Pilots, I don't like the in fighting, but some of the BS here needs answered.In the first place,I know several people here that have commericial tickets and I used their advice when two of my sons decided they wanted to be pilots. They both changed directions after obtaining their instrament ratings and both received most of their flight time via a flying club.Had they achieved this at a university such as SIU, it would have been as expensive as 4 years of medical school but certainly not eight. I have a nephew who became a doctor and a good medical school is much more expensive, so stop the BS about flying costing as much as medical school. Sure it could if your rich daddy bought you time in a 727 or equal which I know could be accomplished. You know as well as anyone that the military is the best place to accumulate hours but the other routes are there and very difficult,but none of that can even compare to an internship for a MD.
Now why should UAL AMT's cite your wages. Real simple, in the first place it was your group that pushed for the ESOP because after Ferris obtained his own commerical ticket, he realized you guys were only as good as your auto-pilot.To preserve the pilot status, your group hired a professional group headed by a famous scam artist who advised ALPA to buy the company. This isn't illegal because it is the same as owning a majority of the company and using its wealth for personal gain.So basicially I have nothing against it. What I do have against it was rather than your group using your individual incomes to control UAL, you used the small minds of the IAM to take the real hits all the while you moved up seats and your wallets got fatter. Then you made noises about having the most invested and heartlessly, illegally and immorally, screwed up the schedule so bad that big corporations who had revolving accounts with us canceled. They never came back. We are still losing money from them. Next when our turn came, we couldn't even get an editorial printed in the newspapers, the pilots wrote unprofessional whining letters that were printed, ours nothing and it was those in control of UAL that did this. Your group has power and could have contributed to this.We might never know but that just for starters.Now after 2 years of drug out negotitations and a contract that now allows outsourcing even in a layoff, your group won't even "allow" us credit for not receiveing backpay. Ask your ALPA, that was why we didn't join the so called coalition. ALPA was calling the shots for this. Next ALPA makes an offer that your group comes out way ahead in wages, that got shot down but one that is almost as bad is pushed through. Come on Mr.Pilot, no contract, unless it is an almost perfect one gets a 90% vote and I don't think any concession in unionized history ever got a concessionary deal approved by those numbers. Then we hear that your hard time hours are down to 40 average which means that your group is being protected against lay offs while our friends and working partners are being laid off. It was your higher wages that sent the older paid for planes that were paying the bills to the desert. Couldn't your group have restsrained itself and made some allowances to keep flying the shuttle and the short hauls? Now the average pilot wage is $250,000 and for every 1000 pilots being protected, it equates to $1,000,000 a day. If the number is 4000, $4,000,000. Get it??Now from the media standpoint, you again made it sound like it was our group causing the money problems. One of your less informed pilots wrote here that we can't be compared to SWA because they're low cost and do make less. Well news flash, their AMT's make the same wage that we do.
Also you try to influence people here with landing in a rain storm with cross winds etc.. Pal I've flown observer in such weather and as you well know the pilot is as much of a passenger as everyone else in CAT II days. We're now in CAT III days. Yes there is skill and yes I brag and admire our flight department or at least our past flight department. You deserve good wages but your wages are beyond good. I have a brother in law who has started four businesses. Mortgaged his life and worked 17 to 18 hours a day and worried, not just for himself but his workers welfare into having ulcers. He has flirted with six figures but never really made it there. Doctors and lawyers don't make that kind of money. Money has a value. You folks that made it into the majors are lucky because there are at least 20 turned away for every opening that comes along. So there should be a little extra for that scrutiny but not like a professional sports player, which is the only thing you could be compared. What we're in now is survival and so we all now go to market.So if you want to spead manure, I have a field near me. And pal, even in bankruptcy, you guys have power beyond ours. I didn't mind that in the AirForce when I'd pat our combat men on the helmet and say "give em hell sir" The only branch of service where he officers go to combat and the enlisted men stay back. When they come against you front liners, I'll still give you that support,just don't sing me Dixie.