I have a HR truck licence, cost me a few hundred $$$ and took a few days to complete. I didn't need weeks of classroom instruction plus home study plus simulator and aircraft time costing thousands of dollars per hour. I needed a car licence to begin training rather than a CPL costing $50 000. Didn't take me long to learn the controls either.
The salaries for REX captains are appropriate for first officers, skippers should be on 50% more.
While your at it why not set impossible schedules in the time table, like those set for truck drivers which can only be achieved through breaking the speed limit. Have us falsify records and take drugs to stay awake. Like to be sitting in the back with a pilot whose done a multi sector 14 hour day and popped a couple of amphetamines to stay awake ?
Employers have taken full advantage of a supply/demand rate heavily in their favour for many years, to denigrate our conditions. Now they are reaping what they have sown, ie they ground us down and now no one is around to do the job.
Skytrans are advertising in Fridays Australian, not long ago it was Pilotstaffcv.com and the requirements were DOUBLE. They are one of the better GA operators and strictly follow the rules. RFDS pay their pilots less than the flight nurse and they are one of the top GA jobs.
Why should pilots working in remote areas be paid less than bar staff ? Think a recently qualified accountant would head bush for $40 000/year ?
It's time those tossers who refer to us as glorified bus drivers got a taste of reality. Ever seen multiple failures of hydraulics or electrics that we do in the sim ? How a trip into China converting metres into feet, dealing with poor English, late runway changes, bad visibility and some of the most complicated arrival and departure procedures you will ever see.
Let's have the pay and respect that our profession deserves, it's long overdue
