One advice that many wannabe forget :

it is not because you have a passion that you absolutely have to make it as a job.
being an airline pilot is nothing like being a leisure pilot. Once you are really aware of this, than you can make a choice.

Yes, and for two reasons;

1) as you've indicated yourself already, the second person will hardly (if at all) cost the airline any money because they will be 'self-sponsored,' magenta line following, seat warming idiots who will keep quiet because they're sitting on a mountain of debt,
2) it's much easier and more convenient to blame the two patsies sitting in the pointy end, instead of blaming only one pilot + the automation (read: Boeing/Airbus). Even partly blaming the automation will lead to years and years of expensive lawsuits against powerful and big corporations, something that will be easily avoided by blaming the pilots.

Dress these two idiots up as professionally looking clowns (hey, they'll even pay for their own uniform!), throw around some completely false and outdated statements like "safety is our number one priority" and create the image that pilots are overpaid and arrogant, and the dumb public will be even happier to step on board of that aircraft with 2 fatigued pilots in the cockpit and minimum fuel in the tanks.

It's all smoke, mirrors and appearances, and the public is so dumb and brainwashed that they'll believe everything. Heck, a lot of the pilots even believe it themselves as you can see from some of the statements in this thread. :ugh:

Dress these two idiots up as professionally looking clowns (hey, they'll even pay for their own uniform!), throw around some completely false and outdated statements like "safety is our number one priority" and create the image that pilots are overpaid and arrogant, and the dumb public will be even happier to step on board of that aircraft with 2 fatigued pilots in the cockpit and minimum fuel in the tanks.


Well said Bokkenrijder!!


I even wonder if the general public are aware that the FTL scheme is changing for the worse. Only after a smoking hole in the ground I suspect.

rivet squeezer. More insight on the Monarch thread. Check out Enzo999.

Bokkenrijder

Take a bow......spot on.

Golf - tell us what's changing with the FTL scheme that you think will cause a hole in the ground? Any fatigue concerns can only be perception at this time.:\

Wind your neck in. I'm very bloody far from youthful (wish I was). Quoting out of context is easy. Clarifying my meaning - those that are saying "come on in" can't have found themselves out on the street facing TODAY'S options and terms for starting at the bottom (which you do experienced or not). Those days were bad, but when the storms cleared the lifestyle and options available were still healthy enough. Not today.

I quit. Best move I ever made. On the one hand, I was already trained and experienced in a different trade, so it was pretty easy from a financial standpoint. However, I was one of the few who still loved flying, even after getting paid for it. I loved the experience, just couldn't bring myself to work for regional airline pay, after having made half-way decent money and accrued 7K hours in small freighters. 3 years later I still miss flying, dream about it all the time, but I have absolutely no regrets. I'm almost debt-free, don't stress about losing my medical, enjoy a great deal of respect at work, and generally have a reasonable expectation of each subsequent year being better than the previous one.

The consensus here seems to be that the profession of pilot is no longer attractive. But there will always be those who just have to do it, just as those of my generation had to do it.
The best advice I can offer anyone with the money and determination to take up flying is to qualify in something else first, because you may never make it to that coveted left seat of a jet. And, even if you do, you may come to hate the bloody sacrifices you have to make to get there. So a fall back qualification is essential.
To those like the OP - who at 7000 hours has already invested perhaps a third of his useful working life in the game - either use your current income to qualify in something useful (if you are not already) or get into the check and training scene or some associated management position such as fleet captain or operations manager. Then you may be able to pick up work associated with the industry after pulling the pin.
If you have no other skills, unfortunately there is nothing so useless as an unemployed pilot.

Rivet,

You say you are currently a licensed engineer? I have no idea who you work for but i would suggest if your are starting out in commercial flying it will be a considerable time before you earn the kind of money you are making now? No?

The truth is that this game sucks more and more with every year that passes. Life is too short, simplifying that life is a good start to getting the hell out.

Life ain't a dress rehearsal. This is the real deal. I'm out having done the maths and decided it was possible. I want to die poor, not rich. There were alternatives in work that paid the bills and savings did the rest. Now a couple of pensions have kicked in. The maths were correct and life style/quality of life exploded: that included family time and an ever shortening bucket list. I tried to imagine, especially on a Sunday lunchtime with my mates over a roast, what it would be like to be getting up at 04.00 on Monday for a block of earlies. I started to shake in horror and had another glass of red to calm me down and stop the jitters. Then the memory receded and all was well with the world again. Even my wife smiled at me remembering the gummy old bear that went to bed early and left home for 5 days the morning after. She dreaded the first day of home coming as the 'get it off my chest' saga took longer each time.
It's over and god save whose ever king or queen you support; even a president.

