I think we are reaching the limit of how far this can go. Or at least I hope it can't, because it's totally
It will go a lot further, just look at all those low cost airlines out there! Pilots who sheepishly take less and less fuel, working more and more nto discretion, reducing more and more rest, naively thinking "it will make a difference" only to be rewarded with the next round of cost savings and bonuses for the management.
RexBanner, you have a point in that salaries are decreasing across the board, not just in aviation. The big issue again is not so much the reduction in pay, but more the overall reduction in quality of life, the fatigue, the jet lag, the dry air, the radiation and possible aerotoxic side-effects on your body. Office people might indeed also get less pay, but at least they can have a
life and enjoy the small things in life that don't necessarily cost a lot of money, like joining a dance class, a yoga class, play football, attend a birthday party, go to a PTA meeting or meet friends.
How on earth do they (management) want us to settle down, when they constantly threaten us with outsourcing and/or base closures, leaving us not much choice other than staying flexible and/or voting with our feet? I see a lot of colleagues that have fallen into this same trap, and I also see a lot of extremely exhausted colleagues who have not fallen into that trap but pay dearly for it by having to commute with impossible rosters.
ShotOne summed it up perfectly: "...that situation has arisen, at least in part, because of people like you who treat aviation as a hobby and are prepared to occupy a professional pilot's seat for the "privilege of getting airborne."
Too many amateurs with no life and no friends treating it as a hobby, afraid to take 2 kilos of extra fuel, afraid to refuse to go into discretion, afraid to be critical of management, head buried deep in the sand ignoring any inconvenient truths as long as they can walk around in that cool uniform and as long as they think that their status as a pilot can fill that huge void that's called:
life.