7 ms·

I haven't heard anything about the pilot strike mentioned in the article. That aside, I have the following to say which is oriented more towards flight attendan

by geuis 15y ago

I haven't heard anything about the pilot strike mentioned in the article. That aside, I have the following to say which is oriented more towards flight attendants than the pilots whom you don't normally interact with. Of any airline I have ever traveled on, the Virgin lines (Atlantic and America), have been my favorite. This ranges from the very basic things like more leg room than their competitors to wifi in the sky, to the excellent way almost every Virgin employee treats their customers. This last point is the most important. I was on a flight last year where my friend and I got to the airport about 10 minutes late. The flight we were to catch from SFO was already boarded and ready to taxi by the time we got to the gate. We were put on standby and were seriously in danger of not getting a standby flight till late in the evening. However, at the last minute the plane (which still hadn't taxied) opened its doors, and 5 flight attendants got off. These ladies were off-duty and were using their free flight options to go to Vegas for the weekend. Somehow they heard there were 3 passengers (us and another fellow) who had missed the flight. They all ended up getting off and giving us their seats. They didn't have any compunction about waiting a few extra hours to catch their flights and start their weekend, so that we could make our flight and start ours. I've had other experiences on Virgin that are similar. The staff that have to deal with thousands of potentially unruly travelers every week almost always bend over backwards to make sure we are happy or at least mollified if we're pissed about something or another that really has nothing to do with Virgin, and especially if it is. The point I'm getting to is that after a few candid conversations I've had with flight attendants, these people are paid shit. Fucking, low-grade shit. Pardon my language, but its true. Pilots earn a bit more, but its still crap. 2 years ago, one flight attendant I got to know coming back from D.C. said she earned something like $30k after several years. The average pay is lower. Its utterly ridiculous that some of the nicest, caring people in the airline industry have to deal with such people as the general public (myself included, of course) and yet make less money than a manager at a McDonalds franchise. Day in, day out. I'm assuming that the pilots union doesn't include the flight stewards. Given that, I would encourage the flight attendants to strike as well for better pay. They well deserve it. I'm the kind of person that will pay a little extra for quality. I do it with food, personal products, and travel. I don't fly Virgin because its cheaper, though it often is. I fly them when I can because I enjoy the experience and don't want to be stressed out when I get to where I'm going. If it means that I pay an extra $10-$20 to fly Virgin so that their employees directly benefit, that's something I would do gladly.

nodata 15y ago
In "Capitalism, A Love Story", Moore claims that new pilots average the same as a McDonalds low-level manager. If this is true, it would make Virgin pilots comparatively well paid.
- lucasjung 15y ago
  I think by "new pilots" they mean "new pilots at regional carriers," not "new pilots at the majors." Of course, these days, the regional carriers have become the primary path to employment in the majors (it used to be the military), so most airline pilots have to endure a few years of that. The fact is, a lot of people love to fly (at the controls, not in the back), so getting paid to fly for a living is an incredible draw. When you add in the great benefits and the high pay for experienced pilots, you're bound to get a situation where people have to pay some serious dues to break into the majors. My dad is a retired airline pilot, so I've heard plenty about the airline industry from him. For airline pilots, seniority is everything. Part of it is the pay scale, which as you pointed out, is unbelievably steep: the new guys get paid almost nothing, the oldest hands make (at least) the kind of money people normally associate with lawyers and doctors. However, other things that dramatically effect lifestyle are also driven by seniority, such as scheduling and vacation. The senior pilots are able to schedule themselves for contiguous trips and to be home for weekends. My dad used to pull a trick where, if we were planning a vacation, he would book himself up solid with flying for the first two and a half weeks of the month and then hit his legal monthly limit for flight time, after which he got the last week and a half of the month off without having to take any vacation. New guys, on the other hand, get stuck with crazy schedules where there are inconvenient gaps between flights, leaving them with low ratios of hours flown/days worked. Seniority also determines where you can get stationed: the most senior get to pick their home station, the more junior must select less-desirable stations. The most important aspect of seniority is furlough: least senior gets furloughed first. In a cyclic industry with big swings of expansion and contraction, this is a very big deal. When my dad first got out of the Navy and went to work for Pan Am, they gave him an offer: start immediately as a flight engineer and move up to co-pilot in a year, or wait six months to hire on directly as a co-pilot. Even though he wanted to get back into the pilot's seat as quickly as possible, he chose to hire on immediately and delay co-pilot status. He didn't know it at the time, but it turned out to be the best career decision he ever made: a few years later there was a major furlough, and he was just a few seniority numbers above the furlough line. If he had waited those six months, he would have been furloughed and out of work for several years. It's not set up this way because of the airlines, its because of the pilots' unions. Part of it is driven by position: Captains get paid more than co-pilots, and pilots of bigger jets (longer flights) get paid more than pilots of smaller jets (shorter flights). Even that is driven by seniority, though: the most senior pilots get the big jets. Some aspects of the seniority system make complete sense: you don't want the airline to use a furlough as an excuse to get rid of its most highly-paid pilots. However, the pay scale doesn't need to be nearly as steep as the unions make it, and if it wasn't so steep then the airlines wouldn't have to lay off as many junior pilots to save a given amount of money.

