Originally Posted by
davidclarke
As an example, flight crew at the big US airlines have had significant pay rises in the last few years so it is very possible to get a good deal.
Yes, however, US pilots had pay & benefits decimated post 911. Labour relations have been much more volatile post deregulation in the US with mergers, bankruptcy
& Chapter 11.
Hero pilot Capt. “Sully” Sullenberger, who landed the US Airways airbus on the Hudson, has a tough message for Congress: Pilots are getting so shafted by their employers that the good ones are leaving to do something else.
Sully, for one, is paid 40% less than he was a few years ago and is maintaining a middle-class existence only because he started a consulting company on the side. Folks on the Hudson flight are no doubt glad he didn’t decide to start consulting full time.
AP: The pilot who safely ditched a jetliner in New York’s Hudson River said Tuesday that pay and benefit cuts are driving experienced pilots from careers in the cockpit.
US Airways pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger told the House aviation subcommittee that his pay has been cut 40 per cent in recent years and his pension has been terminated and replaced with a promise “worth pennies on the dollar” from the federally created Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. These cuts followed a wave of airline bankruptcies after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks compounded by the current recession, he said…
The reduced compensation has placed “pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation,” Sullenberger said. “I do not know a single, professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps.”…
Capt. Sullenberger: Stop Cutting Pilot Pay Or Next Plane Will Crash In River