Surplus1;
A stellar, perceptive and superbly crafted piece of writing about our industry. Thank you.
Being paid more money or less money has nothing to do with one’s piloting skills. It does however, result in management’s need to accept lower levels of experience and minimal qualifications. Don’t blame pilots for accepting jobs that pay less than others – that’s a system created by management and sanctioned by government. In many instances in major carriers, management has reduced pilot pay by as much as fifty percent, eliminated pensions, greatly reduced medical benefits and devastated work rules returning them to FAR standars, which are rediculous. Pilots in legacy carriers have accepted these changes because they have no choice – but their aircraft haven’t started falling out of the sky because their pay is now lower than it once was. Pilots in regional/feeder carriers have done the same. Lower pay does not decrease individual qualifications and pilots have no real control over their compensation. When you need to feed your family or yourself you take the job that’s available. We all do this and it is not limited to the airline industry.
Fully concur, and you have said it so well.
The key here is not the relationship between pay and skill; - no pilot ever decides that lower pay deserves less skill, but that was never the way I thought of these dynamics. The flight safety issue arises when, over time, those with less ability, desire, discipline, background etc etc, are hired while those with top-notch capabilities, intelligence and education find work elsewhere, not in the aviation industry and certainly not as a pilot. So the issue is not perceived as a threat. I think that is a mistake not because the issue is presently a problem - it isn't; but it's going to be.
I'm jurasic and date from a time when being an airline pilot was a respectable and desirable career profession. That has changed and today it has regressed to the point where, candidly, it is an insecure profession filled with undue stress - an undesirable job. That's truly sad. I never wanted to be a bus driver but that's what I felt like by the time I reached retirement. I watched my friends and myself deprived of our pensions while incompetent managers walked away with millions leaving our companies in bankruptcy. You could say I'm bitter about that but somehow I managed to avoid letting it degrade my on-the-job performance. I'm not a member of the ME generation. Sorry, I digress.
There is no digression here as far as I am concerned. This is the key issue with the airline industry today and I see no signs of the forces of change on the horizon. There seems a willingness on the part of those managing airlines to perhaps accept a higher fatal accident rate. Otherwise, the resistance I see and have experienced to robust flight safety programs such as FOQA, would not be there. The tools to keep risk down while the industry grows itself out of this depression are there but short-term, short-scale vision which is essentially "quarterly" in nature, does not permit such investments. Especially under SMS, the results are closer to box-ticks than substantive action and/or responses.
An experienced captain can ‘carry’ an inexperienced first officer so long as things don’t get too critical. An inexperienced captain can’t, and pairing the two together is high risk. As the complexity of the aircraft increases, the need for maturity, and training increases with it. Due to economic considerations, regulations have not kept pace with advances in aircraft technology and design. FAA ‘minimum standards’ are outdated and inadequate. That’s not the pilot’s fault and it was not the fault of the Colgan crew. If they were products of the pay-for-training cadre they are not guilty of wrong doing, they are victims of wrong doing.
I have no desire to crucify this crew because mistakes were made. They are just victims of a system that is essentially sick at too many critical levels. Expedience led to them being where they were when they were and as far as I’m concerned that was not of their making. When the dollar or the pound or the euro is allowed to replace the sound judgment of managers and regulators, the result will be more accidents of this nature.
Couldn't agree more. Indeed that is exactly why I said it is so sad and tragic that this crew is being focussed upon while "the board room" is not. Once again this is a management issue, not an airline pilot issue and they, not the pilots, are the personnel who belong in the oak chair.