by geuis 15y ago

nodata 15y ago

In "Capitalism, A Love Story", Moore claims that new pilots average the same as a McDonalds low-level manager. If this is true, it would make Virgin pilots comparatively well paid.

lucasjung 15y ago
I think by "new pilots" they mean "new pilots at regional carriers," not "new pilots at the majors." Of course, these days, the regional carriers have become the primary path to employment in the majors (it used to be the military), so most airline pilots have to endure a few years of that. The fact is, a lot of people love to fly (at the controls, not in the back), so getting paid to fly for a living is an incredible draw. When you add in the great benefits and the high pay for experienced pilots, you're bound to get a situation where people have to pay some serious dues to break into the majors. My dad is a retired airline pilot, so I've heard plenty about the airline industry from him. For airline pilots, seniority is everything. Part of it is the pay scale, which as you pointed out, is unbelievably steep: the new guys get paid almost nothing, the oldest hands make (at least) the kind of money people normally associate with lawyers and doctors. However, other things that dramatically effect lifestyle are also driven by seniority, such as scheduling and vacation. The senior pilots are able to schedule themselves for contiguous trips and to be home for weekends. My dad used to pull a trick where, if we were planning a vacation, he would book himself up solid with flying for the first two and a half weeks of the month and then hit his legal monthly limit for flight time, after which he got the last week and a half of the month off without having to take any vacation. New guys, on the other hand, get stuck with crazy schedules where there are inconvenient gaps between flights, leaving them with low ratios of hours flown/days worked. Seniority also determines where you can get stationed: the most senior get to pick their home station, the more junior must select less-desirable stations. The most important aspect of seniority is furlough: least senior gets furloughed first. In a cyclic industry with big swings of expansion and contraction, this is a very big deal. When my dad first got out of the Navy and went to work for Pan Am, they gave him an offer: start immediately as a flight engineer and move up to co-pilot in a year, or wait six months to hire on directly as a co-pilot. Even though he wanted to get back into the pilot's seat as quickly as possible, he chose to hire on immediately and delay co-pilot status. He didn't know it at the time, but it turned out to be the best career decision he ever made: a few years later there was a major furlough, and he was just a few seniority numbers above the furlough line. If he had waited those six months, he would have been furloughed and out of work for several years. It's not set up this way because of the airlines, its because of the pilots' unions. Part of it is driven by position: Captains get paid more than co-pilots, and pilots of bigger jets (longer flights) get paid more than pilots of smaller jets (shorter flights). Even that is driven by seniority, though: the most senior pilots get the big jets. Some aspects of the seniority system make complete sense: you don't want the airline to use a furlough as an excuse to get rid of its most highly-paid pilots. However, the pay scale doesn't need to be nearly as steep as the unions make it, and if it wasn't so steep then the airlines wouldn't have to lay off as many junior pilots to save a given amount of money.