"Poorly Paid, Often Tired, Junior Pilots"

[nekomimi]

Thats a very sad reality. It seems the effort does not deserve small credits. We cant blame anyone but how can we change it?

[Indanao]

[quote="ng78"]Stubby, that is one of the main points - it seems like this job has degraded significantly since you started 30 years ago. It is probably impossible for anybody starting out today to make the equivalent of $26,000 in 1981, despite their attitude or what they are willing to accept.

You are right though, there are a lot of bad attitudes among pilots these days which is a shame.


[quote="Stubby"]Sorry dudes n dudettes,
I have to confess, I never made less than 26,000 a year even when I was "paying my dues".
And that was almost 30 years ago. 1981, flying a floatplane...
I think it is attitude, and it is up to the individual what they are willing to accept...
kind regards,

I believe that aviation employment is cyclical. I know Captains with A./C. who got on with 1000TT.
When your at the bottom of the cycle, (maybe about now) you cannot buy a job. Attitude has zip to
do with it. Lots of Old Pilots have attitudes.

[rigpiggy]

I just went through some of my papers, I have an employment contract from 1999 paid to start 3500 base+.20$/mile by the time I left it was 4500+ mileage.

[beaverbob]

!973 I made $1,000 per month flying a C-180 on wheels to Takla Lake. Paid for my house payments, vehicle costs, fed my family of 4 and had change left over for the odd meal out for the family or a night out for the wife and me.
What does that equal now
Bob

[TTJJ]

http://www.bankofcanada.ca/en/rates/inflation_calc.html

A "basket" of goods and
services that cost: $1000.00 in 1973
...would cost: $4765.54 in 2009

Copyright © 1995 - 2009, Bank of Canada. Permission is granted to reproduce or cite portions herein, if attribution is given to the Bank of Canada

[square]

Guys, ramping is not a bad thing, for someone with their eyes open there is a lot to learn. You can do ride alongs, you can run the show on the ground and learn a lot about pilot decision making without risking much. So if you can hack the north, work the heck out of that ramp because you can learn all the skills you need, that are particular to Canada.

[PoE]

I have a idea, why don't we get rid of government subsidized flight programs. Government should subsidize employment area's that the country is lacking in qualified applicants, not spend millions of tax payers money on running puppy mills across the country. How many hundreds of students each year get their training pay for, how do you think this effects the standard of employment in the aviation industry.

I have a second idea. Why don't we just nationalize the profession, that way admission and the profession of becoming a pilot will be as hard to get to as getting into medical school. Places being limited, only the best academical and motivated candidates will be accepted. That way, the puppy mills, as you call them, will go on existing and the pilot numbers on the market will go down. FYI you should probably look into how much taxes one pays on average in a lifetime in Canada and you'll probably see that it is faaaaaaaaar bigger and larger as an amount in comparisson to the 50-60K subsidized by the government. Subsidized programs are disguised loans afterall because the day that you do reach that position at the big airliner you thrive for you'll be paying one PPL, IFR, VFR, MULTI and CPL per year..... so stop complaining about subsidized programs.