As a person who believed from a very early age that I was born to fly, I suppose I could be considered to have the biggest reason to be jealous of pilots, even in today's industry. Yet, I have a great respect for pilots, for reasons I think BHR will never understand.
When it became obvious that I could not fly professionally, I turned to AeroEng, yet still did not get into aviation at the level I wanted, simply because it did not exist anymore.
I went the private way, getting my PPL in the States and then hounded every avenue in persuit of any job in flying. The penny dropped when I was applying for saturday afternoon glider tug jobs and competing against ATPLs that had 100 times more hours.
The point is that in the same time period, people did indeed get flying jobs with about the same experience and oportunities that I had. I used to think that they just had more luck or connections, yet I have grown to accept that they had more determination and just did not give up. It took me years to overcome the sense of unfairness in order to understand that there is more to life than flying. Having kids really put such thoughts to bed once and for all and I have absolutely no regrets. Unlike some who seem to deny the truth to themselves, yet which seems so obvious to many.
The dedication I mentioned does not end once they have landed their dream job. The dedication is in every task of every flight coupled with a level of responsibility that very few jobs have.
It is my firm belief that such responsibility and dedication deserve the respect and monetary reward that most ordinary people THINK they get, yet the reality is far removed these days.
I think we are passing (have passed?) through yet another golden era, just as we lost the flying boats, open cockpits and many other truly wonderful ages of flight. The difference is that those golden ages passed because of advances in technology, standards and attitudes, yet there is no way I would describe todays changes for commercial pilots as progress.
2 years ago I walked out on my job as a despatcher/load controller, even though it was a rewarding job that I loved. The reasons are echoed by Roland's sentiments; decreasing standards of pay, conditions, treatment and most importantly, attitudes to safety and security. When my brother trained as a despatch/load controller for KLM, he went through 2 months of intensive training and another 2 months of supervised line training before he was let loose on an aircraft. In the last few months at my job, I saw check-in agents with no previous tech experience get 2 weeks classroom training before they were unleashed, unsupervised and unsupported onto widebody flights. I grew sick of every LD mistake being treated as a disciplinary matter while the management broke every H/E and CAA regulation they could. I was a thorn in their side for as long as my mental health could cope and finally left. Today, 2 years later, the conditions have got a lot worse according to my old colleages and I struggle to understand why planes aren't dropping from the skies as a result. My belief is that when they do, there will be little that we can do to reverse the trend that incompetent and self-centred management have instigated, since they will have stripped the industry of the experience and dedication that ensures the safety standards we see today.
I have allowed myself to believe that pilots and engineers did not suffer the same trends that I have seen in ground handling, yet it is becoming obvious that they are. Contract handling has been the easiest way to escape the responsibility of maintaing such standards. The premis is to cut costs, but the unseen effect is to strip away the ability of an airline to maintain standards. I have seen it at the ticket desk, checkin, ramp and then operations, where management with no specific training to be managers, or relative experience of the jobs under their supervision, are overuling safety, regulations, security and the working environment in general in the name of short term cost-cutting. I was actually told by my manager that they would not be giving us the baggage reconciliation training that regulations demanded because the budget did not permit it. When I asked if they had cleared it with the authorities, he replied that they completely understood the commercial pressures. So when I told him I would be confirming that with them, he told me I would be sacked if I contacted them.
This is the type of management that is running our airlines these days.
What makes me sick is that by doing my job for half the money that BA despatchers worked for, I contributed to the general decline, because when BA saw this, they began to 'weed out' the experienced guys to replace them with cheaper alternatives. This is how an airline lowers its visible costs, yet without realising just how much such experienced and dedicated staff can save money by using their experience and authority to prevent mistakes, delays and ultimately, accidents, as well as maintain high levels of service to the customer.
I was fortunate that nobody was ever injured during any of my 5000+ turnarounds that I controlled, yet when I think about the newbies on the ramp that were operating shoddy equipment with far less than adequate training or supervision, it brings on cold sweats.
The governing authorities seem to rely on the statistics, which fortunately remain good, but sad truth is that self regulation is being abused by the airlines to the point of criminal negligence. It is only the quality of modern aircraft and the professionalism of a few individuals, especially mechs and pilots, that maintains those stats. Sooner or later, the bigger holes in the fewer layers of cheese are going to line up and let the ever increasing number of mistakes cause accidents.
For me the declining standards of pay and conditions are not just lamentable as a lost era, but they will have serious consequences in the not too distant future. If some want to dismiss Roland's post with a boo-hoo, then that's their right, but expect many folks like me to have little sympathy when you are whining about the fact that their safety is being excessively compromised every time they use a cheap airline. Your complacency and greed for cheep flights has consequences.
Next time you hear an airline spokesman say that 'safety is a given', don't believe it, because it is just another bit of spin to deflect from the FACT that they are sucking the essence out of the industry that took so long to reach the high standards that we expect. You want to help them turn pilots into bus drivers? Then take a look at how many bus crashes there are every year and whether you would get on a plane driven by a driver with the equivelant training, support, regulations, oversight, dedication, responsibility and safety record as you see on the busses. Then wonder why some bus drivers are getting the same wage as new FOs and why those FOs should show any more dedication/responsibility to their tasks. When a bus driver can do the same job as Al Haynes, then you can equate the jobs, until then, stick your ignorance and envy where it belongs.
I thank you.