Spirit Airlines Pax Riot

Art VanDelay said:
Here's a chart showing first year pay. Pretty much just multiply by 1000 ;
Click to expand...

Like I said, I think it's decent at the top. But your first job isn't at a major.

We have people starting out of school in IT at twice what a regional pays, and if they're good, they're making your bottom Captain pay on your chart at a major, in less than ten years in the IT biz.

If they're mediocre they're making about the FO chart pay.

And that's from their FIRST job in the biz, not after they've put in a few years to get through 1000/1250/1500 hours of flight time somewhere, and then a regional for another few years.

That's from the day they walk out of school. If they picked a reasonable specialty or they're in even a mediocre specialty but have management/people skills to either go senior in a specialty or middle management plus tech.

If they go upper management and have that skillet they're topping out well above the Captain chart. Especially 20 years into their career.

It's not the high end of the airplane game that's not keeping up with other pro jobs, it's the years at the low end.

I have no intent of making a living from being a CFI, but I did the math. It'll pay less buy tens of thousands than my first tech job. And all I knew how to do back then was pull cables in buildings and keep panicking CSRs calm.

It's low by $40K for my first year field engineering job. In 1995, today. 22 years later.

Not complaining. I'm doing what I want to be doing. It's just a slope comparison. The bottom of the initial flying job to the top flying job is a massive slope.

We pay our bottom workers today, more than double what aviation does at the bottom. Less school and no flight time to buy. The low end wage compression in beginning aviation is nearly jaw dropping in comparison.
 
kayoh190 said:
He didn't say because it's sort of assumed - the airlines all play it the same way. Let's say you're a fifth year FO and decide to upgrade. You'd become a 5th year captain. So in his chart - it's 15 years at the company. Upgrade could have been at any time.
Click to expand...

That's why I asked. I didn't know, and the graph didn't say.

If it was 15 year AS a Captain, that would be really painful. Ha. :)
 
denverpilot said:
Like I said, I think it's decent at the top. But your first job isn't at a major.

We have people starting out of school in IT at twice what a regional pays, and if they're good, they're making your bottom Captain pay on your chart at a major, in less than ten years in the IT biz.

If they're mediocre they're making about the FO chart pay.

And that's from their FIRST job in the biz, not after they've put in a few years to get through 1000/1250/1500 hours of flight time somewhere, and then a regional for another few years.

That's from the day they walk out of school. If they picked a reasonable specialty or they're in even a mediocre specialty but have management/people skills to either go senior in a specialty or middle management plus tech.

If they go upper management and have that skillet they're topping out well above the Captain chart. Especially 20 years into their career.

It's not the high end of the airplane game that's not keeping up with other pro jobs, it's the years at the low end.

I have no intent of making a living from being a CFI, but I did the math. It'll pay less buy tens of thousands than my first tech job. And all I knew how to do back then was pull cables in buildings and keep panicking CSRs calm.

It's low by $40K for my first year field engineering job. In 1995, today. 22 years later.

Not complaining. I'm doing what I want to be doing. It's just a slope comparison. The bottom of the initial flying job to the top flying job is a massive slope.

We pay our bottom workers today, more than double what aviation does at the bottom. Less school and no flight time to buy. The low end wage compression in beginning aviation is nearly jaw dropping in comparison.
Click to expand...


I would think a starting IT job would have to pay that - who would want to do that kind of life draining work if it didn't ?
I mean that actually sounds like WORK to me. But I'm glad there are people out there that choose to do that. I just can't for the life of me see what would be even remotely fun about it or make you feel excited to go do it. I mean heck - high end prostitutes make a lot of money too but look what they gotta do to earn it !
 
Art VanDelay said:
I would think a starting IT job would have to pay that - who would want to do that kind of life draining work if it didn't ?
I mean that actually sounds like WORK to me. But I'm glad there are people out there that choose to do that. I just can't for the life of me see what would be even remotely fun about it or make you feel excited to go do it. I mean heck - high end prostitutes make a lot of money too but look what they gotta do to earn it !
Click to expand...

Some people enjoy problem solving and learning something new everyday. As a technical lead you also get to learn/use people management skills. My first job in the biz paid $44K with only a high school education and a some PC hardware knowledge (and a lot of nerdom). That was in 1998.

It's not for everyone and not everyone can do it. Maybe that's why it pays so well.
 
Meh. Different strokes for different folks. I like my job, but it's definitely not for everyone.
 
kayoh190 said:
Meh. Different strokes for different folks. I like my job, but it's definitely not for everyone.
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Agree. Back when I was deciding, I started observing various pilots, and none of the airline pilots looked happy. I knew it wasn't for me, for various reasons, and I was right.
 
James331 said:
Maybe, maybe not, but it's also a respect thing.

Go try that with other professions, take someone who is not exactly a green horn in their field, say hey, I'll give you a six figure job, but I'm going to pay you less than you currently make, or could make, but it's just for a few years, oh and you won't be home often and your QOL is going to suck, but it's only going to be temporary....trust me!



Now outside of aviation those jobs normally have phrases like these in the description
"Exciting startup"
"Get in on a ground floor opportunity"
"Huge potential earnings"

Now outside of the airlines, most folks skip to the next job ad.
Click to expand...
You forget
"foosball tourney every Friday afternoon"
 
Art VanDelay said:
I would think a starting IT job would have to pay that - who would want to do that kind of life draining work if it didn't ?
I mean that actually sounds like WORK to me. But I'm glad there are people out there that choose to do that. I just can't for the life of me see what would be even remotely fun about it or make you feel excited to go do it. I mean heck - high end prostitutes make a lot of money too but look what they gotta do to earn it !
Click to expand...

Understand that "IT" has become the generic catchall for anything involving computers and networks.

My first real (full-time job) was at a university medical school & hospital where I was in grad school. Not just the finance/admin side, but I also worked on research projects as the software geek to help the med folks. The couple years I spent at Exxon were moderately amusing altho finance/accounting really are boring.

Then the fun begins in aerospace. I was working for a major computer company (no longer in existence) with a company Amex card. I was the engineer that went out to the customer site to solve problems. Most problems were people problems, not hardware or software and I've always been the geek who could talk to people - any people, any position. Never give a kid just a couple years out of college a company laptop and credit card with the caveat "Go Forth and Make Money for us" with no adult supervision. Sometimes I'd be there for a week then on to the next, sometimes for 2-4 months. Other than web stuff on the side, I've pretty much stayed in aerospace. Got a call last week from a headhunter - another finance company. No thank you.

How many people can say "my software is on Mars. orbiting Mars. Lost somewhere the **** between here and Mars and we're never gonna find it"? Worked on ground or payload systems for ISS, GPS, Orion, weather and others. Heartbroken because I never saw a shuttle launch in person, only on tv. Was in the audience at CalTech for the '91 premiere of "A Brief History of Time" film with Stephen Hawkings in attendance because I was working at JPL. Not too many people can say that. [But my friends at Paramount met him in person] For every astronaut launched, there are probably 50,000 people making that launch happen. I am very happy to say I'm one of those people (and a failed astronaut applicant). They aint goin' nowhere without us.
 
luvflyin said:
So, uh, what are the CEO's pulling down at these companies?
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Quite frequently there is an agreement to a base salary I'm not certain of an exact number but I recall it being somewhere in the neighborhood of 750k. However, the real gravy comes from the stock options and bonuses. I recall one year wherein the boss man was pulling down basically 1 million per month.

But hey, he doesn't get as many days off as me either !
 
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