Compensation

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-10-most-overpaid-jobs-in-the-us

http://www.engineersalary.com/overpaid.asp

So, I'm sitting here thinking... I've seen job rating articles like this in various magazines where they routinely rank Airline Pilot as an easy, automated, overpaid and underworked job. This is almost always based on pay rate, versus hours worked. I have a very sneaking suspicion that airline CEOs have had something to do with this. Unfortunately, so has the FAA due to very specific definitions to certain words like "block time" and "rest." So, I wanted to take a few minutes and shed some light on this whole "Pilots work little and are paid lots" idea, at least from where I sit.

First off, it's fair to say my pay rate for this job is $20/hr. And, I "work" around 75 hours per month. (Yes, "work" is in quotes for a reason.) I am also paid an hourly per diem when I am away from base, such as, on an overnight.

Sounds good, right? Sure! However, as far as I am concerned... I make LESS than $7.00/hour. Yes, I typed that right. Seven. Per hour. Puzzled? Alarmed? You should be! Now, allow me to explain how I arrive at that conclusion.

Pilot pay has two main categories. A pilots "base pay" is their hourly rate multiplied by the number of "block hours" they worked that month. "Per diem" is also paid when you are away from base, again, at an hourly rate.

Part 1: Block time. Well, this is how much the company thinks we work. Block time starts, when a crew is on the plane with all the passengers aboard, all the passenger doors and cargo doors closed, and the parking brake is released. Block time ends when you park at the gate, and the parking brake is set. That's it! Yes, you are correct to think that it sounds weird to think the flight crew are "off the clock" however, all the passengers are still on board, the engines are still running and the jet bridge isn't even pulled up to the aircraft.

Part Two: Per Diem. To say the crew is "unpaid" during this time is also, technically, incorrect. During the flight and during the overnights, we are racking up per diem pay by the hour. And boy, are we swimming in it. My per diem rate is $1.40/hour. The idea, is that it is meant to help cover your hotel shuttle driver trips, meals, etc. Needless to say, I eat a lot of oatmeal that I bring with me on trips. I'm so regular it's irregular!

Per diem is paid by something called "Time Away From Base" or TAFB. To me, THIS is a measure of how much we work. TAFB includes block time and the time that we spend in some hotel in some part of the country. Think of it this way: When we push out of the gate on the first leg of a 4 day trip our TAFB starts and ends when we park at the gate after of our last leg, 4 days later. If you lived at the airport, this is how much time you'd be away from your home and family for work. My average TAFB is 250 hours per month. (Note: How many 8 hour days are in 250 hours? THIRTY ONE! Boy, are we underworked! )

So, lets break down what we have so far. If I block 75 hours, and my rate is $20/hour, most people can figure out my base pay for the month is $1500. Not a whole lot of money, however, lets factor in that per diem. 250 hours TAFB multiplied by $1.40/hour. That's $350.
So, my whopping monthly check comes to... (drum roll, please....) $1850!!! And yes, that's pretax.

I was paid $1850 to be away from home for 250 hours for a month. That puts my hourly rate down to $7.40/hour.

We're not quite there yet, but we're close. I did consider factoring in my commute time (since I don't live in my base, like many pilots) however, that didn't seem quite fair. After all, no company is wanting to pay you for the time it takes you to drive from your home to the office. However, there is extra time involved with sitting around at my base due to this, and it's more than you might think. Time for one more pile of explanations.

When you begin a trip, you are required to be at the gate of departure 1 hour prior to the scheduled departure time. This isn't part of your block time, but you are required to be there. I must say, I am fortunate enough to work for a company that has something called a "Call in Honest" policy. Since I don't live in the city of my base (where all my trips start and end) I need to catch a ride in an open seat on a flight from where I live to my base. Now, we all know that flights can be delayed and/or canceled for various reasons. At some companies, if something like that happens and you can't get to work, that's put on your record as a "No-show," and you'll likely find yourself in front of the Chief Pilot having to explain yourself. Do this 2 or 3 times... and you'll be out of a job. No ifs, ands or butts. Basically, the call in honest policy helps you keep your job. Now, to be able to use this policy, I must list myself on at least TWO flights, that are scheduled to put me in base at LEAST 1 hr prior to my scheduled showtime.

