Ask the pilot

Flying isn't much fun, but for now people keep doing it anyway. What can the airlines do to keep their customers happy?

By Patrick Smith

Read more: Technology & Business, Flying, Airlines, Security, Business, P. Smith, Ask the Pilot

June 27, 2008 | On June 14, an Op-Ed of mine ran in the Washington Post. The content was mostly a rehash of points I've been emphasizing on Salon over the past few months, basically summarizing how and why people take flying for granted.

The editors called the piece "Don't Hate the Airlines," a choice that was equivalent to affixing a big paper target to my head. I had it coming, I guess. And it came. Allow me to share with you my two favorite responses (much as I'm tempted to include the authors' names, we'll leave them anonymous):

"Your piece in the Washington Post is nauseating! I have typically flown to Hawaii, Australia and Europe several times per year every year. That has stopped, probably forever. The surly attitude of pilots and flight staff, the poor quality of service, the shabby state of equipment, and the cost are just simply not acceptable! The question that comes to mind, now that costs have been trimmed to the bone or so the airlines would have us believe, would be why pilots are paid $150,000 plus for working 20 hours per week doing the equivalent of driving a bus?"

And this one: "Fuck the airlines. There is absolutely no defense for delivering the bullshit product your industry delivers to the public ... I look forward to the day I take my last commercial airplane ride. You and your colleagues deserve what you're getting, and a whole lot more."

I received several more like the letters above, but these were the most hysterical. Obnoxious, insulting and to a large degree incorrect, they embody a sentiment millions of Americans feel.

The first one uses as ammunition a series of myths and misconceptions that, despite the best efforts of at least one online columnist, continue to thrive. Most irritating of these is the notion that the average airline pilot makes a healthy six-figure income while working minimal hours. I have taken on this subject several times before, but let's review.

Starting pay for pilots at a major carrier is around $30,000 per year. After roughly 10 years of seniority, provided a pilot is fortunate enough not to be laid off or see his or her company collapse, it will be at or near six figures. That's a major carrier. At the regionals, first officers make between $15,000 and $30,000 a year, varying with seniority. Regional captains earn somewhat more, but rarely do incomes exceed $100,000 annually. (Upgrades from first officer to captain are strictly a function of seniority.) The number of pilots who make upward of $150,000 is a small fraction of the airline pilots out there. They are the lucky ones who managed to hit one of the hiring waves at an opportune time.

And please don't forget that if a pilot is laid off or if the company liquidates, seniority -- which is to say salary and benefits -- is not transferable. Should the pilot find another flying job, he or she begins again at probationary pay and probationary benefits. Experience may be an important thing in some respects, but in other respects it is useless currency.

Meanwhile, the idea that pilots work only "20 hours per week" (similar numbers are parroted routinely by the media) is grossly misleading. Pilots are compensated only for the time their aircraft is actually in the air, not the time spent flight planning, waiting out delays, sleeping in hotels and so forth. Indeed that works out to around 80 hours each month, which is presumably where tallies like our letter writer's come from. Depends on your definition of work, I guess, but over the course of a typical month I will fly four multiday trips and be away from home for a total of approximately 300 hours, covering all or part of 15 calendar days. Sometimes more, sometimes a little less.

I'd rather not reveal exactly how much I earn, but let's just say that it's below six figures. It's a good living, frankly, but I am 42 years old and it took me 20 years to reach this point. During that stretch I worked as a flight instructor ($200 a week or less), regional pilot (my new-hire salary was $12,000) and cargo pilot ($60,000 in my best year). I've also been through two furloughs, and spent more than six of those years unemployed. At the moment things have never been better, but it could vanish faster than you can say "$200 a barrel." This week, word came down that United Airlines will be laying off 1,000 pilots. At US Airways, it'll be 300. This will be the second or third furlough for many of those pilots. At American, nearly 2,000 are already on the street. (And this is why I laugh every time the media talks of a supposed pilot shortage.)

I think of my friend Chris, age 29, who flies for US Airways Express. He is away from home 21 days every month and earns $18,000 a year, with $100,000 in student loans and flight training debt hanging over him. And yet, each time he walks down the concourse, no doubt there are people who eye him with a sneer. Just another overpaid pilot putting in his 20 hours.

And then we have this oft-repeated idea that flying jetliners is somehow easy -- or, as our friend puts it, like "driving a bus." This isn't a knock on bus drivers, but here's an idea: Let's find a bus driver, give him a few weeks of aircraft training, stick him in the cockpit of a 777 at the gate at LAX or JFK, and see if he can find Hong Kong. Assuming he makes it into the air, which is pretty doubtful, we'll throw in an engine fire, some wind shear and an assortment of system failures and other complications. The letter writer, of course, will have a seat in first class. I wish he had been there, sitting in the cockpit jump seat during the flight I detailed here. Pilots are paid for when things go wrong, not for when things go right; just the same, I cannot begin to describe the amount of knowledge and training that is prerequisite for even the most routine flight.

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