"Why should we be paid more,..." Well for a start because the financial commitment to become a pilot is about twenty times that to become a coach driver, nor does an HGV driver have to pass a stiff test twice a year to keep his licence - if that was actually a serious question.

You say you've never done aviation for the money. If by this you mean it wasn't your prime motivation, then me neither. But if you mean the financial remuneration is unimportant that suggests aviation is a hobby to you rather than a profession.

Nobody talks about nirvana here... I think we talk about balance. And pilot jobs requires a lot nowadays for peanuts in return.
Oh, and spare us the "best office view" thanks. Due to sunlight, most of the time I put maps on the windshield or the brown glasses protection and see nothing for hours except efis. ;)

Yes, well that is sort of the point of the thread isn't it? The companies with conditions worth looking at get fewer and fewer. This notion that you can do a few dog years at pay-to-fly Chav Air and then leap over to Gold & Honey Airways until you retire is a mirage waved in your face by flight schools.

By the time you are working 900 hrs a year for no money, all the companies you were hoping to switch to are just as bad. With the help of yourself.

as if it was so easy... :rolleyes:

I'm intrigued how you feel the industry gives you "a pretty good standard of living", Scottish guy, when by your own account, its not providing you any living at all.

I'm not complaining about my own lot; I'm a wide-body Captain and have been fortunate enough to maintain a reasonable career path. But I'm very much aware that if I was starting out today it would be much less rosy. But 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".

I think that's an interesting post. I've felt like this myself. When you start out, the prospect and emotions attached to the idea of working in the airline world can be a small bit out of proportion. It's easy to smooth over the negatives by the over riding belief that you will enjoy it and all the sacrifices WILL be worth while. Maybe they will for you. Its personal. I love the job but it's caused ramifications in my personal world im not sure im willing to put up with anymore so i'm looking at options. I'll miss flying when I leave but the sacrifice is out of balance for me now and I don't want to peg it and not have had a balanced life as I view a balanced life means to me.

When you get to mid life, have a partner, home, have been furloughed/redundant, fatigued, joined airline "z" on the latest scummy deal then who knows who you'll feel. Some folk don't have this bumpy career path and fair better in the short term. I say short as its a changing world we work in.

Some people no doubt continueing enjoying the job and can make the lifestyle sacrifices work under the state of play as it is at the moment. That's fair play. I respect that a great deal. We're all individuals with individual lives. I like seeing people who are happy.

But what I struggle to understand is how in a world where we're supposed to be emotionally mature, balanced individuals, those same individuals can castigate people for daring to hold their hands up and say "you know what, it ain't working. I'm glad I gave it a whirl, I've no idea what to do next and need to find something because it's making me and my loved ones compromise too much and we've only got one shot here". People who say to give the job up and allow someone who wants to do it for example. You'd expect that of a youngster but not an emotionally mature person. A lot of people got themselves where they are off their own hides and owe the next guy waiting for a seat - nothing. Many would call it a day but need to work out an exit strategy.

Just remember. Folk aren't "pilots" they're people like anyone carving a life, with lives, troubles, births, marriages, joy and illness like anyway else. It's perfectly ok to say it ain't working. Just seems within the piloting field there's folk who believed once you put that label on yourself you've signed into a Faustian deal and need your head checked for even thinking of leaving and are displaying some sort of un greatful misdemeanour towards the Gods who allow piloting for even mentioning alternatives.

Just remember, you popped into this life bare arsed, pink skinned and not much else. You certainly didn't come with a label "life valid only if installed in flight deck"

I'm absolutely stunned by some of the posts on here, I truly am. Yes for the most part flying nowadays is not as challenging as in the past. However, when the going gets tough it can be bloody tough.

To compare it to driving an HGV is displaying stunning ignorance of the highest degree. In really :mad: weather in a lorry you can step on the brake and pull over. In an aircraft you are committed to seeing it through to the bitter end (in an environment that is far more complex and changeable than the M4) at the same time as ensuring the safety of hundreds of souls on board with extremely litigious families. Burning human flesh leaves a slightly larger imprint on the mind and the conscience than a supply of IKEA furniture.

