Daily Telex, 16 May...WARNING...
Join Date: May 2007
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Where do I sign up
If I'd worked out when I was 18 that I could get paid about 5 times per working hour what I'm actually getting paid (which is not a bad salary at all by the terms of the business I am in) then I'd have been there now.
So you think it is just a matter of signing up, then your career is made. Please tell me you are not that ignorant.
Even in your business there must be failures. If I had a dime for every pilot that didn't make it to a decent airline job, got furloughed for years, washed out of pilot training or even worse, died doing what they loved; well I won't go there.
I know plenty of guys who made the decision to become a pilot at age 18 and at age 35 they still haven't made it past 50K per year. If you think just making your mind up is getting you anywhere in the airline business, I seriously doubt you would "have been there now".
Cider30
Join Date: Oct 2006
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christep
Ok, I'll bite but I rather suspect it is a bait.
Teachers, Nurses, Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, Consultants, Firemen, Waiters etc etc. People whose pay does and has gone up over years for doing exactly the same work. Salaries generally go up faster than the real rate of inflation, not the publicly declared ex food and ex oil figures. Well that is the case in most capitalist societies.
Now onto your salary - you must love your job to have stuck with it for 1/5th of my salary. Almost everyone I know who failed at being a pilot has gone on to far greater and financially rewarding things - a mate of mine now earns over $500K AUD per year as an anesthesiologist. Mates that went into merchant banking earn 7 digits. I finished my MBA in 99 - the average Starting! salary for those graduates was $140-150K US but if you were good at finance it was closer to $200K - but of course I decided to pursue the lucrative, financially limiting career of aviation!
I am constantly amazed at the personal and financial sacrifices made by my colleagues to get to the same place I am at now - sacrifices people do not have to make to anywhere near the same extant in 90% of careers.
I appreciate that you are entitled to your opinion - but coming in half cocked is just plain annoying. This bulletin board is the only effective means that CX/KA pilots can have a good whinge about the company - unfortunately it is open to the public but that doesn't mean we welcome their comments. If I want someone to tell me I am an overpaid w@nker I can ring my mate SAD or any nearby zoologist.
Teachers, Nurses, Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, Consultants, Firemen, Waiters etc etc. People whose pay does and has gone up over years for doing exactly the same work. Salaries generally go up faster than the real rate of inflation, not the publicly declared ex food and ex oil figures. Well that is the case in most capitalist societies.
Now onto your salary - you must love your job to have stuck with it for 1/5th of my salary. Almost everyone I know who failed at being a pilot has gone on to far greater and financially rewarding things - a mate of mine now earns over $500K AUD per year as an anesthesiologist. Mates that went into merchant banking earn 7 digits. I finished my MBA in 99 - the average Starting! salary for those graduates was $140-150K US but if you were good at finance it was closer to $200K - but of course I decided to pursue the lucrative, financially limiting career of aviation!
I am constantly amazed at the personal and financial sacrifices made by my colleagues to get to the same place I am at now - sacrifices people do not have to make to anywhere near the same extant in 90% of careers.
I appreciate that you are entitled to your opinion - but coming in half cocked is just plain annoying. This bulletin board is the only effective means that CX/KA pilots can have a good whinge about the company - unfortunately it is open to the public but that doesn't mean we welcome their comments. If I want someone to tell me I am an overpaid w@nker I can ring my mate SAD or any nearby zoologist.
Teachers, Nurses, Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants, Consultants, Firemen, Waiters etc etc. People whose pay does and has gone up over years for doing exactly the same work.
Join Date: Oct 2006
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15 year old payscales
Those of us that are on A scales are on salaries that were published around 1993.
Those of us that are on B scales are on salaries that were published around 1990 - 1991.
Those of you who joined on CoS 08 - I will have to dig a little deeper as my records only go back to 1989 so you are on the equivalent to some pre 1989 salary level.
Those of us that are on B scales are on salaries that were published around 1990 - 1991.
Those of you who joined on CoS 08 - I will have to dig a little deeper as my records only go back to 1989 so you are on the equivalent to some pre 1989 salary level.
Join Date: Feb 2002
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What hope do we in the aviation industry have, when a decade or so of price cutting has the punters convinced they can fly on an extremely sophisticated peice of machinery, flown by highly trained and tested crew under the control of an air traffic service that considers a risk of something by 10 to the minus 9 is excessive - for the price of a few burgers.
Where will it end? What will cause the turn around?
I dunno. Maybe this belongs on the "greed" thread.
P.S. I plead guilty to trying to take a 1p Ryanair flight. It was cancelled. More fool me.
Where will it end? What will cause the turn around?
I dunno. Maybe this belongs on the "greed" thread.
P.S. I plead guilty to trying to take a 1p Ryanair flight. It was cancelled. More fool me.
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Frankly christep, you should have done better at school, then you wouldn't be stuck in such a ****ty little job; however if the cap fits, please feel welcome to wear it you tiresome little man. 
