I guess the glass is close to half full.

https://news.trust.org/item/20210128145935-ldwxq

Edited January 28, 20215 yr by Fielder

They should be glad they aren't a restaurant worker/owner in New York City. At least they were overpaid during the time they were still flying.

Instability is one of the few constants in the airline industry...it's been that way since the beginning.  The guys I know that have weathered the storm(s) the best are those that understand that fact, and as a result have saved and sized their lifestyles with the expectation that bad times could always be right around the corner.

My grandfather was a captain at Eastern from the late 1940s through the mid 1970s and he said that they paid him so well because on any given day you showed up for work you didn't know for sure whose name would be on the sign above the hangar door.

 

I know a captain who flew for AA.  He took early retirement inducement since he had planned to retire in a couple of years anyway.

 Noel

28 minutes ago, W2DR said:

They should be glad they aren't a restaurant worker/owner in New York City. At least they were overpaid during the time they were still flying.

Overpaid? I dont think you understand pay scale in aviation, try to start your career in aviation, there are people making less than a restaurant worker when they were still working. 

And you clearly don't understand the pay scale of restaurant workers. Try being a single mom waiting tables with two kids at home and no health insurance. Somehow I don't think she'd be very sympathetic to the plight of a furloughed airline pilot.

Edited January 29, 20215 yr by W2DR
kant spel

4 hours ago, W2DR said:

And you clearly don't understand the pay scale of restaurant workers. Try being a single mom waiting tables with two kids at home and no health insurance. Somehow I don't think she'd be very sympathetic to the plight of a furloughed airline pilot.

Its all about choices in life......

41 minutes ago, BIGSKY said:

Its all about choices in life......

Oh no!  We don't all have the same choices.  Each of us has a menu of choices based on our circumstances from the moment we are born.  Some are born with prime rib on thier menu while others are born with nothing more than Big Mac on their menu.

Not everyone can go to an Ivy League college.  Not everyone can even go to city college.  We may all be created equal (but even that isn't true or we wouldn't need St. Jude's Children's Hospital).  But not everyone is born equal.

I've noticed that those who eat prime rib have a habit of telling those who eat Big Macs "'It's all about choices in life."

Noel

Edited January 29, 20215 yr by birdguy

4 hours ago, W2DR said:

And you clearly don't understand the pay scale of restaurant workers. Try being a single mom waiting tables with two kids at home and no health insurance. Somehow I don't think she'd be very sympathetic to the plight of a furloughed airline pilot.

What do you mean by overpaid?
how much do you think pilots should be paid? paid to be responsible for thousands of lives each year. Maybe yours or your family.

You clearly don’t know how to compare apples to apples.

you are deluded if you think these two jobs are even comparable. One is skilled labor that takes hours upon hours upon hours to train for and become proficient at as well as have people’s lives in your hands.....while the other requires you to show up to work...oh and carry a few plates and cups to tables. 
 

Seriously dude, stop while you aren’t ahead.

yes, I’ve worked in the service industry in my day....

Edited January 29, 20215 yr by ahsmatt7

25 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Oh no!  We don't all have the same choices.  Each of us has a menu of choices based on our circumstances from the moment we are born.  Some are born with prime rib on thier menu while others are born with nothing more than Big Mac on their menu.

Not everyone can go to an Ivy League college.  Not everyone can even go to city college.  We may all be created equal (but even that isn't true or we wouldn't need St. Jude's Children's Hospital).  But not everyone is born

 

Edited January 29, 20215 yr by ahsmatt7
Not even worth it

6 hours ago, BIGSKY said:

Its all about choices in life......

As Noel so aptly points out above, it's not all about choices. One's available choices are limited by circumstances. Life can only be all about choices if everyone's circumstances are equal. And, I'm sure you'd agree, not everyone's circumstances are equal. When I was a kid I grew up in a three-room house on a dirt road. Some might even call it a shack. I will guarantee you that the choices available to the kids in my neighborhood were vastly different from those available to the kids from the more affluent families in town. Ask anyone who's seen both sides of life if it's all about choices. But don't ask the question if you're not ready for the answer.

Edited January 29, 20215 yr by W2DR
kant spel

I think housing and transportation costs are a big factor. Plus how well one can weather an illness for example, health and unemployment insurance etc. Regardless of how high or low the pay is, I wish anyone willing and able to work 40+ hours a week could afford to get to and from work and live in a decent apartment.

The basic economic factors driving well being are the same everywhere. The few times I've been in China I felt depressed by the endless rows of monotonous housing blocks. Singapore also the HDB projects, but I can't deny that they seem an efficient way of housing a lot of people. Maybe the few people who appeared to be homeless that I saw in Shanghai and Nanjing somehow managed to escape being sent to forced labor camps. Also I'm sure it's not easy to afford a nice apartment in Shanghai at a low salary. Not that different from London or Los Angeles. I'm definitely not advocating any particular system. Still I can't help having formed an impression, at least roughly in the years 2010-2019 when I went to a lot of different places, of the general mood and atmosphere in certain cities. Especially when landing at an airport with your luggage and taking public transit, but also just walking around on the streets any time day or night. I took BART from SFO, LA Metro from LAX, and NY subway from JFK a few times. It just feels different to me from say Tokyo Narita Express, Shanghai Metro, or Singapore, or Taipei MRT, not that I was directly threatened in the US, but seeing other people fighting and the general mood of poverty. I think we can't forget that regardless of where we live, we live in communities and we're always connected to those around us in some way or another. 

Anyway some restaurants were very successful financially in previous times and some wait staff also have managerial functions as well, dealing with paperwork, hiring and firing, health inspections, purchasing etc, a lot of shared functions. As far as aviation goes, the field closest to my heart, I'm very happy to hear the glass is at least half full. Definitely, not our first crisis, and not our last, and we'll get through it.

Let's move it back to the topic, please.

If we're talking about pilots being overpaid, you're thinking about Senior Captains flying at a legacy airline for 20 years, but even then I would argue it's one of the jobs in which I'm okay with people making loads to money given the long way to get there and then being directly responsible for 300 lives on a daily basis.

No offense to people working in restaurants, but I don't see how it's better to cripple yourself financially by spending 80,000 on basic training to end up with some sort of frozen license, then trying to find a job which most people struggle with and then, when you've actually found one, spend another 30,000 on type ratings and line training and whatnot to finally be able to do the job. Most will however end up and some low or ultra low cost carrier with abysmal pay and bad working conditions being able to rent a small room only without going broke, all while trying to pay back that loan from that 'salary' for who knows how many years. Now you've finally landed a job as an F/O and the pandemic comes along, basically wreaking havoc in the entire industry and you find yourself out of your profession working a warehouse job because what else are you going to do.

This is exactly the reason why I quit flight training after a short time with only low costs due to second thoughts about the financial commitment and uncertainty. The way it works nowadays in big parts of the industry is disgraceful. I know several people who, before the pandemic, were working other jobs because they just couldn't land a job in their actual profession. Obviously, the pandemic is far from a normal situation, but I'm glad I quit and did other things. I don't even want to know what the other trainees in my flight school are going through right now and how this situation has screwed them over majorly. Even without the pandemic, this industry isn't as rosy as it once was for people making a living out of it. Waiter or pilot, it's a very sh*tty situation for both.

I'm sorry Bob. Sometimes I just get carried away about things. Stay safe. And if you can't stay safe at least stay out of trouble 🙂 .....73.....Doug