I flew an approach just a couple of days ago with a last minute runway change, high, fast, heavy and thirty knots up the chuff. Walk in the park some might say, but I would love to see the outcome with just one person in the flight deck rather than two. Well actually I don't think I would.

I can't believe the attitudes of so called pilots on here that take no pride in their profession and are happy to denigrate it at every opportunity. There are obviously tendencies to self loathing that are running deep on a subconscious level here and I do not know the cause but it's disturbing to see the trend and how common it is. Grow up and have some professional pride. Yes we deserve our money, every penny. Truly baffling to hear any kind of argument otherwise.

This reduction of T's & C's is not something that is particular to pilots. This disturbing trend is happening in just about EVERY profession right now. Take a while to ponder that. Whilst you try to sit and pick holes in your career to find justification in why salaries should decrease just remember that there are a whole group of professionals in fields outside aviation who could conceivably be doing the exact same thing. Don't entertain it, fight against it.

A bit of thread creep, and I'll aid and abet that: sorry.

You say that many industries are employing the tactic of reducing T's & C's to remain competitive. You say it is becoming more common to work more for less reward; as customers to buy more for less. As we become used to that it can mean production being driven to LoCo countries as EU financial/social policies & associated costs drive prices too high and consumers will not spend. It will be self-defeating for national economies. Sadly, it will take a quite a long time before governments realise that their local workforce is not working and paying taxes and supporting the older generation. Driving production and services outside your own borders will have consequences in the long term. Capitalism and its demand for short term profit does not follow long term sensible government policy. They are acting in opposite directions.
So T's & C's in EU marketes are being allowed to drift lower yet the ECB says it is disturbed by present low inflation. It wants to increase it to 2% to help recovery and growth. So how does that model accommodate a lowering of incomes? Higher prices with less money to spend. Hm?
One way people can increase their life style is to have 2 wage earners and less children. That has been going on for many years now. A natural process of family financial management. I read that Italy is now in a critical low birthrate dilemma. They project forward a couple of generations and there will not enough wage earners to maintain the economy. No doubt the same could be happening under the radar in the other wealthy countries. So the short term profit gained by lowering T's & C's coupled with higher inflation and the consequent lower birthrate might have some distressing repercussions. Ours is but a very small cog in a very big wheel. That doesn't make it any less painful for our members.

I agree that terms and conditions for workers in nearly all industries have been on a decline in real terms since the late 70's.

Funny that at the same time CEO's relative pays have multiplied by ridiculous amounts. The majority of the workforce take constant small cuts, and then the top of the tree get huge bonuses.

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 :mad:

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. :ugh:

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.

Lots of good posts on this thread.

Tank2Engine …."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?"

Voting with your feet is not encouraged because of the seniority systems that we hang on to. Going to the bottom of the pile in terms of upgrade and salary renders walking out (unless you leave altogether) not an option. One of the reasons so few if any Mon FOs have gone to UK competitors.

Yes I know, I was just illustrating the catch 22 situation many of us are in. When management is turning on the thumb screws then voting with our feet has serious consequences for as far as social life and career progression are concerned, but staying can have even greater consequences for as far as fatigue, lifestyle and salary are concerned.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and with that in mind I completely understand why some people have had more enough of this industry. :mad: :yuk:

Money, prestige and the occasional take off and landing are not everything in life, and you can also get your adrenaline or aviation kick from riding your motorbike, flying a glider (cheap!) or going for a weekend of rock climbing with friends.

Employee Turnover: Push Factors and Pull Factors
 

Search of economic business studies regarding employee retention.

Seniority destroys pull factors, airline employers have no doubt studied push and pull factors at university and probably laugh their heads off talking about it with their chums!

If you think about it we have PUSH (out of current work) and seniority means PUSH BACK from any potential new employer FFS!

Anyone fancy a study regarding PUSH PULL factors in the pilot workforce, perhaps the beginning of self regulation mentioned earlier.

Hello all,

I just thought Id add my input. My post isn't a direct reply to anybody but more so and hopefully a touch of inspiration.

Firstly in life id like to think there is no right or wrong when it comes to your personal situations, only what you feel is right for you as an individual.

I fly, Im a 1600 hour pilot (not a lot of hours in 9 years) on the brink of first command. But its taken me 9 years to get here since obtaining my CPL/IR.

Like many before, many now and many after, being a pilot was all I wanted. Literally. I have not been lucky or as prudent enough as others to have been able to obtain another skill or have a previous career that I could potentially fall back on if this all failed me. To that I have to make my flying work. But i'm not bound by that. It will work because its what I wanted to do. It will work because its still what I want to do now.

