hated Member
It should irk you. In fact, it should offend you. The entire idea that pilots, or any other employees for that matter, should be grateful for a job is absurd. The relationship between the employee and the employer is a business relationship. You provide a service for a fee so that they can sell a product to a customer. Without you, the company earns nothing, and vice versa. Skydog's insinuation that employees are just parasites feeding of of benevolent employers is about the craziest idea I've ever seen posted here. No one has any reason to be grateful for a type rating. That type rating was earned through hard work.
Furthermore, the idea that a CEO doesn't get paid if the company isn't successful is another bunch of nonsense. Hulas makes boatloads of cash, regardless of TSA's success. The patron saint of management excess in this arena is UAL's Glenn Tilton, who makes ungodly amounts of money, despite not being able to manage his way out of a wet paper bag.
cmill
Cold Ass Honky
Thats exactly what i would have said if i hadnt been drinking all night. :beer:
SpiraMirabilis
Possible Subversive
This type of business relationship ATN describes demonstrates the effectiveness of economies of scale and why unions and collective bargaining is important in any company of size. An employee has exactly one employer, usually, but an employer may have hundreds or thousands of employees. The relative importance of a single relationship becomes increasingly less important to the employer as the pool of employees increase, while it always stays constant (and high) for the employee.
I have never insinuated anything of the sort. I do not consider employees to be parasites. I consider them the same as you do. As one-half of a business relationship. In my experience, it is the employee who has felt that he is entitled to more than he is.
There is a difference between Glenn Tilton and Hulas Kanodia. GT is nothing but another in a long line "business school graduate" managers. He risked nothing. He started nothing. He built nothing. HK, love him or hate him, put his own money into this venture known as Trans States Airlines. Had it gone south, as so many aviation businessees do, he would have nothing to show for his investment. But he succeeded, and because of that success, hundreds of pilots have had jobs to build their resumes, and a few have had careers.
Yes, a type rating is earned through hard work. But who paid the bill for that type rating? Not the pilot. The pilot's job is to show up, study, work hard, and achieve the necessary performance standard to earn the type rating. All the while getting paid to do so. If the pilot fails to acheive the necessary standard, who is out? The worst that happens to the pilot is that he stops getting paid. But HK has invested several thousand dollars in training expenses, and has nothing to show for it. So now he has to go hire or train another pilot, and pay several thousand more dollars.
I remember many many moons ago seeing a TSA pilot sitting in the airport at KMWA, with a totally dejected expression on his face. Speaking with one of the agents who was a friend of mine, I learned that he had just been fired because he failed his upgrade training. Apparently you only get one attempt at upgrade training at TSA, at least back then. At the time I thought it was ty thing to do. I still think that way, but for a different reason: why throw away several thousand dollars of training expense investment when with perhaps with a bit more instruction, he would acheive the standard. Seemed a waste of resources to me. But, it's HK money that is being spent, so HK gets to make that decision.
kellwolf
Piece of Trash
Your previous posts indicate otherwise. I've never gotten the feeling that you think of employees as one-half of a business partnership. You've always spoken about how employees should just accept what was going on and do the job because they're getting paid to do it. While this IS a businessman/entrepreneur way of thinking, it's one that generally ends in a high turn over ratio. I don't see how you can say the things you do about airline pilots and labor, then in another thread say that someone's boss took the lazy man's way out by firing him. Seems contradictory that airline pilots should just plug along and do their job because they're getting paid but flight school owners should work with their instructors to make things better and fix problems. Aren't the instructors getting paid? Shouldn't they also just shut up and tow the line?
If the FAA didn't require the type ratings for CAs, the airlines wouldn't pay for it. If they can find someone to pay for the type to save them money, they'd do that, too. Don't for one SECOND think airlines are being magnanimous about handing out type ratings. SWA gets a pass in my book because they require YOU to buy the type, but they pay a better wage than just about anyone else flying the same equipment. Sure, CAL will type me, but I'd be making $20 an hour less. If regionals (TSA/Go Jets included) could get CAs in class without paying for type ratings, they would do it in a heart beat. If they could get the requirement that CAs have a type rating dropped, they'd do that, too. Instead of doing what was in the spirit of the ICAO standards and type rating FOs, they do an "SIC type," which is essentially just a checked box on a form during a 121 check out sim. Why? It's cheaper.
Let's say I can choose between working for Airline A and Airline B. Their payscales are the same. I choose Airline A because I believe that they are stronger long-term vs. Airline B. Let's say my salary starts at $20,000/yr and goes up by $5,000 per year to a maximum of $100,000/yr. By year five, I've made $150,000 total. Then my predictions are proven incorrect, as Airline A goes out of business while Airline B has managed to remain around. I go over to Airline B, where I end up back at the bottom of the seniority list. In another five years at Airline B, I make another $150,000, for a total of $300,000. But had I chosen to work for Airline B at the beginning, I would have made $425,000 over that same period. What have I lost by working for Airline A? $125,000. I could fly for Airline B for the rest of my career, but I'm never getting that money back. In fact, over a 25 year career, I'd make a total of $1,820,000 at Airline B. If I started at Airline A and got furloughed before going to Airline B, I'd make a total of $1,470,000 over the same time span. That's $350,000 I will never see, all because my gamble on Airline A didn't pay off.
So don't tell me pilots don't take risks. In an industry where seniority determines how much you are paid, and where there is no way to transfer seniority from company to company, there is a significant opportunity cost should the company you choose to work for go under (which is generally independent of the quality of the work that you do).
jynxyjoe
Queso King
He wisely changes his views thread to thread when enough people call him on his crap.
To which he will say, "No I don't."