Pilots and flight attendants are perceived as having jobs that are easy and financially secure.  This is largely due to the fact that flight crews commonly have several days in a row off each month where they are able to enjoy a different schedule and life.  Flight crews, in fact, have just as much stress, fatigue and constraints as any other job. 

 

Many in the flight crew start out augmenting their income with 2nd and even 3rd jobs they work during their off-duty hours because they earn so little money at the start of their careers.  A fully trained and qualified pilot starting out on his career can expect to make as little as $20,000 / year and flight attendants often earn less than $16,000 / year to start.  So in order to pay their rent and other living expenses, they take on flexible 2nd and 3rd jobs.  Later, when they are earning living wages, they tend to keep those jobs because their needs and wants have continued to grow in proportion to their total income.  In other words, they become a bit financially addicted to the supplemental income those 2nd and 3rd jobs provide.

 

Airlines pay so little to start because the lifetime costs to employ that flight crew members can be very expensive when they enter the last half of their career.  Unions have negotiated contracts that are first and foremost dependent on date of hire seniority and flight crew turnover is therefore very small compared to other industries.   There is no incentive to look for another job with another airline unless your present employer goes through a significant contraction or bankruptcy and has to lay you off.  Even then a flight crew member may well have incentives to earn supplemental income and wait for a callback rather than seek employment with a new airline. 

 

But it is airline management that has created this problem because they’ve failed to redefine the job positions to fit a new economic reality.  They exacerbate their situation by treating their employees (and unions) as hostile entities to be fought at every turn rather than finding new, more efficient ways to employee people. 

 

Airline management needs to first realize that the lifetime earnings of flight crew are unlikely to go significantly down or up.  But there is a way to distribute that income during the flight crew career in a way that provides better job security, more productivity and in a way that provides the stability employees want. 

 

First, stop paying flight crews horribly low salaries in their early years.  These people are trained and qualified professionals and deserve to be paid a wage that is more commensurate with the job skills they must possess to perform in those roles.  In other words, it’s time to pay a living wage right from the beginning.  Pilot’s should earn from $40K to $50K to start, for instance,   And pilots should recognize that in return for a living wage right from the start, they have to offer more flexibility in work rules.  They need to be willing to work on a more daily basis but for fewer hours per day so that airlines can begin scheduling them in a more rational manner.

 

Second, airlines should pay salaries that are roughly equivalent to engineers.   A senior engineer (not manager but engineer) can earn as much as $100K / year at the zenith of their career but not $300K.  For that kind of wage, an engineer must enter management and exhibit performance that justifies that wage.   Pilots should have retirement plans that are also commensurate with engineers.  Not pensions that pay out by the years of service but, rather, modern investment plans such as 401k plans that allow them to manage their futures and have some opportunity for portability.  Pensions are tied to seniority.  401k retirement investment plans are tied to the person and smart choices. 

 

Why is such a system better for a pilot?  For one, it reduces their dependency on one airline.  They are far less tied to the fortunes of their employers and have more opportunity to leave a badly managed airline in favor of a better managed airline.  Let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to work for a better managed airline in favor or a badly managed one?  Making that possible industry wide would provide more opportunity for pilots to manage their stress and the demands their job makes on their personal lives. 

 

Unions should focus less on maximizing wages and more on improving the quality of life for their members.  Unions have the power to negotiate better work rules that alleviate horrific fatigue and stress and which provide a more humane way of living.   Happiness really doesn’t come from a top wage.  It comes from a living wage and having a real life.  Unions should seek more security for their members by negotiating flexible work rules that might allow flight crews to fly part time or job share with someone else.  That kind of flexibility would allow airlines to schedule flights more rationally and earn more profit  and be better positioned to offer wage increases more regularly rather than fight them at every contract negotiation. 

 

Airline management must recognize that the largest variable controlling their financial success is their flight crew.  Flight crew represents the largest part of their costs and the biggest factor in determining the service product they offer.   Treat them humanely and pay them a living wage and airlines can begin to experience more profit which will only make their investors happy. 

 

Unions have to recognize that the work rules in place now were only fitting for airline up to the late 1970’s.  It’s time for them to define how to best serve their members by identifying all the variables involved in a prosperous career rather than simply wages.   They should push for company financed training, better scheduling and work rules that permit both parties to profit from extra effort put forth serving a flight.

 

The go! Airlines pilots mentioned in yesterday’s post were fatigued because they were flying 8 leg segments for multiple days in a row.  Why?  Because under the present system of compensation and work rules, airlines must schedule pilots intensively in order to get the most for each dollar spent.  Airlines would actually be more flexible with hours worked if pilot’s earned a salary and had a negotiated minimum and maximum of hours to be worked each month.  

 

Under a new system such as I described above, pilots (and other flight crew) would no longer feel tied to working for an airline that punished them with a grueling schedule week after week.  They could seek better employment elsewhere without necessarily taking an enormous pay cut to do so.  Airlines would have more predictable labor costs, greater productivity and an incentive to take better care of their crew. 

 

It would also solve another looming problem for airlines.  A shortage of pilots.  Presently, the barriers to entering a career as a pilot are huge.  Airlines require new hires to obtain their minimum qualifications for hire at the employees expense and then pay them near poverty level salaries for the first several years of employment.  Fewer and fewer people can afford the $100K to $150K price tag to obtain those initial qualifications and certainly find the idea of earning a poverty wage after being hired unappealing. 

 

Under a new system of training the pilots and paying a living wage initially, airlines can attract new people to the jobs and ensure a steady, well trained and stable work force that wants to come to work and offer an efficient service product.  Potential pilots (and other flight crew) have better opportunities to enter the profession and a career that is more stable in the early years and entirely profitable throughout the lifetime of the employee.

Filed under: Airline News, Airline Service, Deregulation by ajax