Granted I have not been around the industry as long as some who have seen many changes. But when I qualified in 2005 it was a great time as a 'newby' to get into the industry. I landed my first job flying business jets 1 month before graduation from the flight school. I've flown business jets ever since.
I've never been part of an airline or airline setup and I would never criticise any aspect of it as I simply haven't done it. I can only offer you my experience.

I started flying business jets because that's what came calling first and I have just stuck with it ever since. Not because I had the luxury to choose between G/A or airlines.

The business jet world is as unstable as the Andreas Fault line (i'm not plugging the new movie). I have been a victim of its instability.I was out of flying for 2 years because of a company folding on the front of the economic downturn.

2 years. It was long, it was drawn, it was pretty much hell. A 700 hour pilot feeling like there was nothing to show for the efforts. But I still wanted to fly. Even after two years. I just never gave up. Ok circumstance was a lot different then, I didn't have a family of my own compared to now and perhaps if I found myself out of flying for a lengthy period again, I'm sure Id be in a different job to feed the family.

I liken my flying as a career to perhaps a lad who manged to fulfill his dream of become a footballer. Getting paid to do what you love. There is no difference. I don't want to upset anybody or belittle what has been said before, but id like to think we didn't sign up to lie on a beach for 4 days but that we signed up for the love of flying the aircraft. I mean we don't sign up for any other job for the amount of coffee breaks or smoking breaks we get.

By business jet standards what I fly may be seen as being small and almost a toy and to that the extra bits that come with the territory such as being on your hands and knees in uniform in +30 degrees cleaning the cabin before the next departure, or at times doing and filing your own flight plans (i guess 'muckin' in is a good term) may seem like 'scratch of the head' stuff. But again, I wouldn't change it. You see there's taking a look over the other side of the fence and wondering perhaps what airline flying would be like or even another operator in GA, but nothing compares to that 2 year lull I had. I'd take the cleaning of the cabin toilet and putting you're own oil in down route over that lull any day of the week.

As mentioned before I am now on the verge of my first command. I get to lie on the beach for a few days sometimes and I'm based in my home country where all my family are. Yep there's always that unsure-ness waiting around the corner but i know if you don't give up and find the angles things will always work if that's what you want.

If you've genuinely fallen out of love with something in life then for sure its time to move on...... and let me just state that in my opinion there's nothing that should come before your family or health, so yes there are times when decisions have to be made.

As a guy in his thirties who was 22 when he qualified and started flying jets, I look up to the older fellas. I take something from everyone who is older than me and been around the industry longer than me. I form an opinion on my own path based on segments from each person. There is never the ideal job in life and sometimes its the people you come across that make the job just as worth while. You all sound like good chaps who will do the right thing, but just know that there are people coming through the ranks now who would tear a limb off to be you or to be in your position. The same people that probably look up to you.

I hope it all works out whatever you decide.

Thanks in advance for reading.

The glamour!
 

I have been doing this for nearly 40 years and it is really quite simple.

It is all about glamour!

All this BS you read about..."I do it for the love of flying....." :yuk:

Whether you love flying or loathe it, the motivation for being a "real live Airline pilot" was always about the glamour. I rode a fantastic career that was the last big surf wave from the 1970's through to today. The job of an airline pilot in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's held a certain mystique and cachet. It was a vocation that automatically garnered respect, a sense of adventure, travel to exotic locations, good remuneration at the top tiers, and a transformation from being the skinny kid in the Charles Atlas adverts to somebody that even old Charley himself would look up to with admiration and envy.

From an aspirational standpoint, it was the job that ex-military pilots sought to pad out and feather their post service years. Let the good times roll! Even though (even in those days) it was often routine and ordinary, that was never the public perception. Never the perception your neighbours had, and remained one of the dream jobs of every schoolboy (times have changed!)

The last decade of the Twentieth century and certainly the first two decades of this one brought with it a number of sea changes. Firstly the mystique was stripped away. The Royal family made this mistake when some of the younger members decide to become more accessible to the people. Once the mystique was gone, everybody then wondered why they were holding these people in such awe. In our case we did it to ourselves. As we proudly showed anyone with even a passing interest just how we could fly a 150 ton jet with only our little finger, those same people did begin to wonder just how difficult this really was, and why we were being paid so much to do it.

