bbmikej
Well-Known Member
- Major airlines don't hire freshly minted dispatchers off the street. Any time I've ever seen a totally green dispatcher walk into the office of a major as a dispatcher it's been from another internal position in the airline. WN does this all the time. If you want to come in externally, you need experience. You gain experience through the regional system. Consider it like an apprenticeship.
You say this, but I have seen people with about 3 months of experience after sign off at a regional get hired by major airlines without prior dispatch experience.
- Regional airlines (usually) aren't in major metropolitan areas. Though this has really kind of consolidated a bit, so that's not always the case, but airlines like Air Wisconsin are a good example. Skywest is another. Appleton and St. George aren't exactly bustling metropolises with expensive rent. I know for a fact there are quite a few of my former co-workers at Dairy Air that are making a pretty good living out there on AWAC pay. Don't get married to a number. Wage is relative to the power of the dollar where you live. If you make $60K in Appleton Wisconsin you're carving out a pretty good life. If you make $60K in New York, you're homeless.
More and more regional are being consolidated into major cities. Probable close to half are. Expressjet in ATL, Envoy in DFW, Endeavor and Compass are in MSP, MESA in PHX, and Horizon is in PDX. None of those are easy to live off $30k/yr. Then there are those in the mid-sized cities that it is easier like STL, CLE, and IND but still not on the level as Appleton or Salisbury. To get a 1-br in most of those major areas will cost you around $1000/mo and when your take home after taxes and insurance is in the $22k range, that is a good 50% of your income. With this there are 2 options, 1.) The airlines need to increase pay to regional dispatchers, 2.) Move the airline to a small town where the dollar has a higher value. The problem with 1.) is that it cuts into the bottom line. The problem with 2.) is that most people in a HQ seem to make a comfortable amount where they won't want to leave their big city.
I know how much it sucks being where you are. When I started at Air Midwest in 2001 I made a measly $28K a year, if that.
That is probable still and accurate starting salary, mabe $2k-$5k more a year. So, in 17 years the starting salary is the same. With average inflation at just over 2% a year and prices at about 38% higher, this is one of the only industries that has stagnated that badly. Imagine back to 2001 and think about starting with a salary of $20,000 instead of $28,000. Could you do it? Now thinks, could you do it in a major city?
You have a lot of people who have been in the majors for a while saying "Suck it up and put your time in, we had to" but the financial landscape has changed around a wage that hasn't and that is no longer an accurate enough of a comparison. When the pay is almost unchanged from before the recession, something has gone wrong financially. And yes, maybe I should get with the union and try to make things happen, but there is another post on this forum about another airline trying to get up to a somewhat industry standard pay and some of the comments are even more hostile than some comments on here.