12 ms·

Why airlines tend to be unionized

152 points by jsc 16y ago

smutticus 16y ago
Always interesting to watch the American labor movement eat itself. Depressing but interesting.
- jamesaguilar 16y ago
  I'm fine with it. I don't care very much whether airline profits go to the company or the employees. I don't care if pilots have to deal with an unstable industry. As far as I'm concerned they are complicit in it by voting the way they do in union elections. They have brought it upon themselves. (With apologies to all the pilots that vote for saner policies -- I tend to see large groups of strangers as single entities.) What's important to me is airfares are incredibly low and I can fly anywhere I want with insane convenience. And in that sense, the American labor movement is doing exactly what I want: providing an ever-increasing quality of goods and services for me to consume at lower and lower prices.
  - loewenskind 16y ago
    >I can fly anywhere I want with insane convenience. At least you could before 9/11. Pre-9/11 I would have flown anywhere that was more than 3 hours away. Now I would drive up to 10 hours to avoid flying.
    - jamesaguilar 16y ago
      It adds 15 minutes to the trip. It makes no pragmatic sense to shift your crossover point back seven hours in response. But I suppose if you derive some serious negative utility from security inspections that would make sense for your personal case.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        15 minutes? I have to arrive up to 2 hours earlier now. The security scan itself doesn't take so long but rather everything leading up to it.
        jamesaguilar 16y ago
        My wife arrives one hour early for domestic flights and has yet to miss one (she travels as part of her work). I even in my anal-retentiveness about flights rarely arrive more than an hour and a half early. So there is a good amount of time you are leaving on the table that you could reclaim. I hope this series of comments will help you waste less time and money driving.
        loewenskind 16y ago
        Well, I fly into the US from outside. That entails rechecking all baggage and going through a second security line. There are less airports you can fly into now from the outside and all of those I've been to so far have huge lines at the security. We now schedule in 4 hours between that initial connection and we've still almost missed the connecting flight a few times.
        pavel_lishin 16y ago
        What all does that involve, and how was it different pre-9/11? You can't pack a bunch of fluids in your carry-on, so you have to get little travel things - that's not worth 7 extra hours.
        loewenskind 16y ago
        It's not a straight x/y calculation. For me, going through security usually takes between 40 minutes to a couple of hours depending on the air port. But the experience is so awful that I dread it for hours ahead of time and am infuriated by it for hours afterwards. I don't like driving long distances but at least I can avoid some of the stress.
    - matwood 16y ago
      At least you could before 9/11. Pre-9/11 I would have flown anywhere that was more than 3 hours away. Now I would drive up to 10 hours to avoid flying. I read this all the time on HN, but I fly relatively frequently I have never had a problem flying post 9/11. Flying out Denver I can get through security in 10-15 minutes tops. The biggest domestic problems I have had have either been delays at the giant airports (ATL for example) or a single long security line at small airports in BFE. I've been stopped twice for forgetting to leave my money clip in the car (it has a small knife on it). The TSA guy was polite and simply asked if I wanted to throw it away or mail it back to myself. Both times I paid the $10 to mail it back since it was a gift and is engraved. After filling out the paperwork they then put me through the express line so I wouldn't be delayed any further. For a mistake that was clearly on my part they were beyond reasonable. The biggest issue I've had in the last 10 years was getting shaken down by customs in Jamaica. Third world countries, fun stuff. I'm sure there are people who have issues while trying to fly, but I don't think it's as widespread as people like to believe. I recently spoke to a friend of mine who happens to be an executive who travels 3 weeks of each month. She has had zero problems from a security standpoint, with delays from weather being her biggest complaint.
      - DrJokepu 16y ago
        Exactly my thoughts. I just came back to London from New York (JFK) a couple of weeks ago. The immigration & customs officers, the TSA officers were very quick, polite, nice and helpful. It all went incredibly smoothly. One TSA officer lady even flirted with me lightly (which doesn't happen very often). In general, it was an A+ experience.
- yardie 16y ago
  I find it more fascinating to watch corporations shit all over the Americans.
lionhearted 16y ago
This happens similarly in American professional sports. Young, incoming players can't choose their own team - instead, they're subject to a draft, and controlled by the team that drafted them for anywhere from 4 to 10 years. During that time, the players make very below market money and have no leverage. Then, after they become a free agent, they get overpaid relative to equilibrium. The veterans that have more say in the union consistently bargain more benefits and agree to hose the young incoming players in return.
- _delirium 16y ago
