Johnpilot - your concept that pilots should be paid much the same as: stock brokers, or consultants, or even doctors or lawyers. really hits the nail on the side.
The ones among those professionals who most significantly prosper are the ones who operate proactively to find and develop business. After they have done this for some while, they become highly employable - - on premium terms - as "rainmakers" who bring in much more gross revenue than they take out in pay and perks.
If you look at brokers, consultants, doctors, and lawyers who are mere employees, with all the requisite production skills but situated so they are making an indistinct contribution or benefit to revenues. you will often find they are generally underpaid, under-loved, and terribly insecure, if not completely miserable.
So the correlation here is that job prestige, security, and high pay typically come from the stakeholder and executive perception that the individual strongly affects the future of the enterprise in a positive manner.
Merely grousing about 'the way things should be' will not have this effect.
So what's to be done? The classic medieval system of limiting entry through 'guild' techniques works somewhat for lawyers and doctors, but probably isn't suited to the inherently cyclical airline industry, which prospers when good times produce marginal resources for consumption in the business and consumer economies, and sucks when economic constriction takes that away.
Pilots need airlines and v.v. Seems to me the only two real options are a) figure out how to help sell more tix for your current or prospective employer, or b) hunker down and wait it out.
Last edited by arcniz; 5th Sep 2003 at 05:06.