Correlation between pilot pay and Safety/Professionalism

[Rumors]

For some reason people like to label the lower wage operators as the ones who are unsafe, or have less experienced, less safe less professional pilots.

Debate

Is there a direct correlation between pilot wages and professionalism/safety/pilot skill level?

[ahramin]

What controls the quality of a given group of pilots has everything to do with the chief pilots: how they hire, how they train, and how they operate. The pay scale has no effect on quality that I have ever observed, except that if it's much lower than the competition you are highly unlikely to retain a good chief pilot.

[Obbie]

You might want to review JetsGo's safety record before you say the two are not related.

Low pay means nobody stays for long.
Nobody stays for long means a pool of experience is never built.
A pool of experience never built leads to events like Colgan Air in Buffalo.

Low pay equals a low experienced flight line.

[teacher]

Keep in mind also that pay isn't just dollars. If you make the same but work more days that counts as well and leads to more fatigued pilots and lower overall pay.

I think the advances in modern aviation have managed to mitigate some of the effects of low pay, lower experience and fatigue. Remember the pyramid from CRM class. Wide base is the number of minor occurances, middle is incidents and the top is an accident. For every accident there were many near misses that were caught and avoided. We may be catching more errors before they lead to an accident due to improved technology yet they may still be happening.

[Black Cat]

I would say yes wages have both a direct and indirect relation to safety. Anyone can be trained to fly at an airline these days, its been proven and CEO's have jumped all over it. But poor working conditions, poor pay, and poor living conditions go hand and hand and that is the safety threat that needs to be managed by the pilots at Canada's Colgan Airs. IE WESTJET AND SKYREGIONAL.

How does one live in Calgary or Toronto on 25k a year, less profit sharing deductions? A poor diet and a US style pilot flop house? or you live in your parents basement? Wife has a real job? Commute and sleep on a couch? Commute and work a 14 hour day? No car equals a longer day which equals fatigue, especially with a 20 day work month. Or maybe I'm just bad at math.

[Changes in Latitudes]

That mentality comes from the top down. Even if you're a dedicated professional from day one, year after year of people around you not caring, cutting corners, and doing the bare minimum will eventually rub off on you in some way or sack your spirit. That is why you have to get in and get out of those places before you become infected. If a company won't pay you what is even a liveable wage, chances are they're cutting every other corner they can as well.

I think that is a valuable lesson for low timers. You are going to come across not so good operations, perhaps you needed the job, perhaps you didn't do your homework, maybe the previous owner sold to a scuzball, maybe you weren't hugged enough as a child. Do your best to act professionally and make the operation/yourself better. If you're spinning your tires at that point, get out.

Lower Pay doesn't always equal poor operation. There are some operations that are just too competitive and therefore tightly budgeted to offer a great wage. Do they treat their employees well and not cut corners with safety? Some choose to. Some do not. Skydive ops are a good example. There are some dynamite ones out there, but you won't be driving a BMW to the drop-zone. There are some absolute disaster spawns of satan feasting on the souls of naive pilots as well.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Lower Pay doesn't always equal poor operation. There are some operations that are just too competitive and therefore tightly budgeted to offer a great wage. Do they treat their employees well and not cut corners with safety? Some choose to. Some do not. Skydive ops are a good example. There are some dynamite ones out there, but you won't be driving a BMW to the drop-zone. There are some absolute disaster spawns of satan feasting on the souls of naive pilots as well.

I agree with CL. Every company has its own culture. The culture is always generated from the top, especially in the smaller operators. If the owner(s) DFO and CP are serious about running a safe operation and set a personal example of good safe operations than you will have a safe operation. However when you get management bullying pilots to go in bad weather, threaten them with firing if they overshoot on a IFR approach, carry minimum fuel etc etc , well then you get a Keystone....

Pay effects competitiveness and good managers will try to strike a balance between paying enough to keep adequate work force stability while keeping the payroll in check. In certain sectors (eg bag runs) this means the pay has to be low as that is just the competitive reality.

But The bottom line is simple. You the pilot have the ultimate responsibility for a safe flight. That means refusing to erode the necessary margins of aircraft servicability, weather, weight, fuel, sleep etc etc that make for a safe flight. This may unfortunately result in you having to leave a company but the alternative is far worse. The sad fact is if everyone stood up to the unreasonable and unsafe demands of the shithole operators we would all be better off.

[Dockjock]

I think it is correlated, but not directly. For proof of this, just take the opposite case; high pay does not guarantee safety.

Money is the reason people work, and intelligent people generally seek out the best value for their time ie. the highest paying jobs. Taking the pure mercenaries out of the picture (those who would endure anything, move anywhere for an extra dollar an hour) and those with ultra specific personal circumstances (those who, for any reason, would never leave their home in Podunk for a higher paying job) what is left is a large group of pilots with varying experience looking for the best way to employ their skill set as a pilot.

You're going to be able to attract the best if you offer the best compensation. No doubt. There are going to be exceptions, some slip in through a crack and are never fired, and some great people never seem to be in the right place at the right time.

But that's just your pilots. The rest of the operation has to have good people as well. And if you pay everyone crap, you get crap. An airline is a fairly complicated business to be able to run well and nearly impossible to make money with. Only good operations are successful over a long term.

[sstaurus]

Higher pay doesn't guarantee safety, but it sure as heck promotes it.

Like Chris Rock says, people say money may not buy happiness, but poverty sure as hell doesn't buy happiness!

[Rockie]

Is there a direct correlation between pilot wages and professionalism/safety/pilot skill level?

Safety, professionalism and pilot skill are directly correlated to training, operational standards and corporate culture.

Pilot wages are directly correlated to a company's financial health and how much they value their pilots.