  Sports labor markets seem pretty screwed up overall, partly because it's a very strange market. Are teams in competition with each other? Or is the league one entity, in competition with other leagues and even other sports? Some other sports-employment models, broken in different ways: 1. The owner-collusion model. A league is exempted from anti-trust laws, and the owners get together to institute rules. There's a draft, and new players can't be hired except via the draft. There is no free agency, or limited, owner-supervised free agency. Basically the "market" is you either do whatever the system tells you, or you leave the league entirely. Most new sports leagues being set up follow this model (e.g. Major League Soccer). 2. The contracts-ban-free-agency model. There's no draft, and you can sign with any team you want. However, the owners have officially or unofficially standardized on an employment contract that requires you to get your team's permission before signing on with any other team, even after your contract expires. Basically a noncompete clause. This is more or less how European club football worked prior to the EU's Bosman ruling invalidating that variety of noncompete (among other things).
- jat850 16y ago
  The NFL is (currently) the exact opposite of what you describe. Draftees entering the league right now earn disproportionately higher amounts than many veterans, and it is a major point of contention in the upcoming CBA bargaining.
lsc 16y ago
Regardless of whether the U.S. is able to maintain its trade barriers, a sustainable long-term structure would be a pilot-owned airline. If the pilots are the owners there need be no conflict concerning distributing profits. Selling the company to the union, or rather, worker-owned companies seem to be the best case solution to the "union problem" - If my employees started unionizing, that'd be my first shot at a solution "Hey, uh, so I hear you don't like how I'm running the place. How 'bout you take a shot?" Of course, the only way I've ever heard of that working is with large, established unions, which have large established pension funds that can be leveraged.
- gaius 16y ago
  United (UAL) would be an example of that happens when you do that (the result in my experience is resentful cabin crew who treat passengers as if they're doing us a favour by allowing us aboard their personal vehicles).
  - lsc 16y ago
    eh, at least they are taking the financial hit for doing so, right? I mean if you are going to treat me poorly, for me to keep buying tickets either you need a monopoly or I need a discount.
- yardie 16y ago
  Actually it would be more like, you sold it to the employees but they left you in charge since they don't have any experience running the company. Now you are free to make all the stupid decisions you like and they are stuck with the consequences. Great deal!
  - lsc 16y ago
    I have very little sympathy for people who hire managers to run their company and then complain that the managers are running the place in to the ground. When you hire someone and they end up doing a poor job, it's your fault, and your responsibility to clean up the mess. This applies just as much to hiring managers as it does to hiring level 1 support techs. Personally, I think that owners (or shareholders) that don't understand this (and that keep hiring managers who didn't act in the interest of owners at previous jobs) is a big part of what is wrong with our economy.
Nitramp 16y ago
This seems a bit strange. If pilots were actually taking nearly all airline earnings, why are there airlines at all? Running an airline requires a substantial capital investment, and if the return on those investments is effectively zero (or much smaller than other businesses), then there shouldn't be airlines because it's just not a profitable business, right? The other thing is, given the rules he outlines, an airline could drastically reduce its costs by hiring more junior pilots and firing senior pilots. How would they hire more junior pilots? By paying them slightly more than competing airlines. So there should be pressure in the market to increase the salary of junior pilots, which long term should lead to higher salaries for juniors. This seems to contradict the authors experience.
- gaius 16y ago
  hiring more junior pilots and firing senior pilots This would not be permitted by the union - he covers that later in the article.
- RickHull 16y ago
  > then there shouldn't be airlines because it's just not a profitable business, right? Hence the constant bankruptcy / bailout cycle. They are in effect subsidized by the government. I believe American Airlines is the only legacy carrier not to have been through bankruptcy.
tomerico 16y ago
A pilot's job is one of the easiest to replace with a computer. It is already happening in the military. In fact, the only actual role of a pilot today is to take off and land the plane, the rest is auto-pilot. If the unions make it so hard to employ humans, it would only give incentive to further develop auto pilots, and the problem will solve itself.
- timthorn 16y ago
  Landing is typically done on autopilot these days; it is done manually to maintain a pilot's rating or for exceptional reasons.
  - yardie 16y ago
    ...and under fair weather conditions. Under more adverse conditions will be done manually. It's fairly easy to tell a computer, "See that line (runway slope), follow it".
    - willyt 16y ago
      I think the autopilot follows a ILS beacon in. Isn't that why less flights are diverted in poor weather now? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki?search=Autopilot http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki?search=Autopilot
  - notahacker 16y ago
    Actually, the exact opposite is true - pilots must use autopilot on a certain number of occasions to retain their certification to use it on low visibility approaches, but otherwise generally do so only when visibility is severely restricted.
