Airline pilots are not underpaid, indeed in many cases - especially where there is union representation - pilots are overpaid, as the nature of the union and collective bargaining overrides the actions of the job market to which non-unionised workers are exposed.
This eliminates competitiveness within the job market such that in times of labour shortage the employees are unable to take advantage through large pay rises that are able to fall again in times of need, since wage rates are sticky and especially so where the union does not allow wage rates to fall to the market rate prevailing at any one time.
You strike down any comparison with any other job - but unfairly so. Responsibility comes in many forms - just because you may pay with your life for your errors (and I note that not all incidents or even accidents result in the guaranteed death of all on board) - that is no reason for being paid huge danger money if there are many people willing to do the same job, and therefore driving down the price of your labour.
If anything, unions should actively market airline flying as boring tosh to dissuade youngsters from seeking to join the workforce, and hence bargain up their price of their labour.
Basically unions suck, and have no role in a competitive economy other than for preventing safety abuses and deviations by management.
You deem initially that you should be paid more as:
I think it is about time for all pilots to demand more money afterall
we are the ones who are checked every six months,we are the ones who can not make a single mistake,we are the ones who miss most of our family occasions,and we are the ones who are
no longer humans according to rostering departments, we are either legal or not legal.......
You however move on to later talking about the safety implications that arise when you hold responsibly for your life and that of all others - suggesting to me that you cannot pin down a reason as to why you should be paid more.
Every airline is short of pilots, and for the coming years demand will be much more,this is our time and airlines must increase the salaries if they want to keep their pilots.
No - your fantastic union agreements ensure that airline will keep their pilots as you are so heavily penalised in changing airlines - for example in leaving BA.
Ultimately if you do not feel as though you are paid enough - is this the fault of the airline for operating in a marketplace and taking on the risk of employing you, training you and retraining you; or your fault for entering into that large loan to pay for your training in the first place?