$8.00 in titleJust watched CNN report on Gulfstream Air whose aircraft crashed in Buffalo. While pilot error seems to be the cause the wage scales of these people are shocking.A co-pilot with this airline receives base pay of $8.00 per hourA captain starts at $20.00 per hourNew pilot applicants at Gulfstream must have the usual ratings and 250 filght hours.They receive 3 months of Gulfstream training for which THEY pay $30,000Either CNN is wayy off base,or I can't hear and see on-screen graphics. This outfit does the regional flights for Continental with repainted aircraft. I would not ever board an aircraft driven by people qualifed and payed in this manner. No wonder the co-pilot of the doomed flight had to live with her parents in Seattle!http://gulfstreamair.com/

Just watched CNN report on Gulfstream Air whose aircraft crashed in Buffalo. While pilot error seems to be the cause the wage scales of these people are shocking.A co-pilot with this airline receives base pay of $8.00 per hourA captain starts at $20.00 per hourNew pilot applicants at Gulfstream must have the usual ratings and 250 filght hours.They receive 3 months of Gulfstream training for which THEY pay $30,000Either CNN is wayy off base,or I can't hear and see on-screen graphics. This outfit does the regional flights for Continental with repainted aircraft. I would not ever board an aircraft driven by people qualifed and payed in this manner. No wonder the co-pilot of the doomed flight had to live with her parents in Seattle!http://gulfstreamair.com/

Nope-it is right. When Value jet used to be in operation a few of the pilots came to my small airport and asked if they could sleep in the hangar in sleeping bags for the for their layovers...Rather sad-I know few professions that require such an outlay of cash to get trained-and then pay so little.

Some pilot positions do have the potential to earn you a lot of money i.e if you were a chief pilot on 747s for BA or whatever. But if you'd imagined that schlepping your way back and forth between say, Brussels and London on an ATR-72 was the way to riches, think again. There's a good chance you'd make more money working in a shop as a sales assistant.Al

Assuming CNN is correct, in my opinion this casts strong doubt on these regional airlines. Ridiculous pay to people who have several paying passengers naively believing they "are in good hands". I can only assume that the people who go through such an early career spectacle are terribly dedicated to their task of rising above slave labor wages. These regionals probably rely on the professional dedication of most aspiring commercial pilots when they place them and their passengers in these conditions.Do the contracting majors run as much through the regionals as possible to avoid the cost of using experienced crew on the base airline?It looks like Gulfstream Air guessed wrong. The voice recorder revealed something less than a professional management of the Buffalo flight as it was mis-managed to its horrifying end.

Technically, the major airlines are forced into using separate regionals by the 'scope' regulations of the pilot unions in the USA, which limit how many smaller aircraft the majors can have. The original point was intended to limit what the major airlines can do to pilots in terms of pushing them around, but in practice the major airlines tend to get around things with the paper exercise of starting up a 'new' regional airline which is effectively just a subsidiary. That's why you often see regional airlines which look like variants of the majors.Al

Starting at the regional airlines as a Junior FO on reserve. 19800 per year. Off Reserve... 21000 per year. Captain, 32000 per year. Senior Capt with the regional company with 10 years seniority... 75-85000 per year. LOL whos gonna stay at a regional with enough time to get a job at a major.Majors starting FO pay in a 73 or A320 series, around 35-50k per year..All In USD.LOL, you gotta love flying now a days, cause you aint gonna make any money at it... ;)Ohh BTW.. Senior 74 capt flying roughly 15 days a month with the pick of the litter on routes.. 120-150 per year after roughly 25 years with the majors. Before 911, it was around 180-250k per year.And to answer your ?... The majors contract the regional carriers to supply crew and liability. Sometimes the majors will lease the aircraft to the regional contracted carrier, but the regional carrier is responsable for the maint. The majors may have a bit of say to crew qualifications, but mostly it is dictated by the insurance company of the private regional carrier. Remember the Colgan Air Tragedy? It was a Delta Connection flight I do believe. Funny how you don't hear anything about it being a Delta flight after the accident. But if you were to look up the flight number, it would be coded as "Delta XXX" Flown by Colgan Air.JB

Starting at the regional airlines as a Junior FO on reserve. 19800 per year. Off Reserve... 21000 per year. Captain, 32000 per year. Senior Capt with the regional company with 10 years seniority... 75-85000 per year. LOL whos gonna stay at a regional with enough time to get a job at a major.Majors starting FO pay in a 73 or A320 series, around 35-50k per year..All In USD.LOL, you gotta love flying now a days, cause you aint gonna make any money at it... ;)Ohh BTW.. Senior 74 capt flying roughly 15 days a month with the pick of the litter on routes.. 120-150 per year after roughly 25 years with the majors. Before 911, it was around 180-250k per year.And to answer your ?... The majors contract the regional carriers to supply crew and liability. Sometimes the majors will lease the aircraft to the regional contracted carrier, but the regional carrier is responsable for the maint. The majors may have a bit of say to crew qualifications, but mostly it is dictated by the insurance company of the private regional carrier. Remember the Colgan Air Tragedy? It was a Delta Connection flight I do believe. Funny how you don't hear anything about it being a Delta flight after the accident. But if you were to look up the flight number, it would be coded as "Delta XXX" Flown by Colgan Air.JB

This is the reason my dreams are partly broken. I wanted to become an airline pilot after finishing school, and trust me I would LOVE to do it for a job, but the pay is just pathetic. I could make more staying in ONE place in a coffee shop. For the plane you get payed sh*t, while they treat you like a work horse, going from one place to the other, and on and on, and they don't even provide you with free hotel ticket or something. How do they expect people to do a very fun, but stressful job, if they get payed so horribly. Some things need to change in the U.S...Now I just plan on becoming a programmer, PC Builder/Technician, or a computer engineer, which is a job that I will enjoy like aviation but decent pay, and then get a PPL hopefully :(.