This means 2 hrs before I start getting paid, I am required to be at my base airport. Also consider that at least 90% of the time, I am on the first of those two flights. This often means I will sit around my base airport for 5 hours prior to starting a trip. And they wonder why people sleep in the crew room? With an average of 4 trips per month... that's 20 hrs of time that I just sit around my base, per company regulations.

So, now we're up to 270 hrs worked for $1850. Whats that come out to? $6.85/hour. Yes, that's still pretax. Do you still feel good about that super low fare you booked for your vacation?

New items

As you may have noticed, I've started a few other pages that will be considered "working documents." They are linked from the right column under "Recommended Reads." They are intended to be both informative and humorous. The glossary section will take some time to get all written up. Look for that link to be available in the coming weeks. I heard a new one this past trip. Each airline has ground personnel who service our lavatories on board the aircraft. Anyone who has ever been in an aircraft lav knows the look and smell of the infamous "Blue Juice." My captain on this trip, referred to these personnel as the "Blue Angels." After ejecting some of my morning coffee from my nostrils on delicately onto my white pilot shirt, I had to jot that one down. I loved it. They are indeed angels. I enjoy seeing them after a long flight where many passengers have enjoyed several cups of coffee enroute.

Productivity

Looking back at the last few days reveals both good and bad. We did have a flight from down south up to the Detroit. I'm the first to admit, I don't know what it's like to be a controller, but sometimes, I really just don't know what the hell they're trying to do. Once we were over Evansville, IN it all began. Every single time we were switched to a different center frequency, they had something else for us to do. It was as if they were all working really really hard and not talking to each other. Speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down... go left... no, back right... speed up again... now slow waaaay down. It was retarded. It's nothing new, but this was the worst case of it I've ever seen. We've got enough to do when getting ready for the decent and the approach into a major airport. From where I sit, all this crap just serves as more distraction. I guess it's not a shock that some people are screaming at the government to "modernize" the ATC system. Perhaps this is a classic case and point. I'm all for it, as long as they do a MUCH better job that Lockheed-Martin did when taking over our Flight Service Stations. Holy balls was that steamer.

We also flew out to the northeast on this last trip. Just as we were starting our decent, I took note of an icon labeled "BUF" on my nav display. Buffalo, NY. Ironically, as I looked out and located the Buffalo airport about 25 miles off the nose, it was a clear, warm and beautiful day. I have to admit, I wasn't a pilot when Capt Al Haynes crash landed in Sioux City. I wasn't even a pilot yet on 9/11. But, I'd be lying if I said flying over Buffalo didn't have an affect on me. Being in this very same industry myself now, I do find myself taking a slightly different interest in such events. They are more real to me now. It's a chilling reminder that this industry isn't fool proof. And, if you make some bad decisions and your mistakes are not caught in time, the results will be far worse than "Oh, we lost the Peterson account" or "Now where do I put all these boxes?" We're all perfectly capable of being caught off guard. We all make mistakes. We train and train and train to be prepared for anything. But you can still be fooled sometimes. That's why we have Standardized Procedures and why we don't have just one lone schmuck up there in front. You know how somedays, you sit in the office and check a lot of email, surf around the web (carefully avoiding the porn!), chat with coworkers and just not get a lot done? Those days aren't a safe option in this business.

On this last trip, our crew had several "productivity breaks" as we call them. Basically, everyone knows there are certain time limits that pilots can be flying and be on duty. (Note: this is a FAR more complicated set of rules than 99.999999% of the general public would imagine and I do plan to attempt to explain this, at least in part, in a future post. In fact, different departments within an airline get into fights over how they each interpret these rules.) The last two days of our trip started with a very early start. Imagine getting up at 3:30am, getting showered, dressed, packed up, check the email, grab some coffee, and get on the hotel shuttle at 4:30am to be at the airport by 5:00am. Then, push off the gate at 5:30am and land in Detroit around 7:00am. OK, now your next flight is scheduled to leave at noon. 5 Hrs. In the past, you were just left to sit around the airport. Talk about awesome! Lately, our scheduling department has been much better about getting us something called a "Day Room." Basically, it's a room at a local hotel. It is nice because it's far better than just sitting around an airport, and you can either take a nap, watch TV, or even workout. However, one part that most people don't see is that it takes time to call scheduling, to get the room reserved, walk across the whole airport, call the hotel, wait for the shuttle, ride the shuttle, and get up to the room. Also, you will have to leave early so that you can get to the airport, get back through security, and all the way back across the airport and be at the gate AT LEAST 30mins prior to departure. So, a 5 hr break quickly becomes 3 or less. But, I digress.