  - borism 16y ago
    Landing is almost never done by autopilot. Approach is. When the runway is in sight Pilot Flying has to take over from the autopilot, and gently put the wheels on the ground. Computers are still not very good at it, especially not when there is slightest deviation from the norm (i.e. crosswind). Autoland is very rare and is either used in ideal conditions or in terrible conditions (but then both aircraft and airport AND flight crew have to be rated to Cat IIIc standard - extremely rare occurrence).
jasonkester 16y ago
A bit meta, but it's interesting to see how much this guy has reinvented himself over the years. Going from running the biggest, loudest, and most profitable software consulting firm in the world... to retiring to play with photography and airplanes... to junior pilot at a small airline. Some might say going from $MM/year CEO to $18k/year new guy would be a step down, but he seems to be genuinely enjoying the ride. I especially like how he keeps the whole "dot com millionaire" thing hidden on his aviation resume: http://philip.greenspun.com/narcissism/resume http://philip.greenspun.com/narcissism/resume http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/resume http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/resume If you haven't read about the guy, it's worth picking up a copy of Founders at Work just for his interview.
- zachbeane 16y ago
  "Retiring" is an interesting way to describe it. He took VC money, didn't like VC control, got into a court battle. He then settled for millions with the VCs, while his partners got nothing out of the settlement (http://www.assureconsulting.com/articles/arsdigitahisone.shtml http://www.assureconsulting.com/articles/arsdigitahisone.sht...). It's interesting to see him slightly back in the public eye as an aircraft nerd.
  - adolph 16y ago
    Especially as an interviewee on an NPR story about Groupon. If I remember correctly NPR made no mention of Greenspun as having founded a seminal social media web app, before there was language to describe it that way. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129386346 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1293863...
- ajaxian 16y ago
  I think it's safe to say that Greenspun isn't working as a junior pilot for the money since not too many people making $18k/year have their own plane, helicopter and Acura NSX.
  - goatforce5 16y ago
cheald 16y ago
I think I've been working too long today. I read that headline and stared at it for a good 10 seconds trying to figure out why on earth airlines would be "un-ionized".
- philwelch 16y ago
  "In his essay To Tell a Chemist (1965), Isaac Asimov [7][8][9] claimed that one could distinguish a chemist from a non-chemist by asking a person to read the word "unionized" aloud. With no context given, he said that a chemist will pronounce it "un-ionized", but a non-chemist will pronounce it "union-ized"." --Wikipedia
yardie 16y ago
who controls the pilot's union: very senior pilots. Most airlines are made of a lot of junior pilots. Junior is a relative term because you can be with the airline for a decade and be considered a junior. The senior pilot making $300k is an anomaly at the airline, like the Welfare Queen in politics. So when the airline wants to cut salaries these dozen (for a large airline) or so senior guys, that are almost near retirement, are the ones put on the press release as the big bad pilots. To the guy making $300k taking a 25% paycut, its not a big deal, the guy making $16k taking a 25% paycut, BIG fucking deal. And just like politics, airline pilot unions don't always vote rationally. They could vote in a system that randomizes schedule according to availability, but they'd much rather keep the bid system. I guess its a case of "I got mine" where the senior guys get to choose the priciest routes. And the junior guy wants what senior has even if its costing him. Taxes on the rich are the same, they are an easy target but the middle class don't want it because they might be one of them one day. I don't think you'll find a person alive willing to say I, with 25+ years, is okay with you firing me if the junior gets to keep his job. No one wants to be furloughed and as you get higher up in the company the stakes get higher so don't expect this piece of union contracts to change. Not for pilots, not for detroit, not even in the IT sector; you know, last hired first fired. If airlines paid workers according to personal experience and skill rather than seniority within their particular airline, pilots would be more likely to live near where they worked. Capt. Sully could stay in SF but there are more senior pilots who are just as experienced as him, there. To move up the ladder he chose to go to NC. Hell, even Heather Poole, FA blogger on gadling, chose to take NYC while living in LA. Your choice is either to get experience working at a different FBO, or be on reserve, sitting in the terminal, not getting any experience. Tough choice, huh? An airline that is successful and growing will enjoy lower costs because of the new pilots being hired for almost nothing. If you are referring to LCCs most are just a proving ground for pilots until they can make it to mainline carrier. So you have cheap, inexperienced pilots and lots of churn with the best, most experienced pilots leaving for better conditions. I'd like to point out that LCCs like Jetblue and SWA are anomalies. Most LCCs operate on razor thin margins and are usually just a few months away from bankruptcy. The good ones grow the bad ones you never hear about. Also, for airlines the biggest expense is the plane itself. labor is such a minuscule part of the operating budget that if they are in trouble cutting there is just laughable excercise. The pilots, the flight crew, and the ground crew know this. A declining airline will, in this order, cut routes, crew, and then aircraft. With the aircraft being the 800lb gorilla in the room. The author is type-rated in the Canadair Regional Jet and Cessna Citation Mustang and has more than 3500 hours of flying experience Most mainlines require 5000 hours. For now, you couldn't get a job with the big boys even if you wanted to. Anyway, when you do cross that threshold and see things from the other seat I wonder if you'll have the same opinion. In any case godspeed with your career.