Remember the Colgan Air Tragedy? It was a Delta Connection flight I do believe. Funny how you don't hear anything about it being a Delta flight after the accident. But if you were to look up the flight number, it would be coded as "Delta XXX" Flown by Colgan Air.JB

I remember being quite shocked after reading the cockpit transcript showing irrelevant banter all the way from cruising altitude down to final approach.

This is the reason my dreams are partly broken. I wanted to become an airline pilot after finishing school, and trust me I would LOVE to do it for a job, but the pay is just pathetic. I could make more staying in ONE place in a coffee shop. For the plane you get payed sh*t, while they treat you like a work horse, going from one place to the other, and on and on, and they don't even provide you with free hotel ticket or something. How do they expect people to do a very fun, but stressful job, if they get payed so horribly. Some things need to change in the U.S...Now I just plan on becoming a programmer, PC Builder/Technician, or a computer engineer, which is a job that I will enjoy like aviation but decent pay, and then get a PPL hopefully :( .

I followed my dream after leaving a job that paid me well enough to support my wife and two daughters. After 911, got furloughed, then layed off. Then went back flying cargo in light and med twins for less than Minimum wage. Then got another job with a very repuable regional carrier, took the job on the chief pilots promise that I would goto Capt school after 6 month in the right seat. Then, post 911 and a particular majors shuttle program went by by and most of the layed off flight crew came to where we were and took our seats, to put us back on reserve. I couldn't support my family off that BS and finally gave up my dream.Still talk to friends of mine who were single and able to eat "dust balls" off the floor of thier crash pads. Some are ok with it, but some are just plain fed up with not making any money and being treated as a labor force, instead of pilots.JB

I remember being quite shocked after reading the cockpit transcript showing irrelevant banter all the way from cruising altitude down to final approach.

LOL, thats because the female FO was suposedly "good looking"... No better way to get the captain outa his egocentric shell and start talking... LOL.. No disrespect to the flight crew... My heart goes out to the families of all the victims.JB

SHINY-JET SYNDROME: THE CAREER KILLER"Every year hundreds of young pilots from around the world are afflicted with a paralyzing disease: Shiny-jetsyndrome. SJS."- Sally Struthers, national spokesperson.(Television Infomercial #17 Transcript)[Enter Sally Struthers in front of a blackbackdrop]Sally: "Every year hundreds of young pilots from around the world are afflicted with a paralyzing disease. Shiny-jet-syndrome. SJS."[Fade to daylight. Sanford Airport, Comair academy, a 22 year old CFI climbing into a Seminole with his student.]Sally: "Thats right. Today 9 in every 10 young pilots is a victim of SJS. Take Jimmy here. Jimmy is a smart, young man. He was raised in an upper, middle-class suburb. Jimmy's dad was a Delta pilot. Jimmy has been a flight instructor here at Comair academy for 3 weeks now. See how happyhe is? See how much pride Jimmy takes in his job?"[Jimmy hears a jet engine overhead, looks up at the contrail of a jetliner passing overhead, fade to black.][Fade to daylight. Sanford Airport, Comair academy, summer, the 22 year old CFI climbing into a Seminole with his student.]Sally: "It's now been six weeks since Jimmy started his new job. He has almost 60hours of instructing under his belt. The symptoms of SJS have already begun to manifest themselves. Jimmy is a victim. He constantly complains about his lack of career progression. With a little over 500hours total time and zero actual instrument, Jimmy had expected to be flying a regional jet by now."[1]Victims: These pilots earn less today than a New York City bus driver. Sadly, they were distracted by the colored lights and buttons.S.J.S. September 2006 - B6 EditionQuestion #2:Do you know a pilot who believes that AirTran or JetBlue are the "majors"they've wanted to work for for "their whole lives"?

LOL... Too funny... Where did you get that? Or, did you make that up? I like the line.... "Jimmy gets paid less today than a city bus driver. He earns less than an Amtrak conductor. On average he is earning more than $50/hr LESS than the majorairline pilots his company competes with. His copilot, Sean, has been a major airline pilot for about one month. He is elated to be flying a big jet for $28,000/yr. As long as his parents continue to send those allowance"...That I busted up at... In the Crash Pad, we, I mean myself and the other pilot around thirty something, would find crumpled up company payroll checks made out to some of the twenty one year old (No Offense) rich european sons and daughters, who's parents were paying thier way through US air carrier employment, to hopefully come back to europe with enough hours to get hired directly into a european carrier. We would call them and ask em if they wanted us to hold onto thier checks for em. They would answer, "Nahh it's cool thanks". We would both joke that we should forge the checks to our names so that we can keep ouselves a bit outa debt trying to support our poor families at home. Hell they didn't want nor need the money.. LOLFunny reply, thanks.JB

Jim, that was precious and priceless! :( :(

Awesome story Jim! Nice to know that my local airport is the source of a majority of pilots suffering from S.J.S. :(

Ya,I got that off of Flightinfo.com,A pilots forum. When I was at Colgan Air,some of our 1st officers used to go to the store in their uniforms to cash their food stamps,As a form of protest. Take my word,The safety margin is continuing to decrease as I write this. With my knowledge of what goes on,When I fly,I am holding on like a cat to the armrests,Like at the dentist.

------------- With my knowledge of what goes on,When I fly,I am holding on like a cat to the armrests,Like at the dentist.

------------------------------If you should ever end up in Emergency after the $8.00/hr pilot smucks the plane, enquire as to the pay of the Resident Intern who is trying desperately to keep you alive!It's probably less and he/she is often on duty up to 72 hours straight!Alex Reid