Members of Congress said they were stunned by the salaries of the pilots of Continental Connection Flight 3407, employees of the smaller commuter airline Colgan Air Inc.
Are these people delusional or just plain stupid?!
When the general public think it is acceptable to only pay bus fare to travel by air something has to give & two of the first things to suffer are pilot salaries & training.
I think part of the problem is that the low-cost PR people are busy reinforcing the myth that you can travel by plane for the same price as travelling by bus, all in the name of competition & 'the big boys have been fleecing the fare paying passenger for years & we are here right that wrong' crap that they dole out all the time.
Also, modern management don't seem to get the whole 'experience' thing. "He/she meets the minimum regulatory requirements & is happy to accept the position & pay we are offering, so what's the problem?" Couple this with the fact that in a lot of airlines, if not all, training has been cut to the bone to save costs & you have a problem.
As for the management mindset, a very senior flight ops manager at a large ME airline recently told a group of his pilots that he believes that there is NO link between low morale & safety. Sounds as though he comes from the same school of delusional management as this guy -
“Compensation has nothing to do with safety,” Cohen said.
This exact same statement was also made at the ME airline mentioned above & while I believe that this particular statement is technically correct, it shows a lack of understanding of the subtle links between human performance & the various emotions & stresses people deal with in their lives. It also shows a lack of understanding of the effects on employees of the environment that management creates in the workplace.
Flight Ops management these days seem to be of the opinion that strong SOP's, coupled with absolute adherance to them, means that they can put any pilot in the seat, treat them anyway they like & still expect to have a perfectly safe operation. This may work OK for a while as long as everything is going according to plan during a flight, but when the wheels start to come off & SOP's are forgotten in the heat of the moment, or perhaps don't cover the situation, then the outcome may not be quite what everyone wants.
Some of the accidents & incidents over the last few years, particularly in recent months seem to indicate that the shortsightedness of this philosophy is coming home to roost.