Invalid Delete - Strange how many pilots think they can run airlines. Many have tried - the overwhelming majority have failed.
Also, for an alleged Mensa member and university graduate, your spelling leaves something to be desired - "overdraught" indeed!
Your grasp of the real world is also rather lacking - you say that you have given up two year's salary plus GBP40K to get to where you are. Well, on that basis, your average doctor should be on around a million quid a year as they have to give up
seven years' worth of earning power - plus pay their fees and other costs - before they become qualified.
As for your grasp of operating economics - wow! Sure, it may have cost the airline GBP15K for your share of the simulator. But what about the thousands - and believe me, they
are thousands - of man hours that will be invested in you to get you to the point where you are, in their view, up to an acceptable enough standard where they can trust you with the aircraft? And the cost of the biannual sim checks etc which I somehow doubt that you'll be paying out of your own pocket? Nope, laddie - it's one heck of a lot more than GBP15k!!!
Pilots, like it or not, are nothing more than highly skilled commercial bus and truck drivers. Fact. There are many jobs with greater responsibility - including aviation related jobs such as licenced engineers and air traffic controllers - which pay far less. An ATCO, in a single shift, will be responsible for more lives; more aircraft; and more dollar value than you as a pilot will be in a month. Does this mean s/he earns thirty times your salary? Does it cobblers! Yet, without that ATCO guiding you into LGW, LHR, JFK, ORD, LAX etc you - and your pax - would very rapidly become crispy critters.
Sure, pay comes down to basic economics - when supply < demand, pay demands are high; and when supply > demand then you'll be lucky if you have a job in the first place.
Strangely, that applies to all areas of employment - not just aviation; and with the excellent job the unions are in the process of doing where people are being laid off (eg Comair) or where thanks to their insane demands the crippling cost of high overheads will force companies to cut back or collapse the job market will once again become saturated with pilots. It's cyclical - it happens with great regularity, roughly once every decade.
Sapco2 - I agree that management of all companies should morally be responsible to their employees and the owners of their company - the shareholders. Unfortunately, all to often it doesn't work; but in many ways it's those groups - employees and shareholders - that have themselves to blame.
Scottie - so every person joining your company is already type rated with at least 1,000 hours on type then? If so, you're right - it doesn't cost your company anything.
411A/Sensible Spot on!
Kaptin M - but surely that unsociable lifestyle also applies to cabin crew ... are you
really claiming they earn as much as you do? If not, why not, as they have to put up with the same disruptions to home life?
604Driver - you're right; and for the life of me I can't see why, when other professional training expenses
are allowed against tax; why flight crew training isn't. Seriously, this should be a question for all those politicians who expect us to elect them in the next couple of weeks, I think! Why hasn't BALPA ever done anything about it?
When you join a company, you're usually offered a contract. This states your pay, hours, and working conditions. You have a choice - sign or walk away. Now, unless someone is seriously going to tell me that a gun was held at their head and they were
forced to sign - what's the problem? Of course, things change when the company unilaterally changes things top its benefit; but until then, you have a moral responsibility to abide by your contractual commitment.
OzDude - What a load of twaddle! Pilots are far from being the "most regulated" group - and they are far from being "unique".
I agree with you that poor management brings companies down - but as I said yet again above, it's down to employees and shareholders to do something about it - as happened at Continental. You seem to rather conveniently forget about that!
You should also reread my earlier post where I carefully defined that 100 hours as being 'productive' time - ie the time that you're actually doing what you're paid to do (fly from A to B). Sure, there's a fair number of hours either side of that which every employee in every company has to endure - again, nothing 'unique' there, cobber!
RRAAMJET - and for a moment I thought you saw the light there!
Remember, Delta have just gone through the same thing with DALPA; and I think that's what's boosted Comair's demands so high.