US Airways to Strike Soon!

AustinIllini said:

Well that's quite a generalization. Please, tell me about all the great airlines run by pilots without business training.


When you pick a specialized profession, you do somewhat get "pigeonholed". That's life.

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And yet no-one should be able to stop someone else from growing and learning and becoming much more of a person than you limit them to being. You wouldn't like it if someone kept you from doing something more than what you currently doing. If you do, are you happy with someone telling you what you can and can not do? because you would be letting them do that.

BL.

Many (most?) of the major airlines were started by pilots. Today many pilots have all sorts of sides careers or piloting is there lesser careers, such as business men, lawyers, farmers, car dealerships, electricians, carpenters, franchise owners, landscaping, and many more.

bradl said:

And yet no-one should be able to stop someone else from growing and learning and becoming much more of a person than you limit them to being. You wouldn't like it if someone kept you from doing something more than what you currently doing. If you do, are you happy with someone telling you what you can and can not do? because you would be letting them do that.

BL.

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This is neither relevant nor worth the time. And no, that's not my argument.

Huntn said:

Many (most?) of the major airlines were started by pilots. Today many pilots have all sorts of sides careers or piloting is there lesser careers, such as business men, lawyers, farmers, car dealerships, electricians, carpenters, franchise owners, landscaping, and many more.

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Fine, but there's no evidence to suggest that pilots would suddenly run a giant business any better than it is run now.

bradl said:

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Until they realize that pilots are not just pawns and the means to their revenue, things like this will continue to happen.

Frontier Airlines got shredded completely, through 2 CEOs and sold by Republic because of how they treated their pilots and crew. Undercover Boss showed us that plight...

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Yes, what happened to Frontier kinda sucked. I liked Frontier the one trip on which I got to use them before they cut their Louisville route. Decently-kept aircraft and (IMO) service, and hilarious ads.

Now when I have to fly for a business trip, I use Southwest, because I'm not that keen on other carriers... ahem... Diverting Everything Living Through Atlanta. SW is not immune to that phenomenon, admittedly; on my way back from Denver recently, my plane made a stopover in Tampa. ?!?

Whether the reintroduction of Eastern will shake things up enough in the market remains to be seen, but one can always have guarded optimism.
/hums "If You Had Wings" softly...

dXTC said:

Yes, what happened to Frontier kinda sucked. I liked Frontier the one trip on which I got to use them before they cut their Louisville route. Decently-kept aircraft and (IMO) service, and hilarious ads.



Now when I have to fly for a business trip, I use Southwest, because I'm not that keen on other carriers... ahem... Diverting Everything Living Through Atlanta. SW is not immune to that phenomenon, admittedly; on my way back from Denver recently, my plane made a stopover in Tampa. ?!?



Whether the reintroduction of Eastern will shake things up enough in the market remains to be seen, but one can always have guarded optimism.

/hums "If You Had Wings" softly...

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I don't know why this bothers people so much. Know where the hub cities are and keep that in mind when choosing an airline. Don't like Atlanta? Don't fly Delta.

AustinIllini said:

I don't know why this bothers people so much. Know where the hub cities are and keep that in mind when choosing an airline. Don't like Atlanta? Don't fly Delta.

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Don't get me wrong; I like Atlanta**, and I can't say that I "hate" Delta. If I ever find myself in need of a nonstop trip to Atlanta, I'm sure Delta has it covered better than any other.

However, I'm not keen on multiple-leg or connecting-flight schedules in general. Availability of a nonstop flight is rather high on my priority list. Sure, in some cases I've "dealt with it", but if I have a nonstop option, I'll take it.


**Many people I know despise Atlanta's airport because of its size. I don't mind it at all. One airport that I REALLY don't like, though: Kansas City. Ugh. Then again, I'm not that experienced a traveler, so feel free to disagree.

bradl said:

Until they realize that pilots are not just pawns and the means to their revenue, things like this will continue to happen.

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It's no different in any profession. Employees are looked at as being disposable resources to be used or discarded as needed. The pilots are getting treated the same as most other workers in other industries.

Plutonius said:

It's no different in any profession. Employees are looked at as being disposable resources to be used or discarded as needed. The pilots are getting treated the same as most other workers in other industries.

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The price they pay for modern business today.

As I said, I dutifully recall a time when the CEO of a company was also versed in the knowledge that made the company run.

The CEO of a couple of record labels were also musicians themselves. The CEOs of a few airlines were also pilots. Now that has changed, all for the sake of 'business'.

BL.

