Its all about the illusion...the illusion that;
the travelling public has - pilots are overpaid glamour boys on a cushy number
the wannabes have - leave my carreer/university/school and get into flying, its a good deal
that the flying schools and training establishments portray - spend your money with us, and we'll open the door for you to the ultimate job
the airline excecs have - the pilots are a bunch overpaid button pushers that have over inflated ideas of their value, just another expense, and that the modern airliner/airline doesn't need experience and loyalty
the pilots have - it doesn't matter who I have to walk over to get 'the' job, or, I'll accept this absolute crap in the meantime, because it will get better down the track.
Until these illusions are put down for what they really are, I really dont think things are gonna change much.
- the public in general have no sympathy for us, we are merely overpaid bus drivers
- the wannabes are gonna lag behind reality by many years, to them aviating is what it was in the glory days
- the flying schools will continue to milk the market whilst there is a ready supply of willing and gullible wannabes with cash in their pocket
- the excecs are paid to improve the bottom line, and generally they don't yet realise that the pilots can be used to assist
- pilots are notorious in the every man for himself attitude. The best deal is on the biggest and shiniest jet, so we will continue to shaft each other in order to get there.
Maybe there is some glimmer of hope on the horizon.
I understand there are some LCC's, namely Southwest, Jetblue, Ryanair, that are smiling, partly because the message has got through to staff that if the company does well, we all do well.
I also hear that the government in NZ is about to stop the student loan scheme for trainee pilots. Bit tough for the individuals, but better that than be offered cheap money to get into an industry that is not really what you thought it was.
Maybe some the flying schools will have to reduce their orders for their shiny new trainers, again tough on those concerned, but market forces have to catch up with them.
I liked the idea of the Guild in principle. We all know that fragmentation is the enemy of a union, association, federation or whatever. But all these groups to date have only represented a small portion of the big picture, and as Rongotai pointed out, they have never worked together. As an employee group, we are totally fragmented, and while we mess about in our own back yard, the rest of the street is getting shabbier and shabbier, and before we know it, the value of the entire neighbourhood has plummeted.
It is increasingly a global market that we work in, the borders and barriers are dissapearing daily, we don't we think of the big picture. But the excec's do.
OK, IFALPA has existed supposedly for this purpose, but it is still made up of its member groups who are in it to look afetr their own patch.
The concept of a guild intrigues me, completely non partisan, transcending all the boundaries lumping us all in one big bucket.
Dont know how the hell it would work though! (Actually sounds a bit like communism!!)