Airlines Cut Minimum Pilot Experience to 500 hours and Below

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in
:

On Nov 26, 10:48 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Fact is, without unions, the airpline industry wouldn't have
blossomed into what i was and, more importantly, be as safe as it is
today.

End of story.

Whenever someone presents opinions as facts (especially as inarguable
facts) my B.S. detector starts to blow up.


It is a fact.


Bertie

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in news:50993f84-402f-4a0d-b800-
:

On Nov 26, 10:48 pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

And without a union, employees are in a similar situation.

Again that is the myth that labor tries to put out there.

No, it isn't

Many of us have a great successful career without every being a member
of a union. In fact, most Americans are not union members. In fact,
the top paying jobs in the U.S. are non-union. So I think your point
is countered.


No, it isn't


Bertie

"Gatt" wrote in message
...

"Panic" wrote in message
...
Yeah, and what do many non-pilots don't fully understand is that pilots
get paid for the hours they fly...not for the hours they work. In an 8
hour workday they may only get 4 hours of flight pay. Flight planning,
preflight, postflight, etc are not paid hours of work. $22.00/hour pay
rate (flight time) can translate to $11.00 an hour for actual working
time.

I'm curious as to why the airline pilots haven't all gone on strike to
demand better pay. Clearly, they can't be easily replaced or the
airlines wouldn't be scraping the bottom of the barrel for new hires. I
learned about supply/demand in Economics 101 but I'm sure the airline
executives know exactly what they're doing.

It's somewhat like the guy in the circus whose job is to shovel out the
elephant manure each day. When someone asked him why he didn't quit he said
"What? And give up show business?" We are our own worst financial enemy.
Too many pilots enjoy flying so much that they'll work for peanuts.

I'm sorry, but, there's a Burgerville down the road that pays better than
$11/hr, and a car dealership that pays better too; why would I invest tens
of thousands of dollars, submit myself to annual medical exams, corporate
nonsense (such as pilot salary) and inherent job insecurity, and then
separate myself from my family for less than what the guy flipping burgers
or selling Toyotas down the street makes?

Here's one otherwise-interested commercial pilot that the airlines won't
get for less than the $42,000 I could make resetting people's
e-mail and router passwords from the safety of an air-conditioned office.

-c

On Nov 27, 8:42 am, "Panic" wrote:

It's somewhat like the guy in the circus whose job is to shovel out the
elephant manure each day. When someone asked him why he didn't quit he said
"What? And give up show business?" We are our own worst financial enemy.
Too many pilots enjoy flying so much that they'll work for peanuts.

Exactly. And if you pay above what pilots are asking all you do is
create a situation where there are more pilots than jobs. Only when
saleries match the market demand is there an even demand for jobs with
the offering of jobs. Those that don't love the jobs as much as
others will simply find other jobs that make them happy.

-Robert

"F. Baum" wrote in message news:6f383433-c03a-4acf-9dd0-

Yet pilots want to work for them. I guess what ever they are getting
from it is enough to put up with any downside.

Not so much anymore. They, along with other regionals, are canceling
flights from lack of crews. Take a look at their turn over.

My wife and I got stuck in London a couple of years ago because United
couldn't find a flight crew out of Heathrow who was eligible to fly the 747
back to Seattle. They unloaded the entire airplane onto buses, put us up
in a really nice hotel near Hounslow, gave us a great buffet dinner and a
small amount of spending money. I don't know how many passengers were on
the 747, but I bet it filled up the hotel.

Imagine what that cost the company just because they didn't have two extra
pilots available.

I've gone beyond the hope that the current management generation is going to
get anything done, but the entire management and human resources paradigm is
about to change based on the stuff they're teaching in college business
courses now. Lots of emphasis on issues such as Enron and corporate ethics
and HR compensation and benefit strategies that were previously unthinkable.
Nike's corporate headquarters in Oregon are a great example of this. If
you're lucky enough to work for them in the US, you have flexible hours,
child care and a pretty stunning departure from the typical gray
let's-live-in-stalls-and-get-fat-like-veal corporate workplace. They're
able to attract employees willing to work for the conditions and the
benefits moreso than the pay, which costs them less in the long run.
..

-c

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
news:305cc595-ec96-4a36-8947-

Not so much anymore. They, along with other regionals, are canceling
flights from lack of crews. Take a look at their turn over.

If that is true then the companies that are not able to man flights will
go out of business

Or rob their employee's pensions to cover their loss, or beg the government
for bailouts.

