7 ms·

The lack of empathy in the comments is disconcerting. The post is a bit light on details (though the example given of flying 23 hours back-to-back continental f

• throwaway91111 9y ago
  Ehh, i mean for how much longer do we actually need pilots? I was under the impression they're mostly auto pilot these days anyway.
  • dexterdog 9y ago
    They still have to be alert and ready to take over during the flight.
    • crusso 9y ago
      Not all of them at the same time. It depends upon how many pilots are on the flight; but observing while auto-pilot is engaged only takes one person. The other people can relax, nap, read, etc.
  • deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  • bb611 9y ago
    While they're punching a hole in the air, yes. Takeoff & landing in most modern commercial aircraft have some auto-throttle/auto-braking assistance, but those are still generally flown by hand on every flight. Note that the cargo airlines this article addresses are primarily working with a much older fleet of airplanes that the major passenger airlines got rid of, so their tech generally lags behind what you see on the flight deck of your travel flights. No one has yet implemented a real point-to-point autopilot, and there are none in the pipeline for certification. It's possible there are engineers working on them, especially at Boeing/Airbus, but given airframe lifetimes at the major commercial carriers pilots are here for at least another 20 years with them, and probably 30-40 years at cargo carriers.
    • brianwawok 9y ago
      Isn't it also low hanging fruit? My napkin math says truck drivers are a MUCH higher % of ground shipping cost compared to airline pilot and flying cost. Airlines have a lot of staff costs, but those would seem like it would be maintenance and ground crew which is even harder to automate.
  • chx 9y ago
    http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/automation-myths/ http://www.askthepilot.com/questionanswers/automation-myths/
    • throwaway91111 9y ago
      Seems like a truly unbiased source.
      • chx 9y ago
        Tell me, whom we should ask about whether automated planes are going to be viable in the near future if not a pilot?
• sqeezy 9y ago
  He is blaming a foreign company which is hiring his own comapny for failures his company is not adressing. Sorry stupid article. I´s not DHL´s fault that Southern Airline is not able to compete and to organize. Btw in Germany there are Unions for that. https://www.vcockpit.de/en.html https://www.vcockpit.de/en.html
  • noir-york 9y ago
    So because he's laying the blame at the wrong door then he, and so many others in his predicament, don't deserve empathy? The man is a pilot not a political anorak/economist/pundit. It would be more helpful to point out where the blame lies: lobbying, party/campaign financing, unfair trade agreements etc.
  • Pica_soO 9y ago
    Thats a falacy right there- if a outer system integrates a inner system, any flaw of that integration resides upon the component in direct control of the world (the outter system). If you ingest arsenic, and your liver is unable to discard it- its not the livers fault- its the outter system who decided to put the inner system under impossible strain, thats at fault. And democracy includes the rights to call upon government to hinder capitalism from destroying the citizens. Like it or not. If you disrespect that part of freedom, you are not a true democrat.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  • pyvpx 9y ago
    is it hiring when they are the largest equity stakeholder as well as own and lease the planes back to the company? how, exactly, do you propose this "independent" company supposed to address these "failures"?
  • jim-jim-jim 9y ago
    I suppose Nike is also not to blame for taking advantage of the dire labor situation in places like Vietnam.
• 300bps 9y ago
  I found the wording of that one example strange: For example, my colleagues and I have been asked to sit on 14-hour flights from the UW to the Middle East, only to then fly the same aircraft to Asia on another nine-hour journey. It isn't clear he was actually piloting the aircraft for these flights, especially the first one where he says he was "asked to sit on". Unless "asked to sit on" is an industry euphemism for piloting, it seems like a carefully worded statement meant to deceive.
  • dx034 9y ago
    Same here. I think he wasn't involved and it was actually 3 or even 4 pilots on board. Otherwise it would be against regulation. You probably sleep better in a hotel than in the crew compartment on the plane, but he didn't work for 23h without a break and neither did his colleagues.
• ygaf 9y ago
  There is substance in the article, but the author is insulting and cliched right at the start (the worst place - for him). If HN says nothing, we're agreeing to that stuff in the first paragraph.
• ue_ 9y ago
  >Capitalism is a great tool for progress, but it should not, and is not, the answer to everything. Nor should it be considered the final or best possible form of human organisation, I should add. Marx's comcept of alienation is quite relevant to your point.
