I would never want to go back to the Soviet-style airline service days-of-yore, and I have enough money to be able to afford it!
No Andrew, you have enough money to AVOID it. There's a difference. I think the leather fumes in your nice cushy Matrix may have gotten to your brain a bit here...
Foreign carriers? Why is that a problem?
<strong Indian accent> "Welcome to Curry Airways, this is your Captain, uh, Brian speaking...</accent>
Obviously airline service can be provided at prices that are affordable whilst still allowing a profit. how do I know this? Because SWA does it.
Very true - And I put most of the blame for the current situation on the management of the legacy carriers, not on deregulation.
Oh, and us cheap American consumers.
How much do they fly now?? 35hrs? Oh dear. And that's just Hobbs time. Doesn't count time in the terminal. heavens, cry me a river. So maybe you have an 80hr duty month. Most regular folks have that in 2 weeks. Most folks who make > $100k do that in 1 week. I know I did.
You are WAY off here.
WAY off.
I am not an airline pilot, but as the ground-pounding version thereof (and someone who is in position to, and seriously considered, going the airline route), I do have some idea what their lifestyle is like.
35 hours? Are you kidding? The FAA allows 100 hours, and most of the places I looked at pay a 75-hour minimum. I would be REALLY surprised if there are any lines at less than 75 hours except maybe in the case of the long-haul international routes. So, take your 80-hour estimate and figure that's how much they fly. Double that, and you may have a good idea how much time is actually spent on the job. Hey, 160 hours, that sounds pretty much like any other job.
Now comes the part you're really not understanding. Sure, you worked hard to make a lot of money - But you got to go home at night. Even if you didn't see MUCH of your family, you still woke up next to your wife every morning. You were there on weekends to play with the kids, you were there to cut the turkey on Thanksgiving, and you were there to fill the stockings with candy at Christmas.
I know full well from trying to get other people to understand the rigors of my job that it is
impossible for someone who has not done it to understand it. You want to have some kind of clue what my job as a truck driver is like? Take a cot to work. Put it three feet behind your desk. Pay $400 for a dorm fridge to put on the side (No, a dorm fridge doesn't cost that much, but a truck fridge does.) Sleep in the cot. Wake up, pour some cereal into a Solo cup and fill it with milk, and go to your desk and start working. Do NOT stand up from your desk until you've been there working with no break for at least four hours. Are you hungry yet? Okay, you can go out *quick* for some crappy fast food. No, you may not get Chipotle or anything even remotely tasty - Subway, McDonald's, Wendy's, Hardee's, or if you're really lucky, Taco Bell.
Go directly back to your desk, and eat while you work. Oh, did I tell you that the entire time you're working there are people trying to kill you? That if you let your concentration lapse for even a few seconds, that you may kill someone including yourself? Okay, now drive another 4 hours. Find more fast food.
Drive another 3 hours. Okay, you're done for the day, and you're so tired it takes you a few minutes to get the motivation to even crawl 3 feet from your desk chair to your cot. Go to sleep. Have someone wake you up in an hour (That's the security guard asking what load you have). Go back to sleep. Have someone wake you up in another hour (that's security telling you that they'll actually let you in the gate now). Go to someone else's desk and have them completely ignore you for 20 minutes (that's the receiving clerk, who clearly has better things to do than, say, receive things). Go back to sleep, but have someone shake your cot every 5 minutes for the next 2 hours. When the 2 hours is up, have them wake you up again - They're done unloading you. Work for 15 minutes (closing trailer doors, sending satellite messages to dispatch, parking on the other side of the lot). Go back to sleep - If you can. Have someone wake you up again 15 minutes later to tell you you can't sleep there - Work for 10-30 minutes (to find another place to park). Get back in the cot and go back to sleep - OK, don't. It's kind of hard to, after you've been woken up several times already. Try anyway, because the chances you'll kill someone tomorrow go way up if you don't. Toss and turn, get 2 hours of sleep over the course of the next 5 (oh, and this whole thing is considered your "break."). Tired? Doesn't matter, you have to do this whole thing over again. Every day for the next two weeks, minimum. THEN you can go home and see your family and friends - But expect to be completely worthless for at least the first day while you unwind. Enjoy the next day, because on the third day it's back to the "office."
Even after all that - There's no way you can understand until you do it. You can read all that and try to imagine it, but you'll still be at home with your family tonight. Despite the pain in the butt that it is, I think in many ways airline pilots have it worse. I'll be with my family for Christmas, while many, even a majority of airline pilots won't - Only the most senior ones will get a line with Christmas off. And while my rest breaks are often the multi-interruption ordeals like I described above, sometimes I'm just at a truck stop for the full 10 hours - Airline pilots don't get 10 hours, or even 8 sometimes, and then they're supposed to safely hurtle people through the sky. I'm surprised more of them don't fall asleep.
Oh, and I would have needed 8 years as an airline pilot to get back to making the amount of money I was making as a truck driver (at my last company - So far I've taken about a 1/3 hit at the new company with the bad economy). Where do I sign up?