Join Date: Nov 2000
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In an office job, the most common way to increase your pay is to show a higher level of performance than your colleagues. A healthy level of competition amongst the workforce is of course benefitial but unfortunately human nature dictates that far too often people resort to back-stabbing, politics and even sabotage against their own ranks in order to achieve that aim.
If it wasn't obvious before, it should be by now: airline pilots are not supposed to try to out-perform their colleagues in pursuit of a bigger pay cheque. How many ways are there of 'doing a better job' than another pilot which doesn't reduce the safety margin of the operation? Imagine that our pay is correlated to how I am able to push back on time whilst carrying a technical defect or how much savings on fuel we can individually make for the company during a typhoon.
The pay increments based on seniority is the company's promise to me that the bottomline is that I only need to be concerned with flying safely. Doing the job more efficiently and with finesse is a matter of my professional pride.
If it wasn't obvious before, it should be by now: airline pilots are not supposed to try to out-perform their colleagues in pursuit of a bigger pay cheque. How many ways are there of 'doing a better job' than another pilot which doesn't reduce the safety margin of the operation? Imagine that our pay is correlated to how I am able to push back on time whilst carrying a technical defect or how much savings on fuel we can individually make for the company during a typhoon.
The pay increments based on seniority is the company's promise to me that the bottomline is that I only need to be concerned with flying safely. Doing the job more efficiently and with finesse is a matter of my professional pride.
Join Date: Sep 2001
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My job is absolutely fine thanks. And I earn as much as a CX Captain (as far as I can tell, B-scale at least, let's say US$200K). But I do have to work rather more than the 60-80 hours a month or thereabouts that seems to be the workload if you do long haul.
Join Date: Sep 2001
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I don't disagree with the principle of this. But my point is that you don't seem to appreciate how lucky you are (once on the ladder) to have such a system.
Christep,
You used to give quite reasoned statements about an industry in which you are not involved but are obviously interested in. Unfortunately your comments now are becoming increasingly naive. Do you really think that flying hours are the only duty hours we do? There is pre-flight preparation, post flight duties, standby, simulator and other ground duties that are not reflected in flying hours.
I am not interested in your occupation, whatever it is, but with your qualifications if you don't like it I suggest you work to improve it. As a last resort you leave, as pilots do.
You used to give quite reasoned statements about an industry in which you are not involved but are obviously interested in. Unfortunately your comments now are becoming increasingly naive. Do you really think that flying hours are the only duty hours we do? There is pre-flight preparation, post flight duties, standby, simulator and other ground duties that are not reflected in flying hours.
I am not interested in your occupation, whatever it is, but with your qualifications if you don't like it I suggest you work to improve it. As a last resort you leave, as pilots do.
Join Date: Sep 2001
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Join Date: Sep 2001
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Not at all. So please enlighten me. How many hours does a long haul captain do "at the office" each month? (Standby is a bit of a special case, so it would be helpful to see that split out)
Join Date: Feb 2001
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Christep
theres another not insignificant amount of time spent away from
family and friends. You can plan a social life, we are away half
of each month, unpaid availablity away from home.
How many hours are you out of your home each month is
another perspective you don't consider.
theres another not insignificant amount of time spent away from
family and friends. You can plan a social life, we are away half
of each month, unpaid availablity away from home.
How many hours are you out of your home each month is
another perspective you don't consider.
Join Date: Sep 2001
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Christep
theres another not insignificant amount of time spent away from
family and friends. You can plan a social life, we are away half
of each month, unpaid availablity away from home.
How many hours are you out of your home each month is
another perspective you don't consider.
theres another not insignificant amount of time spent away from
family and friends. You can plan a social life, we are away half
of each month, unpaid availablity away from home.
How many hours are you out of your home each month is
another perspective you don't consider.
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2007
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Christep, why don't we do each other a favour? I won't pretend to understand your profession.....and you stop pretending you understand ours....ok? Taking that a step further, it means that anything I have to say about your profession is worthless...and anything you have to say about mine is.... 
Join Date: Nov 2003
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Are you spouse to a Cabin crew, that would explain 500 + posts in the forum?
Other than that I can't imagine why you would take such an intrest.
Being an Ex DM dosen't lend credence too.
Other than that I can't imagine why you would take such an intrest.
Being an Ex DM dosen't lend credence too.
Join Date: Sep 2001
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Christep, why don't we do each other a favour? I won't pretend to understand your profession.....and you stop pretending you understand ours....ok? Taking that a step further, it means that anything I have to say about your profession is worthless...and anything you have to say about mine is...
Running up well over a million miles so far with you guys driving (and spending quite a bit of my own money on it), and from time to time having quite a chunk invested in your business's success as a shareholder, means that Cathay has been a significant element in my life for the last decade.
And no I don't suffer from "grass is always greener" syndrome - I've done pretty well out of life so far, no major complaints all things considered, but generally you can only have one or two careers in life and there are many more than that which I feel I would like to have tried. Yours being one of them.
