5 ms·

This is a great article, worth a read. Plus the guy has an awesome cartoon avatar. The summary is: United on their smaller flights has lots of people pretending

This is a great article, worth a read. Plus the guy has an awesome cartoon avatar. The summary is: United on their smaller flights has lots of people pretending to be united employees but they aren't, and they aren't as well trained as united employees. The police in airports often aren't regular police forces, but are special airport police who might or might not be on a regular police force. To me, that says there's all these people that probably have substandard pay and training.

Spooky23 10y ago
The assistant manager at the car wash I go to is a pilot for one of these airlines. He makes about $25k as a first officer. He considers getting hotel points as a bonus. He kept the car wash gig to make ends meet until he gets a better gig or promotion.
- sjburt 10y ago
  The sad thing is that there is a huge workforce of regional pilots hoping to gain hours and switch to the majors, but the majors are converting routes to regionals faster than they are hiring new pilots.
  - smcl 10y ago
    I've read about this before - US pilots getting shockingly low wages. The Explanation given previously was that the senior pilots get insanely well remunerated and you're expected to work for peanuts until you hit this point (or switch to a European or Emirati airline)
    - tajen 10y ago
      I remember an Air Crash Investigation where the investigators were surprised to hear that the two pilots sounded completely drunk on the black box. It wasn't alcohol, it was the lack of sleep – the guys had just flown halfway across the USA on a jump seat to start their shift in NYC and slept in an 8-bunk-bed subrental in a suburb. So, yes, pilot's low wages in USA's regional airlines is an endemic problem that has killed hundreds of passengers.
      - rurban 10y ago
        But nowadays drinking and drugs are a bigger problem than hours. Remember the movie "Flight"? Thanksfully those planes fly fully automatic, but still some weather decisions have to be made from time to time.
        tajen 10y ago
        I actually wonder why we still have pilots on board in 2017.
        Noseshine 10y ago
        A lack of subject knowledge when commenting about something does that to you. /s
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
IIIIIIIIIIII 10y ago
> and they aren't as well trained as united employees I'm really getting (maybe needlessly) a bit irate over the endless stream of "they didn't have the training" comments each and every time some employee attacks someone. For this incident too but also for many previous ones, in a lot of forums from reddit to local newspaper websites I found this line of reasoning or explanation. I may get flak for this, but as a German who once (very happily) lived in the US for a decade, the stories as well as the comments seem to come mostly from this country, and I did not notice them (in this number) until this millennium. What's happened in the US, I wonder? Let me make my position clear: It should be obvious that not attacking people does not require "more training"! That's just being a decent average human being. I don't know what I'm more worried about, the number of incidents (might just be because of ubiquitous smartphones and the Internet) - or that sooooo many people (US-Americans mostly?) seem to think that this is a "training" issue. To me this seems like a large culture of "it's their fault", meaning "management". Part of it really is, since so much of the work culture (service jobs especially?) is designed to be extremely hierarchical. "Sorry, I can't use common sense, I have to call in a manager, he is allowed to use 1% of his brain but I'm not." (The higher level management is allowed to use ever more brain/judgement.) So it seems the success of this "education" of creating an obedient workforce unquestionably following procedures and rules is too great, it changed the way people think and look at everything, not just those jobs?
- NotSammyHagar 10y ago
  I agree, training shouldn't be necessary to tell people not to beat up passengers. But training can help people to learn to deescalate situations, and help people learn to sometimes take a second to think about it.
- mike-cardwell 10y ago
  Presumably, the "the lack of training" is related to how to resolve situations without resorting to force. When people say that they lack training, it's not about being trained not to attack somebody, it's about being trained (and more importantly empowered) to resolve situations before they get to that point. Because when there are no options left, you only have force.

Spooky23 10y ago

The assistant manager at the car wash I go to is a pilot for one of these airlines. He makes about $25k as a first officer. He considers getting hotel points as a bonus. He kept the car wash gig to make ends meet until he gets a better gig or promotion.

sjburt 10y ago
The sad thing is that there is a huge workforce of regional pilots hoping to gain hours and switch to the majors, but the majors are converting routes to regionals faster than they are hiring new pilots.
- smcl 10y ago
  I've read about this before - US pilots getting shockingly low wages. The Explanation given previously was that the senior pilots get insanely well remunerated and you're expected to work for peanuts until you hit this point (or switch to a European or Emirati airline)
  - tajen 10y ago
    I remember an Air Crash Investigation where the investigators were surprised to hear that the two pilots sounded completely drunk on the black box. It wasn't alcohol, it was the lack of sleep – the guys had just flown halfway across the USA on a jump seat to start their shift in NYC and slept in an 8-bunk-bed subrental in a suburb. So, yes, pilot's low wages in USA's regional airlines is an endemic problem that has killed hundreds of passengers.
    - rurban 10y ago
      But nowadays drinking and drugs are a bigger problem than hours. Remember the movie "Flight"? Thanksfully those planes fly fully automatic, but still some weather decisions have to be made from time to time.
      - tajen 10y ago
        I actually wonder why we still have pilots on board in 2017.
        Noseshine 10y ago
        A lack of subject knowledge when commenting about something does that to you. /s
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

IIIIIIIIIIII 10y ago

> and they aren't as well trained as united employees I'm really getting (maybe needlessly) a bit irate over the endless stream of "they didn't have the training" comments each and every time some employee attacks someone. For this incident too but also for many previous ones, in a lot of forums from reddit to local newspaper websites I found this line of reasoning or explanation. I may get flak for this, but as a German who once (very happily) lived in the US for a decade, the stories as well as the comments seem to come mostly from this country, and I did not notice them (in this number) until this millennium. What's happened in the US, I wonder? Let me make my position clear: It should be obvious that not attacking people does not require "more training"! That's just being a decent average human being. I don't know what I'm more worried about, the number of incidents (might just be because of ubiquitous smartphones and the Internet) - or that sooooo many people (US-Americans mostly?) seem to think that this is a "training" issue. To me this seems like a large culture of "it's their fault", meaning "management". Part of it really is, since so much of the work culture (service jobs especially?) is designed to be extremely hierarchical. "Sorry, I can't use common sense, I have to call in a manager, he is allowed to use 1% of his brain but I'm not." (The higher level management is allowed to use ever more brain/judgement.) So it seems the success of this "education" of creating an obedient workforce unquestionably following procedures and rules is too great, it changed the way people think and look at everything, not just those jobs?

NotSammyHagar 10y ago
I agree, training shouldn't be necessary to tell people not to beat up passengers. But training can help people to learn to deescalate situations, and help people learn to sometimes take a second to think about it.
mike-cardwell 10y ago
Presumably, the "the lack of training" is related to how to resolve situations without resorting to force. When people say that they lack training, it's not about being trained not to attack somebody, it's about being trained (and more importantly empowered) to resolve situations before they get to that point. Because when there are no options left, you only have force.