martingordon 16y ago
So why don't junior pilots form their own union? Wouldn't that introduce more competition into the labor market and equalize (or at least rationalize) pay between "junior" and "senior" pilots? Or is aviation one of those industries where working your way from the bottom is celebrated?
- sethg 16y ago
  The boundaries of a bargaining unit are set by the location of work and the job classification. These are obviously fuzzy categories and sometimes the National Labor Relations Board has to step in and decide which subset of workers gets to be in a bargaining unit. However, there’s just nothing in the law that lets workers say “OK, everyone with ten years or more seniority will be represented by Union X, and everyone with less seniority will be represented by Union Y, and we will negotiate separately for contracts.”
netcan 16y ago
Not sure I'm convinced about this point: how can we explain a 19:1 pay differential..? The answer is to look at who controls the pilot's union: very senior pilots. Why wouldn't the junior majority vote out the senior minority or leave the union?
- Symmetry 16y ago
  By the time new members get organized enough to start pushing for reforms, they're not far away from becoming senior members. They can't leave the union because the union doesn't want the airline to hire non-union workers. It isn't as bad as the UAW, though, where the majority of the voters aren't even workers any more but rather retirees.
  - ahi 16y ago
    Retirees don't vote.
    - Symmetry 16y ago
      They can't vote in certain elections, but are otherwise still full memebers. See here: http://www.uaw.org/node/158 http://www.uaw.org/node/158
nhebb 16y ago
"the FAA will not allow this because those replacement pilots, though competent with the airplane, do not have experience with the specific operating rules of the airline" Then why don't the airlines standardize their operating rules?
- gaius 16y ago
  The unions would see that as management imposing a change in working practices and go on strike. Remember, the current system favours the unions.
sethg 16y ago
Airlines tend to be unionized because fifty years ago, every major industry in the US was unionized. The large-scale shifts in the American economy in the 1970s and 1980s (less manufacturing, more services) accompanied changes in law, regulations, and public opinion that made it harder to organize unions. Senior pilots make more than junior pilots because back when the government set routes and fares, the airlines collected higher-than-market revenues, which they could share with the pilots. After deregulation, the industry was no longer so profitable, and the pilots’ union compromised by protecting its existing members’ salaries while letting new pilots make less.
ahi 16y ago
"Union agreements and seniority-based schedule assignments lead to reduced safety for passengers, as the least experienced workers are pushed the hardest and get the least amount of rest. " The reason junior officers get paid 16k a year is because there are people willing to do the job for 16k a year. Without the unions airlines could probably get volunteers (much like Greenspun who is certainly not doing it for the money) to fly their planes. But then we would have every pilot inexperienced, overworked, and underpaid. Yes, the airlines are a mess, but he provided no evidence for his arguments. Southwest has been consistently profitable. Why haven't the pilots eaten up all their profits?
- stcredzero 16y ago
  In the case of Southwest, one would think corporate culture had something to do with it.
  - borism 16y ago
    What corporate culture? All I know is that Southwest has pilot union, they get competitive salary and they love their airline. How come SW (or JBLU) don't have same issues as legacy carriers?
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - stcredzero 16y ago
      Yes, Southwest pilots love their airline. Southwest convinced its pilots to help pick up trash between flights. Also, all Southwest employees I've ever spoken to absolutely love their company. They practically gush! There's something up with SWA's corporate culture. So much so, Herb Kelleher cited it as a competitive advantage!
      - borism 16y ago
        Well, that still doesn't explain why pilot's union doesn't take 95% of their profit, does it?
tzs 16y ago
Odd. I would have thought with the time that they spend at high altitude, and the corresponding above average exposure to radiation, that they would tend to be more likely to be ionized.
DJN 16y ago
A competent pilot union negotiator will present the airline with a plan to transfer essentially all expected future profits into the paychecks of pilots and ...the pilots, having expected to collect 95 percent of the airline's profits, will in fact be entitled to 115 percent... WTF! Did the pilots think about the poor entrepreneurs and shareholders who own the business? More reason why labour should be fungible. Some unions really rile me up.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

