Highest earning occupations - Pilot not amongst them.
And yes there is no way being a pilot is comparable to being a doctor- because the medical profession kill 4000 people/year!
There are a lot of groups with vested interests who promote this issue. Not just malpractice lawyers. But all the industry groups trying to get their products into the hospital system. Electronic medical records or computerised dispensing of medications or expensive new devices are all purported to reduce errors and increase safety. Some do. Some make no difference. And some are frankly counter-productive. Suffice to say that few of these products ever fully deliver the promised results. But just understand you need to find a problem before you can sell a solution.
All that notwithstanding, this is a real problem. There are literally hundreds of patient:clinician encounters for a sick patient admitted to hospital for a week or more. This many encounters guarantees there will be some errors and mistakes.
In aviation, we accept that the majority of errors or failures (holes in the cheese) don't cause an incident or accident. An accident often requires multiple holes to line up. In medicine however, you will always be able to find a hole when reviewing a death. Did the hole cause the death? Or was the death inevitable and unrelated to the earlier error. Causality to mere association? Did an error actually cause the death of the patient? Sometimes it is clear cut. But often it is subjective judgement call haven more to do with prejudice and vested interest than fact.
Remember also that the death rate is the same as it has always been. One per person. Doctors don't save lives, they just delay death. Sometimes however, death can't be delayed and becomes inevitable. Planes can be scrapped or be parked in the desert when they are no longer viable. People however have to die.
Consider also how aviation would work under the following circumstances that characterise the public hospital system:
Often operating aircraft 70-80 years old that had been poorly maintained.
Critical equipment is missing or obsolete or broken, but there is no money this year. Its on next years budget, so hopefully then. For now, just do your best.
People turn up unannounced at an airport and demand to fly wherever they want as often as they want. Unlimited air travel on demand is their right as they "paid for it in their taxes." The politicians keep promising free air travel is here to stay. The passenger does not have to put his hand in his own pocket before deciding if he really wants to fly interstate. If he wants to fly, he flies. Today.
If there are no seats on the plane, thats the airlines problem. Sit them in a toilet or stand them in an aisle or put them in the hold. Whatever. Solve it as best as you can, but you can't deny carriage.
If there are no landing slots, or there are no gates available at the terminal, then that is ATC's or the airports problem. Because another 3 planes are on final (just like another 3 ambulances arriving at an over-capacity hospital). So find a solution.
The relatives change their mind at the last minute and decide they can't come to the airport to pickup grandma today but will come tomorrow. So grandma has to stay on the plane another 24 hours. You needed that seat for someone else? Your problem baby.
Many of the passengers tuning up at the airport don't actually know where they want to fly. They just know they want to fly today. You first job is to diagnose where they want to go. And its random. Some days more want to go to Melbourne. Some days more want to go to Cairns. The number of passengers wanting to go to different destinations will bear no relationship to the capacity you actually have on these different routes today. Good luck.
5% of your pilots called in sick this morning because of those sick passengers at the airport the other day. Guess the other 95% of you are going to be a bit busy today.
Stressful? I must be in a different profession.
Take first break and have a nice read of the paper, or if I'm feeling inclined watch a movie; maybe have a cup of soup if I'm feeling a bit hungry half way through. Come back to the flight station and have the serenity eventually interrupted by having to send a few texts to a guy/gal in a tin shed somewhere in Indo requesting a bit of deviation around some thunderies. Order my crew meal exactly 27 minutes before the Manila boundary so old mate next to me does the HF work, phew. Decide whether or not to eat the cheesecake for dessert. The last few hours are spent contemplating what to have for dinner. Room service or head out for dumplings? Head to hotel and after having the room service, have a great sleep minus the screaming kids and watch a few movies and do it all again. Get home refreshed and have a week off. No wonder my wife plucked my first grey hairs out the other night
Take first break and have a nice read of the paper, or if I'm feeling inclined watch a movie; maybe have a cup of soup if I'm feeling a bit hungry half way through. Come back to the flight station and have the serenity eventually interrupted by having to send a few texts to a guy/gal in a tin shed somewhere in Indo requesting a bit of deviation around some thunderies. Order my crew meal exactly 27 minutes before the Manila boundary so old mate next to me does the HF work, phew. Decide whether or not to eat the cheesecake for dessert. The last few hours are spent contemplating what to have for dinner. Room service or head out for dumplings? Head to hotel and after having the room service, have a great sleep minus the screaming kids and watch a few movies and do it all again. Get home refreshed and have a week off. No wonder my wife plucked my first grey hairs out the other night
Join Date: May 2004
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Well, I've just come back to it to find that you lot still think pilots are hard done by and suffering stress!
