Re: Will it come to blows?

Originally posted by binx
“You’re paid more because you fly a bigger airplane,” he said, adding that “the responsibilities of a jet pilot with the latest technology and 150 to 250 passengers in the back are greater than flying a [18-seat] Beech 1900 from Sault Ste. Marie to Toronto.”

Boy he contradicts himself here. First he says he should be paid more because he flies a bigger plane then he says it’s because he has more responsibility. The responsibility of flying at 18,000′ is no different if you have 100 people sitting behind you or 10. What about all those cargo pilots flying a 747 filled with boxes and letters? By his logic they should get paid dirt as their level of responsibility isn’t as great as his flying 150 people around. The responsibility of operating an aircraft safely that has no autopilot, FMS, ACARS and rarely climbs above the weather is a lot harder than watching the computer fly and navigate your way across the map.

In Canada, the United States or Europe, he said, regional airlines are like the American Hockey League. “That’s where you earn your wings and that’s where you build your hours and that’s where you make a name for yourself,” he said. “Should you do a good job . . . on the farm team, then you get picked up by the NHL team and you get to fly the bigger airplanes.”

And we should thank GOD himself that we should be so lucky as to fly next to you. Drop the “holier than thou” attitude there buddy. The days of treating the “regional” airlines as a stepping stone are over. The CRJ and ERJ are replacing 737’s and MD80’s on routes. The same mission should equal the same pay.

“If they wanted to pay pilots according to landings and takeoffs, the guys who are flying up north in the bush would be making far more than we are,” he said. “That’s not a recognized way of deciding how you should be paid in the airline industry.”

In other words, “I don’t want to see anything implimented that would not put me at the pinicle of the pay scale nor do I want to see other pilots get paid more than I did when I was doing that job.”

“The company wanted to set one group of its employees against the other and get them into a bidding war,” he said. “And, of course, the only people that win in that is the company, because you bid lower and lower and lower to fly the aircraft.”

Bingo! All professional pilots should be paid in line with the major airlines. Not as much as the major airlines, just in line with them. A first year major airline first officer shouldn’t make more than a 10 year captain at a regional. Bring up the captains pay. If the line was blurred between the regional and major airline pay scales then all this bickering over who flies what would be a moot point. The measure of a pilot isn’t the size of his aircraft, it’s the job that he does and how well he does it. I’ve met some awesome Lear and Citation pilots who get paid as much as 757 captains and they have no more than 3 people in the back at any given time. It’s the mission not the machine.

Nevertheless, conflict aside, Mr. Johnson also acknowledged that, in the end, there isn’t much to choose from between flying a 747 and flying a Dash 8. “Once the thing is pushed back from the gate, except for the number of throttles you have in your hand, there’s not much difference,” he said.

Except those pilots in the Dash 8 are worried that their electricity bill payment won’t clear the bank. 😉