152 points by jsc 16y ago

smutticus 16y ago

Always interesting to watch the American labor movement eat itself. Depressing but interesting.

jamesaguilar 16y ago
I'm fine with it. I don't care very much whether airline profits go to the company or the employees. I don't care if pilots have to deal with an unstable industry. As far as I'm concerned they are complicit in it by voting the way they do in union elections. They have brought it upon themselves. (With apologies to all the pilots that vote for saner policies -- I tend to see large groups of strangers as single entities.) What's important to me is airfares are incredibly low and I can fly anywhere I want with insane convenience. And in that sense, the American labor movement is doing exactly what I want: providing an ever-increasing quality of goods and services for me to consume at lower and lower prices.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  >I can fly anywhere I want with insane convenience. At least you could before 9/11. Pre-9/11 I would have flown anywhere that was more than 3 hours away. Now I would drive up to 10 hours to avoid flying.
  - jamesaguilar 16y ago
    It adds 15 minutes to the trip. It makes no pragmatic sense to shift your crossover point back seven hours in response. But I suppose if you derive some serious negative utility from security inspections that would make sense for your personal case.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      15 minutes? I have to arrive up to 2 hours earlier now. The security scan itself doesn't take so long but rather everything leading up to it.
      - jamesaguilar 16y ago
        My wife arrives one hour early for domestic flights and has yet to miss one (she travels as part of her work). I even in my anal-retentiveness about flights rarely arrive more than an hour and a half early. So there is a good amount of time you are leaving on the table that you could reclaim. I hope this series of comments will help you waste less time and money driving.
        loewenskind 16y ago
        Well, I fly into the US from outside. That entails rechecking all baggage and going through a second security line. There are less airports you can fly into now from the outside and all of those I've been to so far have huge lines at the security. We now schedule in 4 hours between that initial connection and we've still almost missed the connecting flight a few times.
      - pavel_lishin 16y ago
        What all does that involve, and how was it different pre-9/11? You can't pack a bunch of fluids in your carry-on, so you have to get little travel things - that's not worth 7 extra hours.
        loewenskind 16y ago
        It's not a straight x/y calculation. For me, going through security usually takes between 40 minutes to a couple of hours depending on the air port. But the experience is so awful that I dread it for hours ahead of time and am infuriated by it for hours afterwards. I don't like driving long distances but at least I can avoid some of the stress.
  - matwood 16y ago
    At least you could before 9/11. Pre-9/11 I would have flown anywhere that was more than 3 hours away. Now I would drive up to 10 hours to avoid flying. I read this all the time on HN, but I fly relatively frequently I have never had a problem flying post 9/11. Flying out Denver I can get through security in 10-15 minutes tops. The biggest domestic problems I have had have either been delays at the giant airports (ATL for example) or a single long security line at small airports in BFE. I've been stopped twice for forgetting to leave my money clip in the car (it has a small knife on it). The TSA guy was polite and simply asked if I wanted to throw it away or mail it back to myself. Both times I paid the $10 to mail it back since it was a gift and is engraved. After filling out the paperwork they then put me through the express line so I wouldn't be delayed any further. For a mistake that was clearly on my part they were beyond reasonable. The biggest issue I've had in the last 10 years was getting shaken down by customs in Jamaica. Third world countries, fun stuff. I'm sure there are people who have issues while trying to fly, but I don't think it's as widespread as people like to believe. I recently spoke to a friend of mine who happens to be an executive who travels 3 weeks of each month. She has had zero problems from a security standpoint, with delays from weather being her biggest complaint.
    - DrJokepu 16y ago
      Exactly my thoughts. I just came back to London from New York (JFK) a couple of weeks ago. The immigration & customs officers, the TSA officers were very quick, polite, nice and helpful. It all went incredibly smoothly. One TSA officer lady even flirted with me lightly (which doesn't happen very often). In general, it was an A+ experience.
yardie 16y ago
I find it more fascinating to watch corporations shit all over the Americans.

lionhearted 16y ago

This happens similarly in American professional sports. Young, incoming players can't choose their own team - instead, they're subject to a draft, and controlled by the team that drafted them for anywhere from 4 to 10 years. During that time, the players make very below market money and have no leverage. Then, after they become a free agent, they get overpaid relative to equilibrium. The veterans that have more say in the union consistently bargain more benefits and agree to hose the young incoming players in return.