The Nineties brought an accelerating growth in travel for the masses. Peoples Express, Laker, and others, cemented the perception in the public psyche that this was simply an aerial bus service. Turn up with £99 or $199 and the world was your oyster as long as you didn't plan on eating oysters as part of the service provided. Then as the new millennium drew close, so came the concept of the "lo-Co's." In the USA and Europe the concept of short haul travel for the price of a pair of Levi's. Ambitious "Shock-Jock" and media savvy CEO's who had no problem using TV reality shows to promote a business idea that had an eager and hungry ready market. The "I only fly British Airways" brigade, could assuage any potential embarrassment at dinner parties by openly bragging of their trophy achievement of flying to Rome for only £19.95. Coupled with the huge market of those who couldn't care less as long as the price was right, and the writing was on the wall in letters Twelve feet high! If glamour was firmly out of fashion for the customer, it wouldn't be long before it wasn't going to be in evidence on the other side of the flight deck door.

It all started innocently enough. A new "low cost" (whatever that really meant) Irish airline offering jobs on a small fleet of old 737's and BAC 111's. Earn a hundred grand and sleep in your own bed every night said the ad's. What wasn't there to like for those made redundant from the collapse of Dan-Air, Air Europe, Laker, et al? Send fifty quid to have your CV read was maybe a little tacky, but we could live with it. Then came the "shock" pronouncements from the new generation of celebrity CEO's. Outrageous (often purely entertainment) press conferences where, planes would fly with one pilot or no toilets, or standing room only, but underlying it would be the suggestion that it was to champion the consumers insatiable demand for ever cheaper flights.

The infomercial/reality TV programmes became long running (and very popular) soap operas that stripped away the last vestiges of mystique, respect, kudos, and glamour that had ever been inherent in the job of the Airline pilot. Together with a world that now had a camera (phone) in every pocket, the job was stripped naked, and laid bare for everybody to see.

Then came the economic realities of the same period. CEO's became the new celebrity capitalists. The new mystique, kudos, respect and glamour, shifted firmly into the ostentatious displays of huge wealth that were often portrayed in the media. The rewards and glamour were concentrated in the pockets of those that controlled the businesses.

Despite these realities, there was still a solid belief in the minds of many would be pilots, that it was all temporary and would go away eventually. We would turn the clock back to the Sixties and the perceived glamour of the job would return. Our neighbours would envy us and the public would respect our every utterance. It was delusional. The world had changed for ever. It would and will continue to change, but that particular genie is never again going to return to the bottle!

As with any boom, it all got somehow easier, and there was a massive rush to become a part of something that was simply becoming extinct. As the licensing requirements all appeared to get easier and easier, so thousands and thousands of new hopefuls flocked to the temple. For most it proved a bitter disappointment. For the successful minority, the new realities often failed to mesh with the perceived expectations. For those further up the beach, it took longer for the tide to reach them, but reach them it did!

The idea of regulation is nonsense. That idea died in the Nineties! The public (and the politicians elected by them,) have absolutely no appetite for anything seen as restrictive and anti-competitive. The job has changed, and in many respects it has changed forever. The glamour is just too embarrassing for most to admit, but it is and always was the primary driver for this job. It is what made it every schoolboys dream.

I will always consider myself supremely lucky to have had the chance to ride that wave. Now the wave has broken on the shore and the sea is very calm (and not particularly warm or blue!) Oh well!

I think that is probably the most accurate post I have ever read on here!!

The obivous. There's no right or wrong. It's purely individual and relates to the circumstances and the proirities that each of us have. To add to your decission making there is a question that I think you should ask yourself. Can you imagine how life would be working in something that you don't like? Do you know the feeling after a day at work when you arrive at home and feel that you have spent your day doing something meaningless to you? Do you know the feeling after some time of working just for money and "comfort"? How about the routine and being all day in an office? Is that for you?

I agree. Life as an airline pilot is not easy. It is VERY demanding. Sometimes, when I am faigued, I myself even think of doing something else, but then I remember how life was for more than fifteen years while working at something I did not like. And I conlude that without a doubt I'd rather get back home feeling tired but happy after doing something I like and that is meaningfull to me than getting back feeling bored and empty after a day at work that serves only for "comfort". That boring comfort was unbearable. That has been my personal experience, anyhow. As most of us here I have loved aviation since I was a kid. It took a lot of effort to make that dream come true and not many people have the privilege of being able to say "I did it".

REX
Likewise the lorry driver is unable to rely on automatics, ATC, complex aircraft automatics, 2 crew when it all goes wrong. There is an average of 8 people killed daily in road traffic accidents, 4 where sleepiness was a factor.
Where is more risk?

