Fly puppy wrote:
Flying is indeed safe, and why would that be? Without a doubt it is a team effort but it is the pilots who are the last line of defence when all the other failsafes have failed.
true, if not somewhat melodramatic..... (btw, I flew military hardware before embarking on my second career, so I am not ignorant of what's involved).
Fly puppy, You are the last line of defence, you do have to put the A/C down in some horrendous conditions, but with modern A/C you have a fair bit of assistance. TCAS is more of a form of defence than the pilot IMHO - sure enough the pilot has to react, but in the case of a TCAS event that's all it is, a reaction - no decision making involved, merely a series of motor neurons responding to an aural and visual input... happens every day to humans in every walk of life (though without the implications). May sound harsh but when you are as highly trained as you guys are, such an action becomes an instinct.
So yes, you are correct, if not a tiny bit melodramatic. I guarantee that pilots operating in a busy complex environment would not walk away unscathed were it not for the ATCO - so who deserves more pay? The ATCO who makes hundreds of decisions an hour based on thousands of bits of dynamic information, or the pilot who through his or her action or questioning of a clearance, prevents a nasty; (or the conversly, the ATCO who steps in to stop a pilot from doing something he has not been cleared to do (doing it in error), and thus preventing a progression of a possible nasty)?
Yes you are the last line of defence, but do you know how many things have taken place around you to prevent it getting that far?
I believe that pilots and ATCOs should be paid comparably because as you said they are a team - I don't really think that where you are in the line of the safety process (either last line of defence or first) makes that much of a difference (I could argue - though I don't agree with it because of so many other variables, that ATCOs should be paid more because they have responsibility for many more lives and much more hardware than a single pilot) - I do not even begin to want to try to argue about other professions (even though I know of crane drivers who earn around £60k and nurses who earn mid £20k).
We
are well paid, and you are correct; just because someone loves their jobs does not mean they should be paid any less, but it all comes down to market forces - and galling as it may seem to you, there are still lots of people out there who are willing to pay vast amounts of money to enter your profession....
I can't believe that they don't know what they are letting themselves in for with regards to pay or Ts and Cs, and therefore if they are willing to pay huge amounts of money, just to then claim they are underpaid, who is left looking foolish? The man who does a lesser paid job, but has still got savings intact or has not been saddled with huge debt, or the pilot who is unhappy with his or her lot?