• dx034 9y ago
  I think the lack of empathy is because cargo pilots flying for Amazon still have it much better than warehouse workers. Both job wise (nicer to fly than to pack) and with regards to the pay. Aviation is one of the most regulated sectors in both the US and worldwide. The reason why DHL uses subcontractors is not because they want to save money, they aren't allowed to fly in the US. Which is somehow interesting because both Fedex and UPS are allowed to conduct inter-EU flights. Also, flying Cargo is a hard job. Passengers don't complain too much if the flight is delayed due to bad weather, the logistics companies can lose millions due to that. Pressure for cargo pilots to be on time has always been high and shifts have been long. His view is skewed because Fedex and UPS fly mostly domestically with short legs (3-4h). If you compare Southern to other global freight companies (e.g. Cargolux), conditions aren't worse. It's normal to be away from home for a week and only have stopovers somewhere in the desert or the middle of Siberia. I somehow doubt the 23h flight story (the wording is very vague "asked to sit on a flight") since regulation for pilots is very strict. If Southern forces a pilot to fly a 23h shift with no third pilot on board then I'm sure the FAA would be very interested in that story and it would have consequences. My guess is that there was a third pilot on board. It then still sucks having to be in an aircraft for 23h, but he didn't have to work for 23h straight (which would've been very dangerous). As hard as it might be for someone who dreamed of the amazing pilot job and is now flying weird shifts to unattractive cities: This is not an issue of outsourcing to get things cheaper or of paying people minimum wage for hard physical work without the chance of being represented by a union. He doesn't see his family as much as he wants but at least he's able to feed them.
  • jim-jim-jim 9y ago
    > It then still sucks having to be in an aircraft for 23h, but he didn't have to work for 23h straight If you're away from what you'd rather be doing at the company's discretion, you're working.
    • dx034 9y ago
      Yes but flying 23h straight sounds like the pilot could easily fall asleep which could've extreme consequences. In this case it just means that he's away from his family. I know one long-haul pilot personally and he still enjoys those long trips. Yes you're away from the family and might fly to the city you don't like for the 5th time this month, but you still get to see a lot, have a prestigious job and nice views from the cockpit.
• Pica_soO 9y ago
  If empathy was a job requirement, half of us would be stoned and the other part would be on his way to the server-center with a truck full of TNT.
• specialist 9y ago
  There have been many first hand accounts from pilots about their industry's deteriorating work conditions. The denial and pedantry by the Freedom Market™ zealots is exhausting. Being highly trained and performing safety critical work does not exempt pilots from the predation of C (executive management) level exploitation. The root cause is the glut of labor, progressively reducing Labor's bargaining power, since the 70s. What is the fix?
  • Retric 9y ago
    Better tax policy could do a lot. Our regressive tax policy is currently funneling economic growth to an ever smaller pool of people who simply don't need as many people to work for them (directly + indirectly). If the lower/middle class kept more of their paycheck they would spend more on services which would employ more people. Further, the economic death spiral of fewer people with disposable income => reduced demand => fewer people with disposable income => ... can be avoided. PS: Remember, we are fairly close to 'full' employment so it does not take much to shift the balance one way or another.
    • specialist 9y ago
      Agree. I support any measure that keeps money moving. Including cashectomies for windfall profits. But why, in the name of fairness, isn't the surplus shared with all the stakeholders? We wouldn't be in this pickle to begin with if profit sharing was the norm. Like when I was kid.
      • cmurf 9y ago
        Sharing is socialism/communism/someother"bad"ism these days. It must be all about the invisible hand, the less intervention the better. Basically I see it as a bunch of greedy nuts who believe in things like low taxes, and only wince at overt things like primogeniture and unequal pay but then they pretty much do a "tee hee" and accept both because they benefit. It's somewhere in the vicinity of neo-feudalism + neo-aristocracy + prosperity theology. It's an abomination.
    • 9y ago
• coldtea 9y ago
  >the post deserves better than: 1. Pilots fly for fun. You made the wrong career move. 2. Capitalism! 3. you're lucky - imagine if you were a warehouse worker. Maybe if those same commenters lost their relatives or kids in an accident with a commercial pilot that was forced to fly to exhaustion, they'd answer with better sense. Bonus points if they lost them because a cargo plane fell on them...
• Dylan16807 9y ago
  > The lack of empathy in the comments is disconcerting. The post is a bit light on details (though the example given of flying 23 hours back-to-back continental flights is terrible if regular) the post deserves better than: 1. Pilots fly for fun. You made the wrong career move. 2. Capitalism! 3. you're lucky - imagine if you were a warehouse worker. The majority of the criticism is very legitimate, because the article does a terrible job of actually naming any problems beyond saying "it's bad now". Don't mischaracterize all those posts just so you can step in and be the voice of reason. > Pay has been stagnant for the vast majority of workers for decades. We should be doing something about it, not dismissing it. We should be doing something about it! But pay is barely mentioned in the article, and even that seems to be about the short-term effects of competition rather than decades-long pay stagnancy.
• cmurf 9y ago
  I think CEO pay is what it is because they're narcissistic personalities who are very good coddling the fragile emotional state of board of directors, and they all make each other feel important and useful. The only solution I see is a syndicalism, or perhaps participatory economics (one of those is real, has existed, the other is an idea possibly with no potential in the real world). Basically the only thing people understand is go fuck yourself. Let's face it. It's a might makes right world. People don't negotiate win win if they can negotiate I win you lose and that's a win, so go fuck yourself. It's always adversarial when a single entity owns both capital and means of production. But the very idea of worker unions brings about the open question of committing murder by certain capitalists. It's that much of a threat to their ability to say and get away with, go fuck yourself.