_delirium 16y ago
Sports labor markets seem pretty screwed up overall, partly because it's a very strange market. Are teams in competition with each other? Or is the league one entity, in competition with other leagues and even other sports? Some other sports-employment models, broken in different ways: 1. The owner-collusion model. A league is exempted from anti-trust laws, and the owners get together to institute rules. There's a draft, and new players can't be hired except via the draft. There is no free agency, or limited, owner-supervised free agency. Basically the "market" is you either do whatever the system tells you, or you leave the league entirely. Most new sports leagues being set up follow this model (e.g. Major League Soccer). 2. The contracts-ban-free-agency model. There's no draft, and you can sign with any team you want. However, the owners have officially or unofficially standardized on an employment contract that requires you to get your team's permission before signing on with any other team, even after your contract expires. Basically a noncompete clause. This is more or less how European club football worked prior to the EU's Bosman ruling invalidating that variety of noncompete (among other things).
jat850 16y ago
The NFL is (currently) the exact opposite of what you describe. Draftees entering the league right now earn disproportionately higher amounts than many veterans, and it is a major point of contention in the upcoming CBA bargaining.

lsc 16y ago

Regardless of whether the U.S. is able to maintain its trade barriers, a sustainable long-term structure would be a pilot-owned airline. If the pilots are the owners there need be no conflict concerning distributing profits. Selling the company to the union, or rather, worker-owned companies seem to be the best case solution to the "union problem" - If my employees started unionizing, that'd be my first shot at a solution "Hey, uh, so I hear you don't like how I'm running the place. How 'bout you take a shot?" Of course, the only way I've ever heard of that working is with large, established unions, which have large established pension funds that can be leveraged.

gaius 16y ago
United (UAL) would be an example of that happens when you do that (the result in my experience is resentful cabin crew who treat passengers as if they're doing us a favour by allowing us aboard their personal vehicles).
- lsc 16y ago
  eh, at least they are taking the financial hit for doing so, right? I mean if you are going to treat me poorly, for me to keep buying tickets either you need a monopoly or I need a discount.
yardie 16y ago
Actually it would be more like, you sold it to the employees but they left you in charge since they don't have any experience running the company. Now you are free to make all the stupid decisions you like and they are stuck with the consequences. Great deal!
- lsc 16y ago
  I have very little sympathy for people who hire managers to run their company and then complain that the managers are running the place in to the ground. When you hire someone and they end up doing a poor job, it's your fault, and your responsibility to clean up the mess. This applies just as much to hiring managers as it does to hiring level 1 support techs. Personally, I think that owners (or shareholders) that don't understand this (and that keep hiring managers who didn't act in the interest of owners at previous jobs) is a big part of what is wrong with our economy.

Nitramp 16y ago

This seems a bit strange. If pilots were actually taking nearly all airline earnings, why are there airlines at all? Running an airline requires a substantial capital investment, and if the return on those investments is effectively zero (or much smaller than other businesses), then there shouldn't be airlines because it's just not a profitable business, right? The other thing is, given the rules he outlines, an airline could drastically reduce its costs by hiring more junior pilots and firing senior pilots. How would they hire more junior pilots? By paying them slightly more than competing airlines. So there should be pressure in the market to increase the salary of junior pilots, which long term should lead to higher salaries for juniors. This seems to contradict the authors experience.

gaius 16y ago
hiring more junior pilots and firing senior pilots This would not be permitted by the union - he covers that later in the article.
RickHull 16y ago
> then there shouldn't be airlines because it's just not a profitable business, right? Hence the constant bankruptcy / bailout cycle. They are in effect subsidized by the government. I believe American Airlines is the only legacy carrier not to have been through bankruptcy.

tomerico 16y ago

A pilot's job is one of the easiest to replace with a computer. It is already happening in the military. In fact, the only actual role of a pilot today is to take off and land the plane, the rest is auto-pilot. If the unions make it so hard to employ humans, it would only give incentive to further develop auto pilots, and the problem will solve itself.

timthorn 16y ago
Landing is typically done on autopilot these days; it is done manually to maintain a pilot's rating or for exceptional reasons.
- yardie 16y ago
  ...and under fair weather conditions. Under more adverse conditions will be done manually. It's fairly easy to tell a computer, "See that line (runway slope), follow it".
  - willyt 16y ago
    I think the autopilot follows a ILS beacon in. Isn't that why less flights are diverted in poor weather now? http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrument_landing_system http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki?search=Autopilot http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki?search=Autopilot
- notahacker 16y ago
  Actually, the exact opposite is true - pilots must use autopilot on a certain number of occasions to retain their certification to use it on low visibility approaches, but otherwise generally do so only when visibility is severely restricted.
- borism 16y ago
  Landing is almost never done by autopilot. Approach is. When the runway is in sight Pilot Flying has to take over from the autopilot, and gently put the wheels on the ground. Computers are still not very good at it, especially not when there is slightest deviation from the norm (i.e. crosswind). Autoland is very rare and is either used in ideal conditions or in terrible conditions (but then both aircraft and airport AND flight crew have to be rated to Cat IIIc standard - extremely rare occurrence).