Hey, if you can't handle it and don't like it, move on!
40 yrs in the business for me, great job, great money, great conditions. Why do you lot complain!
Go and mow lawns or sell used cars if you're dissatisfied!
Hey, if you can't handle it and don't like it, move on!
40 yrs in the business for me, great job, great money, great conditions. Why do you lot complain!
Go and mow lawns or sell used cars if you're dissatisfied!
One point mentioning in this argument is that pilots take a substantial financial risk in their career in that they are self funded, and then their whole career is really tied to one airline thanks to seniority. As opposed to Doctors who while taking significant loss of earnings for a long time, once qualified are really never going to be unemployed and could work well into their 60's if they wanted to.
Pilot retirement is really around the 60 mark with few going much beyond that.
However it is much harder to qualify as a Doctor than a pilot it must be said
Pilot retirement is really around the 60 mark with few going much beyond that.
However it is much harder to qualify as a Doctor than a pilot it must be said
I can understand why someone who started in 1975 still has that rosy glow about the industry. After all you have seen the best the industry has offered and with the seniority that you would enjoy you probably can't understand why those who don't work for a legacy carrier are not enjoying the choice of roster and holidays that come your way.
I don't think anyone is complaining about the joy of getting airborne and watching the world go by but its not just gravity and a limited fuel supply that is dragging you back to the ground. A lot of people still have to work 20,30+ years of crap rostering, short turn-arounds, minimum rest and a decline in real wages and conditions..
What they don't need is yet another baby boomer telling them, while they are sitting on the top of the aviation mountain, how wonderful the view is.
I don't think anyone is complaining about the joy of getting airborne and watching the world go by but its not just gravity and a limited fuel supply that is dragging you back to the ground. A lot of people still have to work 20,30+ years of crap rostering, short turn-arounds, minimum rest and a decline in real wages and conditions..
What they don't need is yet another baby boomer telling them, while they are sitting on the top of the aviation mountain, how wonderful the view is.
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I can understand why someone who started in 1975 still has that rosy glow about the industry. After all you have seen the best the industry has offered and with the seniority that you would enjoy you probably can't understand why those who don't work for a legacy carrier are not enjoying the choice of roster and holidays that come your way.
I don't think anyone is complaining about the joy of getting airborne and watching the world go by but its not just gravity and a limited fuel supply that is dragging you back to the ground. A lot of people still have to work 20,30+ years of crap rostering, short turn-arounds, minimum rest and a decline in real wages and conditions..
What they don't need is yet another baby boomer telling them, while they are sitting on the top of the aviation mountain, how wonderful the view is.
I don't think anyone is complaining about the joy of getting airborne and watching the world go by but its not just gravity and a limited fuel supply that is dragging you back to the ground. A lot of people still have to work 20,30+ years of crap rostering, short turn-arounds, minimum rest and a decline in real wages and conditions..
What they don't need is yet another baby boomer telling them, while they are sitting on the top of the aviation mountain, how wonderful the view is.
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Bravo Lookleft, well said
Many in that generation have been the bane of my career (& others I know) and should just piss off with their failing eyesight and hearing to retire gracefully, instead of creating more "occurrences" when they fly.
Highest earning occupation? How times have changed!
Many in that generation have been the bane of my career (& others I know) and should just piss off with their failing eyesight and hearing to retire gracefully, instead of creating more "occurrences" when they fly.
Highest earning occupation? How times have changed!
Join Date: Aug 2011
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Join the rest of the world. Most people have crap hours, crap days off, treated like crap by their employers, and no job security....etc. and guess what the majority earn 26000 ( in the UK as that is the average annual salary ) I'm just a FO and guess what I think I'm overpaid for what i do ( not that I'm complaining) but I'm not about to complain that I should be getting more, I would be quite happy with just inflation pay rises for the remainder.
Nunc est bibendum
Bugger the money discussion, this is inspired genius!
I want to hear more of brown hornet's operational decision making.
Order my crew meal exactly 27 minutes before the Manila boundary so old mate next to me does the HF work, phew.
I want to hear more of brown hornet's operational decision making.