-c

"Robert M. Gary" wrote in message
news:fc821152-8b1d-4014-a385-

They paid what they needed to to get the CEO they thought they needed.
Its easy to Monday Morning Quarter back when you've not been in the
board room. Maybe you would have been a better chairman of their
board, who knows. Maybe you should apply for the position.

I wouldn't have been. On the other hand...what... I might have cost them
thousands of jobs, hundreds of millions of dollars, industry prestige and
leadership, taken 40 million just to leave, and gotten fired after just a
few years. Oh, wait...

I'd could wreck their company for a fraction of what they paid her to do it,
and for a fraction of what they paid her to stop. Doesn't take hindsight.

However, I would argue that employees in capitalist countries fair far
better than those in communist and
restricted socialist countries.

That's sort of a serious tangent, but, I bet plenty of employees in
communist countries fair far better economically than pilots trying to pay
off their school loans and survive for under $25,000 a year. Sure, the
primary purpose of a for-profit company is to maximize return to their
investors, but the laws against slavery, illegal labor, child labor, etc
demonstrate a developing sense in America that there is a higher value and
ethic than simply making money for investors. Otherwise, we'd still have
Chinese coolies dying on the job and doing backbreaking labor or kids locked
in New England sweatshops, which are two things that happened in America
when we let investors and executives run amok. The course has been set and
now, practically nobody would say that locking children into a firetrap
warehouse filled with sewing machines is acceptable. But it wasn't the
investors or clothing executives that slayed that dragon.

I'm not saying that government or union intervention is the solution. I'm
saying the people of the United States of America need to rethink their
priorities. America isn't just about what's best for the investors. (That
would be, what, China? Saudi Arabia? It's hard to keep track of who owns
our asses anymore.)

-c

Robert M. Gary wrote:
On Nov 26, 7:37 pm, Newps wrote:

Since labor can strike as long as they
want and the employers can't replace them ([...])

Since when?


Oh yea, your a controller!

Yes, but that's irrelevant.

On Nov 27, 9:36 am, "Gatt" wrote:
I'd could wreck their company for a fraction of what they paid her to do it,
and for a fraction of what they paid her to stop. Doesn't take hindsight.

I worked for Agilent at that same time. Agilent had spun off from HP
before things went bad. I can tell you that things at Agilent were not
much better. The market changed. In fact, in our later analysis at
Agilent we concluded that we could have reduced much of the pain if we
hadn't waited so long to begin lay offs (we called them "Work Force
Management"). When revenues are falling because of the "telecom
winter" and you wait too long to reduce your cost structure, everyone
suffers in the end.
On the other hand, we were not able to reduce our workforce in the
same way in France. As a result, France saw fewer layoffs. However, we
also are very, very slow to hire in France because of that and, as a
result, France has very, very high unemployment. Companies MUST be
able to adjust their cost structure (up and down) as necessary to
react to the market. There simply isn't endless loads of cash coming
in the back door to make decisions easier the way it was in the old HP
days. When revenues were easy HP was a choice place to work. However,
there is simply no economic way to continue that when the revenues go
away.

That's sort of a serious tangent, but, I bet plenty of employees in
communist countries fair far better economically than pilots trying to pay
off their school loans and survive for under $25,000 a year.

Maybe but most of us choose to live in a capitalist country because we
believe in it. GA is a perfect example of the benefits of a free
society. Look at what a 172 rents for in France.

Sure, the
primary purpose of a for-profit company is to maximize return to their
investors, but the laws against slavery, illegal labor, child labor, etc
demonstrate a developing sense in America that there is a higher value and
ethic than simply making money for investors.

Again, if you want to say that the purpose of a company is to provide
employement then you are operating on a different premise. If you are
saying a company should continue to lose money because its cost
structure is well beyond its income (which is what happened to HP), in
order to protect the employees, to the cost of investors, then you are
saying that investors have the burden of providing employment. You are
certainly allowed to start your own company and in your articles of
incorporation and in your SEC filing state that the purpose of your
company is to provide employment. However, having been in the
situation of falling revenues with a high cost (employee) overhead, I
can tell you that you either must adjust to the situation or go out of
business fast. There is only so much money out there and you can't
forever fund a company that is losing money that doesn't attempt to
reduce costs.

-Robert

On Nov 27, 8:18 am, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

Many of us have a great successful career without every being a member
of a union. In fact, most Americans are not union members. In fact,
the top paying jobs in the U.S. are non-union. So I think your point
is countered.

No, it isn't

Bertie


Did you just stomp your feet?