XOLLOB

Go there if you want but was there a suggestion that the crewmembers contributed, the C Word (commuting) caused the sleepiness, financial pressure (if they got off at base it was there cost to provide the room, whereas in Buffalo there was a paid room waiting for them)

What a load of cobblers.

An HGV driver is a fine profession but nobody would seriously put their skills and responsibilities on par with an airline pilot. I assume, to give you credit, that you're playing devils advocate for the sake of argument and you don't seriously hold that ridiculous position.

Couldn't have put it more diplomatically myself, Blantoon. Which is why I deleted my original response.

I'm thinking of ejecting. Any last hail Marys out there?
 

Not comparing skills just pointing to Rex it's not just a load of ikea involved when lorry drivers get it wrong ,

What a crazy angle. A bloke paid to hump bricks up onto a roof may not just rack off Ikea if he drops his hod of bricks onto the deck. It maybe a freak accident that wipes out 4 people below, maybe more than a truck crashing. Yet this guy as a labourer is paid X. The guy who sells hamburgers at a fair could be under cooking the things and yet give food poising to tens of people who ate them, possibly death (it's happened!).

You don't just justify wages on what destruction you could cause. On your basis, loadmasters should be on the same as pilots given the destruction they could cause through a mistake, but they aren't. And a lot have flown/are flying around having been up 2 damn days on the trot, being paid on peanuts.

Our management used the example of water supply controllers and how much damage they could do if they messed up the chemicals.

This thread has really drifted away from the OP, which was about whether or not to leave the industry.
But seeing as we are on to what we should be paid, it's simple enough.
The laws of supply and demand dictate all. In determining 'supply' it is a given that the more difficult a job, or the less pleasant a job, the fewer people can or will do it.
We can carry on all we like about how 'hard' it is to become a pilot, or how 'responsible' a job it is. But the truth is it only takes average intelligence to learn to fly a modern jet, and the work itself may be tedious or tiring to some, but is not particularly onerous. Being a plumber would be a whole lot worse. The pay-to-fly brigade have that much worked out. To them it beats the hell out of working for a living.
As for being responsible, I never worried too much about the people down the back. My sense of self preservation automatically took care of their safety, and I suspect that most pilots think much the same, if only they would admit it.
The best example I can think of to prove the supply and demand case is when one has a toothache.
Ever tried to get a discount from a dentist?

The Prime Minister gets less pay than many headmasters despite the fact he can wipe out millions with the push of a button......

Train drivers carry many more passengers than plane drivers.

What an extraordinarily asinine way to try to judge worth.

Supply vs demand is the only metric worth looking at

I know there's no shortage of haters eager to denigrate our profession but I can't believe this idiotic debate is happening on a terms and conditions forum for professional pilots

Maths
 

I have no dog in this fight and I am not a pilot but I have done some simple maths, based on an average job in the South East of England with a one hour commute to work each way.


hours worked


52 weeks X 40 hours is 2080 hours
5 weeks leave a year is 200 hours
7 bank holidays is 56 hours
total hours working in the year 1824 hours (assuming no O/T)
the commute to/from work adds 2 Hrs. per day for 228 days totalling 456 hours

total time away from home 2280 hours per year.


number of days worked

52 weeks at 5 days 260 days
5 weeks leave 25 days
less seven public holidays 7 days

total days worked 228 days per year.


most people earn less than £40K per year and have to pay full PAYE and NI contributions deducted at source. On the positives you do get weekends off, you do get to go to work at normal times (with the rest of humanity).

the grass always appears greener and for some people it sometimes is.

AVERAGE income in the UK is £26500 and that includes the SUPER Rich

MEDIAN income is £ 21000

Mach E Avelli has it in one - it's supply and demand that sets pay these days

Quite a lot of people have a romantic view of being a pilot and TBH it isn't that bad - reasonably pleasant working environment, no manual labour, working in small groups, no managment sitting in the corner watching you 24/7

Job security has gone for a Burton but then it has for most of everyone else in the UK, the hours are pretty anti-social but you get decent amounts of timeoff (admittedly on a strange pattern cp every other job)

The main driver for going or staying has to be job satisfaction - if you like the work stay, if you don't or you fancy something different go - but don't sit around moaning about it either way

no managment sitting in the corner watching you 24/7

Be very careful with such an opinion. It is far worse than you can imagine.