Muscle Master said:

Pilots aren't all that disposable... Especially experienced pilots these days

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Agreed. This is evident with how Great Lakes Airlines just recently had to suspend operations for a period of time due to lack of pilots (read: pilot shortage). Disposable resources? not when they are the ones making you the money. So it would do them good to treat their pilots nicely; without them, they go out of business.

BL.

Plutonius said:

It's no different in any profession. Employees are looked at as being disposable resources to be used or discarded as needed. The pilots are getting treated the same as most other workers in other industries.

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Unless the owners are willing to shut their operation down and eat whatever losses result, pilots have a distinct advantage over the majority of employees. They have skills that involve extensive training, require a high level of experience for a safe operation, and as a group they can't be replaced wholesale on a whim without an extensive shutdown.

Huntn said:

Unless the owners are willing to shut their operation down and eat whatever losses result, pilots have a distinct advantage over the majority of employees. They have skills that involve extensive training, require a high level of experience for a safe operation, and as a group they can't be replaced wholesale on a whim without an extensive shutdown.

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Most of us want to think we are indispensable. In business now, most CEOs run their companies for the highest short term profit and stock prices.

Plutonius said:

Most of us want to think we are indispensable. In business now, most CEOs run their companies for the highest short term profit and stock prices.

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That is my entire point. There used to be a time when the CEO of a business could relate to the people making the company money, because he or she used to be in that position. They started at the ground level and worked their way up to that position. In short, they had experience in how the company ran before taking the position of running the company.

Nowadays? it's about as rare as using the Pony Express to deliver your mail.

When your CEO puts profits, revenue, and investors first before serving the people who make the company and him money, you tend to get issues like this coming up, where people unionize to have a voice, strike, and cause operations to be disrupted, leading to company shutdown.

BL.

Huntn said:

Unless the owners are willing to shut their operation down and eat whatever losses result, pilots have a distinct advantage over the majority of employees. They have skills that involve extensive training, require a high level of experience for a safe operation, and as a group they can't be replaced wholesale on a whim without an extensive shutdown.

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Lots of unemployed pilots out there now since its fairly easy to be one

alent1234 said:

Lots of unemployed pilots out there now since its fairly easy to be one

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So you have $100,000( that is how much my training cost) to get all your ratings, build up to 1500 hours, and then want to be paid $25,000/yr?

It's not easy to be one. You have to have the technical know how to fly the plane, then have the knowledge of weather, systems, airspace, etc. And the more complicated the plane you fly, the better at managing those systems you have to be( the FMS, electronics, etc). Then you have to be able to handle emergencies when things fail and make the correct judgment calls.

alent1234 said:

Lots of unemployed pilots out there now since its fairly easy to be one

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You think so? The point is this, even if you are a pilot, mostly likely you don't have the rating required for the aircraft they want you to fly and even if you do, you'd still have to go through their one month long training program and then get supervised experience on the aircraft. And then there is the issue with how many training slots are available, then multiply that by thousands of pilots.

If a united group of pilots strikes, that airline is effectively shutdown for a very long time, even if they try to hire new replacement pilots, resulting in huge losses. It's something management does not like contemplating unless they don't care if the airline and their investments go down the tubes.

G51989 said:

Used to be, until the " Free Market " made sure unskilled lazy workers like commercial airline pilots got their FAIR PAY! Working almost every day, only being paid while flying, with little benefits after years and years of training and experitise make them into a someone who can fly a jet? Sounds like lazy welfare takers to me, probably muslim liberals

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Funny, I know a couple of commercial pilots in their 30s who both make what would be $100k+ in USD. Your comical stereotypes you mention, probably those you believe are held by those you disagree with really have little to no place on these forums, though.

Back to airlines, I would rather fly on Malaysian than any US-based company, even after MH370. Thai, Singapore, ANA, and maybe one or two others. Korean is usually great but some flight attendants seem racist against non-Koreans.

MacLC said:

Funny, I know a couple of commercial pilots in their 30s who both make what would be $100k+ in USD. Your comical stereotypes you mention, probably those you believe are held by those you disagree with really have little to no place on these forums, though.

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I think he was being sarcastic....

But, it does hold a bit of truth on attitudes some people hold. Debating a person another forum I visit on pilot pay, he had no problem having pilots being paid $25,000 a year because that is the free market and all and we were nothing but glorified bus drivers.

senseless said:

I was shocked at how low the starting pay was for new pilots. I always thought this was an elite job position.

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Pilots are paid poorly when they first start. They move up quickly with experience. Airline Pilot Salary and Pay Rates