jasonkester 16y ago

A bit meta, but it's interesting to see how much this guy has reinvented himself over the years. Going from running the biggest, loudest, and most profitable software consulting firm in the world... to retiring to play with photography and airplanes... to junior pilot at a small airline. Some might say going from $MM/year CEO to $18k/year new guy would be a step down, but he seems to be genuinely enjoying the ride. I especially like how he keeps the whole "dot com millionaire" thing hidden on his aviation resume: http://philip.greenspun.com/narcissism/resume http://philip.greenspun.com/narcissism/resume http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/resume http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/resume If you haven't read about the guy, it's worth picking up a copy of Founders at Work just for his interview.

zachbeane 16y ago
"Retiring" is an interesting way to describe it. He took VC money, didn't like VC control, got into a court battle. He then settled for millions with the VCs, while his partners got nothing out of the settlement (http://www.assureconsulting.com/articles/arsdigitahisone.shtml http://www.assureconsulting.com/articles/arsdigitahisone.sht...). It's interesting to see him slightly back in the public eye as an aircraft nerd.
- adolph 16y ago
  Especially as an interviewee on an NPR story about Groupon. If I remember correctly NPR made no mention of Greenspun as having founded a seminal social media web app, before there was language to describe it that way. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129386346 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1293863...
ajaxian 16y ago
I think it's safe to say that Greenspun isn't working as a junior pilot for the money since not too many people making $18k/year have their own plane, helicopter and Acura NSX.
- goatforce5 16y ago

cheald 16y ago

I think I've been working too long today. I read that headline and stared at it for a good 10 seconds trying to figure out why on earth airlines would be "un-ionized".

philwelch 16y ago
"In his essay To Tell a Chemist (1965), Isaac Asimov [7][8][9] claimed that one could distinguish a chemist from a non-chemist by asking a person to read the word "unionized" aloud. With no context given, he said that a chemist will pronounce it "un-ionized", but a non-chemist will pronounce it "union-ized"." --Wikipedia

yardie 16y ago

who controls the pilot's union: very senior pilots. Most airlines are made of a lot of junior pilots. Junior is a relative term because you can be with the airline for a decade and be considered a junior. The senior pilot making $300k is an anomaly at the airline, like the Welfare Queen in politics. So when the airline wants to cut salaries these dozen (for a large airline) or so senior guys, that are almost near retirement, are the ones put on the press release as the big bad pilots. To the guy making $300k taking a 25% paycut, its not a big deal, the guy making $16k taking a 25% paycut, BIG fucking deal. And just like politics, airline pilot unions don't always vote rationally. They could vote in a system that randomizes schedule according to availability, but they'd much rather keep the bid system. I guess its a case of "I got mine" where the senior guys get to choose the priciest routes. And the junior guy wants what senior has even if its costing him. Taxes on the rich are the same, they are an easy target but the middle class don't want it because they might be one of them one day. I don't think you'll find a person alive willing to say I, with 25+ years, is okay with you firing me if the junior gets to keep his job. No one wants to be furloughed and as you get higher up in the company the stakes get higher so don't expect this piece of union contracts to change. Not for pilots, not for detroit, not even in the IT sector; you know, last hired first fired. If airlines paid workers according to personal experience and skill rather than seniority within their particular airline, pilots would be more likely to live near where they worked. Capt. Sully could stay in SF but there are more senior pilots who are just as experienced as him, there. To move up the ladder he chose to go to NC. Hell, even Heather Poole, FA blogger on gadling, chose to take NYC while living in LA. Your choice is either to get experience working at a different FBO, or be on reserve, sitting in the terminal, not getting any experience. Tough choice, huh? An airline that is successful and growing will enjoy lower costs because of the new pilots being hired for almost nothing. If you are referring to LCCs most are just a proving ground for pilots until they can make it to mainline carrier. So you have cheap, inexperienced pilots and lots of churn with the best, most experienced pilots leaving for better conditions. I'd like to point out that LCCs like Jetblue and SWA are anomalies. Most LCCs operate on razor thin margins and are usually just a few months away from bankruptcy. The good ones grow the bad ones you never hear about. Also, for airlines the biggest expense is the plane itself. labor is such a minuscule part of the operating budget that if they are in trouble cutting there is just laughable excercise. The pilots, the flight crew, and the ground crew know this. A declining airline will, in this order, cut routes, crew, and then aircraft. With the aircraft being the 800lb gorilla in the room. The author is type-rated in the Canadair Regional Jet and Cessna Citation Mustang and has more than 3500 hours of flying experience Most mainlines require 5000 hours. For now, you couldn't get a job with the big boys even if you wanted to. Anyway, when you do cross that threshold and see things from the other seat I wonder if you'll have the same opinion. In any case godspeed with your career.

