PFJ is a symptom of an illness.  The illness is too many pilots for not enough jobs.
Another symptom of that illness is low paying CFI/regional/freight dog jobs.
All these "symptoms" are part of the big "supply and demand" picture.
Think of pilots as a commodity. Tomatos for example.
Let's say that for the last few years there have been way more tomatoes grown than the market needs, so the prices have been driven down. Gentleman Joe the part-time farmer, in the midst of all this, plants not only his usual 1 acre of tomatos, but an additional 2 acres, simply because he loves growing tomatos. He takes his tomatos to market and proceeds to sell them at well below his cost to produce, just to make some money back. Doesn't come close to covering his time and materials growing them, but since this is just a side-line to him, not his livelihood, he doesn't really care too much. Now, a few years down the road Gentlemen Joe decides that he likes growing tomatos so much that he is going to buy some more land and do it full-time, for a living. But, the market price for tomatos is now so low that there is almost no way to be able to pay for the land and seeds and fertilizer and pay himself a living wage.
What do you think Joe's previous decisions regarding flooding the market with below-cost tomatos had on his future earnings potential as a tomato farmer?
Same thing in this business. Paying For a Job drives the market value of pilots down.
				
			Another symptom of that illness is low paying CFI/regional/freight dog jobs.
All these "symptoms" are part of the big "supply and demand" picture.
Think of pilots as a commodity. Tomatos for example.
Let's say that for the last few years there have been way more tomatoes grown than the market needs, so the prices have been driven down. Gentleman Joe the part-time farmer, in the midst of all this, plants not only his usual 1 acre of tomatos, but an additional 2 acres, simply because he loves growing tomatos. He takes his tomatos to market and proceeds to sell them at well below his cost to produce, just to make some money back. Doesn't come close to covering his time and materials growing them, but since this is just a side-line to him, not his livelihood, he doesn't really care too much. Now, a few years down the road Gentlemen Joe decides that he likes growing tomatos so much that he is going to buy some more land and do it full-time, for a living. But, the market price for tomatos is now so low that there is almost no way to be able to pay for the land and seeds and fertilizer and pay himself a living wage.
What do you think Joe's previous decisions regarding flooding the market with below-cost tomatos had on his future earnings potential as a tomato farmer?
Same thing in this business. Paying For a Job drives the market value of pilots down.
 
	 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		 
 
		