A New Age In T’s & C’s
 

With the pandemic taking a firm grip upon the industry and with Supply and Demand having never been this far apart. How do we think the new world of T’s and C’s are going to look?

Do we think that we could start to see the age of the minimum wage pilot, working for his/her £9 an hour?

How far do we think some airlines will try to push the boundaries?

I think if you factor in training debt, we reached minimum wage for new pilots ages ago. Didn't Flybe have a bottom rung of about 18k?
For what its worth and having seen 3 major industry setbacks in my career, we ain't seen nothing yet. There are so many factors going against the resurgence of mass air travel that a huge contraction seems inevitable. Just imagine if a COVID19 vaccine is not found in spite of the global effort to make one, ther is no guarantee that this will happen. SO for an indefinite period we are left with an industry hamstrung by distancing rules and public fear. Contraction and immediate reduction to T&C's are likely. But, again if we imagine this is the new normal, the supply and demand for pilots will equalise and T&C's will improve again. Scarcity of labour is the about the only reliable thing that improves pay. Problem is, it may takes years to come to pass. Pray for a vaccine.

It’s supply and demand. In 3-5 years we may actually have a pilot shortage and they’ll improve, like everything. For the time being there could potentially be thousands of unemployed jet pilots come July. It’ll be interesting to see how training organisations fair over the new few years.

There'll be a wide variety in T's & C's across various regions, but for the most part I expect history will repeat itself.

Post COVID there will be a lot of highly experienced crew fighting over the scraps of jobs that remain, including new LCC startups offering barely above a living wage... many will walk away from flying, but others will take whatever they can get.
Fast forward a few years and millions wasted on management bonuses & Salaries, Airlines will attempt to expand again. Short memories will have forgotten the reason why there were so many cheap Pilots in 2020/21 and the Recruitment departments will be puzzled as to why they can no longer find suitable candidates to pay for an overpriced A320 rating, unable to comprehend that their treatment of today's Pilots resulted in Tomorrow's Pilot opting to take a trade instead.

Personally I doubt that this will last as long as some think it will. We're sociable animals, so 'social distancing' will come to pass... And once the news headlines latch onto something else, as they surely will, the fear factor will also fade!

Inflation
 

One thing I'm worried about is my (reduced) wage not going as far as it did before. Inflation and even hyperinflation will become a serious issue at some point, though it's unclear how exactly it will pan out.

I agree with this. If you live in parts of the world that have mosquitos, the chance of picking up malaria is a part of normal day to day life including the fact that malaria kills many more people than covid19 has/does. And malaria has an effective medication to both prevent and cure, but millions can't afford to take it. Life goes on.
The question for the airlines is, how long before the 'new normal' attitude to our mortality takes to catch on and can they survive the transition. I have the unenviable task of doing the weekly shop during this lockdown. A few weeks ago people were reasonable sensible except for the insatiable desire for toilet roll. In the last 2 weeks there is definitely a change to a more fearful population jumping out of the way of anyone coming close to them in supermarkets. The message to be afraid has been learnt , no doubt helped along by our sensationalist media, I think it will take a lot of unlearning before mass air transport happens again.

The fearful jumping out of the way is just a phase which passes after about four weeks or so. I have seen it where I live initially but by now many people are pretty relaxed about distancing. A bit too relaxed, probably. I have read an interview with a psychologist who explained that this is normal human behavior. First we over-react with fear to a new threat and then we get used to it and become complacent.

Travel will recovery but people's disposable income will dictate the rate of return to the new normal . 380/747 and even 773 could be parked for years . LCC will be the new norm. Legacy wages very very slow to recover , if ever .

Going back to the OP......minimum wage pilots?.......yes,yes,yes........(there always has been)

Just to shine a little light, economists expect that while the economy in Europe will shrink quite a lot this year, it will grow again next year.
Of course this is also just a prediction, but this crisis is not caused by economic factors, like the last one.

I can recall coming across a forecast reduction of GDP of 7,75% in 2020, to be followed by a growth of 6,25% in 2021. So, with some luck, the economy will be back to 2019 levels in 2022. As soon as the plague is more or less sorted, people will forget about their fears relatively quickly. Lack of threat and fear + disposable income = more air travel. And, if demand for air travel will be up again in 2-3 years from now, the era of substandard T&Cs will not be too long.

Of course, there's always the slim possibility of an apocalyptic scenario in which everyone going near an airplane in the foreseeable future will have to wear a full Hazmat suit and stay in a state-monitored quarantine centre for 14 days after arrival, but the consequences of this to the entire world (not just to aviation!) would be so devastating that anything and everything will be done to prevent it from happening.

Minimum wage? We have already bettered that.

Piloting was probably the only industry whereby us mugs pay 100,000 to get a licence, then pay for a type rating, then pay to sit in the seat on some pay to fly scheme.

Stay strong united
 

This is not the time to accept low pay or poor conditions. Join a union if you are not in one. You have to look at the total cost of pilots to the operation. Look at our % cost versus the safety of the operation. The unions have to negotiate hard not to let executives take advantage. It is the executives who need to take a pay cut, and work on performance pay. We are the ones out there, if we screw up, people can get hurt. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys!! If aviation wants to have professionals safely you have to pay. We have to stay strong and united.

Pilot salaries have been ripe for a "correction" for years now. From the point of view of the bean counters, it is absurd to pay such high salaries for a job that is as aspirational as airline flying. The new normal will probably look like minimum wage FO positions, and train driver-esque salaries for captains, but without any of the myriad benefits that come from being a train driver.

Hardly likely IMO. That might attract the Instagram dreamers for a few years, but no-one would stick with the career long term at significantly lower wages than we have now. The job is much more disruptive to home life than driving a train or most jobs, training is self funded to the tune of €150k, and there's a greater potential for a screw-up to cost hundreds of lives... and actually there is more natural strength for industrial action, because grounding airliners costs millions.

I can't understand why you guys keep saying that training is in the region of €130k+. I paid around a third of the sums you mention, I received some very good modular training and it did not prevent me from obtaining a job at a respectable cargo operator. It doesn't take that much to make this smart decision when deciding what path to take with regards to training.

I agree with you but the cost these airline academies charge is right around the €120k mark. A father of an easyjet graduate expressed his feelings on this board not to long ago about his son losing his contract with a £125k bill 3 days before base training.

It sounds really nice during presentation until they withdraw your contract and your family's house goes to the market as collateral. Or you realize that you'll be living slightly above poverty for the next 6 years.

Ultimately it comes down to a smart training decision but ironically young cadets are nowhere near good decisions. Can't blame them too much when you get those insta-pilots are shilling "free" training at the schools.

This terms and endearment thing might as well be locked for two years. Waste of time now

Wishful thinking. A captain salary of £60k is still be way above the national average salary. Wannabes would still be queueing out the door to pay £120k to train.