Another slightly odd side of this day room stuff is that only two rooms are made available. One for the flight attendants, and one for the pilots. I have a feeling you just said, "What??" Yes, this is true. The we get to share rooms! Gotta love being a low-cost carrier! In all fairness, there are stipulations such that if there are male/female flight attendants, as well as pilots, they they get separate rooms. So, at least we don't have to deal with that can of worms. Otherwise, I'd just sit at the airport to avoid that whole situation. But still, it's a bit like being back in that college dorm room on your first day, meeting your new room mate, and sharing a room. It's odd. But, indeed, better than just sitting around the airport. That is, unless one crew member snores or has really bad gas.

In this business, it's very important to take stock in the little things. Oddly enough, one of the aircraft that we took when getting back from one of our productivity breaks had been sitting out on the ramp for hours. It's summertime. I expected that plane to be like getting in a car that's been sitting in a mall parking lot for 6 hrs. To my shock and awe, the ground crews had hooked up the external air conditioning! Every gate has it. Mainline flights are always hooked up to a/c in the summer, and heat in the winter. This minimizes usage of the aircraft APU, since that's what you would have to be running (which burns Jet-A) in order to keep the aircraft warm or cool. At a low-cost airline, you find lots of corners like this being cut, specifically when it comes to "man-power." I get the feeling the ground crews are told not to hook up and run the external air to save money, and time, since they are understaffed and need to work a lot of airplanes with little help. And, from the other side, our management is telling us to minimize APU usage in order to conserve fuel and remain competitive with other low cost carriers. It's a double-edged sword that we end up getting stabbed with when we have to try and take care of passengers with an aircraft that is 103 degF on the inside and a gate agent shoving passengers on board trying to get the door closed so that their manager isn't barking at them because the flight went out 2 minutes late. However, this time was different! I walked onto the plane and was greeted with nice cool air! It made my whole day! Honest!

On a final note, I was none too pleased with my wake up call in Rochester, NY a few days ago. I usually sign up for a wake up call, set my cell phone alarm, AND set the clock in the room. One of those is bound to work. In honesty the wake up calls come, maybe 80% of the time. And, some of those come early... late.... or in succession. In Rochester, I recieved no less than FOUR wake up calls. WTF??? I'm up already!!! I've only got an hour to get up, pack, shower, shave, take a massive and get out the door! We all make mistakes, believe me, this I understand. So, after the first, second and third wake up calls, which came about 5 mins apart, I was still OK with it, just puzzled. However, my ass was on the porcelain when the 4th came in. I ended up doing the "pants at the ankles gallop" across the room to yank the damn phone cord out of the back of the phone. I'm sure you've seen or made use of such gallop techniques at home when one is out of TP and must make their way to another bathroom in the house to find some additional supplies. Ahh, the glory of being an airline pilot... ;-)

-PS

Welcome

As I'm sure you have noticed, the regional airlines have been in the news quite a bit as of late, and when aviation is in the news, that is rarely a good thing. I guess this was the final shove I needed to embark upon a little journey myself.

Flying for a living is really a wonderful thing. My previous career was no where near as enjoyable. However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows. I feel the general public is just clueless or actively does not want to know about what it's like to actually do this work on a very regular basis. However, in the aftermath of the recent Colgan crash, perhaps the general public is willing to hear a little more about it.

That then, is the purpose of this blog. My plans as of now are just to provide a regular update on what it's like to do this for a living. I will give an honest account of the good, the bad, and the funny.

Aviation is fraught with vernacular. I will start assembling a Pilot Glossary of sorts and make that available here. It will contain plain English explanations of all those terms you hear around the airport.

I'm also happy to answer any questions from readers. This blog should serve as both informative and interactive.

That's about it for the plan so far. We'll just see where it takes us from here. Thanks for stopping by. Hope you to see you again soon.

-PS