martingordon 16y ago

So why don't junior pilots form their own union? Wouldn't that introduce more competition into the labor market and equalize (or at least rationalize) pay between "junior" and "senior" pilots? Or is aviation one of those industries where working your way from the bottom is celebrated?

sethg 16y ago
The boundaries of a bargaining unit are set by the location of work and the job classification. These are obviously fuzzy categories and sometimes the National Labor Relations Board has to step in and decide which subset of workers gets to be in a bargaining unit. However, there’s just nothing in the law that lets workers say “OK, everyone with ten years or more seniority will be represented by Union X, and everyone with less seniority will be represented by Union Y, and we will negotiate separately for contracts.”

netcan 16y ago

Not sure I'm convinced about this point: how can we explain a 19:1 pay differential..? The answer is to look at who controls the pilot's union: very senior pilots. Why wouldn't the junior majority vote out the senior minority or leave the union?

Symmetry 16y ago
By the time new members get organized enough to start pushing for reforms, they're not far away from becoming senior members. They can't leave the union because the union doesn't want the airline to hire non-union workers. It isn't as bad as the UAW, though, where the majority of the voters aren't even workers any more but rather retirees.
- ahi 16y ago
  Retirees don't vote.
  - Symmetry 16y ago
    They can't vote in certain elections, but are otherwise still full memebers. See here: http://www.uaw.org/node/158 http://www.uaw.org/node/158

nhebb 16y ago

"the FAA will not allow this because those replacement pilots, though competent with the airplane, do not have experience with the specific operating rules of the airline" Then why don't the airlines standardize their operating rules?

gaius 16y ago
The unions would see that as management imposing a change in working practices and go on strike. Remember, the current system favours the unions.

sethg 16y ago

Airlines tend to be unionized because fifty years ago, every major industry in the US was unionized. The large-scale shifts in the American economy in the 1970s and 1980s (less manufacturing, more services) accompanied changes in law, regulations, and public opinion that made it harder to organize unions. Senior pilots make more than junior pilots because back when the government set routes and fares, the airlines collected higher-than-market revenues, which they could share with the pilots. After deregulation, the industry was no longer so profitable, and the pilots’ union compromised by protecting its existing members’ salaries while letting new pilots make less.

ahi 16y ago

"Union agreements and seniority-based schedule assignments lead to reduced safety for passengers, as the least experienced workers are pushed the hardest and get the least amount of rest. " The reason junior officers get paid 16k a year is because there are people willing to do the job for 16k a year. Without the unions airlines could probably get volunteers (much like Greenspun who is certainly not doing it for the money) to fly their planes. But then we would have every pilot inexperienced, overworked, and underpaid. Yes, the airlines are a mess, but he provided no evidence for his arguments. Southwest has been consistently profitable. Why haven't the pilots eaten up all their profits?

stcredzero 16y ago
In the case of Southwest, one would think corporate culture had something to do with it.
- borism 16y ago
  What corporate culture? All I know is that Southwest has pilot union, they get competitive salary and they love their airline. How come SW (or JBLU) don't have same issues as legacy carriers?
  - deleted 16y ago
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  - stcredzero 16y ago
    Yes, Southwest pilots love their airline. Southwest convinced its pilots to help pick up trash between flights. Also, all Southwest employees I've ever spoken to absolutely love their company. They practically gush! There's something up with SWA's corporate culture. So much so, Herb Kelleher cited it as a competitive advantage!
    - borism 16y ago
      Well, that still doesn't explain why pilot's union doesn't take 95% of their profit, does it?

tzs 16y ago

Odd. I would have thought with the time that they spend at high altitude, and the corresponding above average exposure to radiation, that they would tend to be more likely to be ionized.

DJN 16y ago

A competent pilot union negotiator will present the airline with a plan to transfer essentially all expected future profits into the paychecks of pilots and ...the pilots, having expected to collect 95 percent of the airline's profits, will in fact be entitled to 115 percent... WTF! Did the pilots think about the poor entrepreneurs and shareholders who own the business? More reason why labour should be fungible. Some unions really rile me up.

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