Originally Posted by gloopy

This hits on a far more significant issue than the false martyrdom of pilots having to do overnights, oh the humanity.

By far the number one concern with many if not most pilots for most of their career is shelling out 100K+ per head for college. Including many, many known in advance to be worthless degrees. Plug those numbers into the time value of money calculator and someone is getting screwed out of millions and millions of dollars over their lifetime from lack of compounded returns over time to light all that money on fire in the short term for an "experience" in fake adulthood. All for the make believe "you'll make a million more over your lifetime" out of context statistic.

Nothing makes a union weaker than its members being strapped living paycheck to paycheck and our collective fascination with "college at any cost" does just that. And robs everyone who participates often millions of dollars in end state wealth, either for themselves or their heirs.

Moreover, its highly common in our profession for children to be programmed and conditioned from near infancy for college and nothing else. That makes our profession disproportionatly weaker than it does society at large.

As far as overnights are concerned, that's clearly a huge and unavoidable part of the job. "But muh Allegiant" is just silly. Tiny niche ULCC out and back airlines are rare for a reason. I've had far better QOL overall at times commuting to NB domestic multi day trips than at other times living in base with crap rotations across every other metric, including schedules that technically had fewer overnights.

Also, its somewhat silly to compare highly disparate professions. But the "sleep in my own bed" aspect doesn't even come close to telling the whole story of QOL. Many high income professions require endless strings of 12-16 work days with no concern if you're sick or fatugued. Work often comes home with you one way or the other. Us taking a Ricky Bobby all or nothing, there can be only one, if you're not first you're last approach to comparing different occupations retroactively isn't productiv e because it makes no sense.

If someone can't handle overnights then move to a base, stay in junior equipment and bid short trips or become an SLI, CP, etc. One (usually more than one) of those options will be available to you in a few years if not much sooner, and you'll still make well into 6 figures by then.

We absolutely need to focus on improving rotations across all aspects, including more shorter rotations. Not just so that there will be more "home every night" positions, but because sometimes pilots need or want an extra day or two to build a line and don't want to be pushed into another 4-5 day, etc. All aspects of our domestic rotations need work for commuters and in-basers alike. Especially in the post-Optimizer world we find ourselves in. But bellyaching simply over the fact that there are overnights is just silly. And comparing and complaining retroactively about compensation of totally separate occupations while continuing to light 6 figures per child on fire often never to be seen (or compounded) again makes it that much harder for us to be taken seriously at the negotiating table.

Originally Posted by gloopy

If someone can't handle overnights then move to a base, stay in junior equipment and bid short trips or become an SLI, CP, etc. One (usually more than one) of those options will be available to you in a few years if not much sooner, and you'll still make well into 6 figures by then.
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Originally Posted by jaxsurf

Wut?

Anybody who is shelling out $100k per kid for college is doing that to themselves, and they deserve what they get. I have zero compassion for that, and I want nothing to do with "rectifying" that lunacy.

There are other ways to accomplish a college education that don't include extreme amounts of debt or paying $100k per head. Those people should look into them.

Originally Posted by jaxsurf

Those people should look into them.

Originally Posted by Mesabah

It's pretty close to averaging $100K per kid. The only way to avoid it, is in-state public schools, where you commute from home. Here are the averages for each state: tuition without room&board.

Originally Posted by gloopy

By far the number one concern with many if not most pilots for most of their career is shelling out 100K+ per head for college.

If someone can't handle overnights then move to a base, stay in junior equipment and bid short trips or become an SLI, CP, etc. One (usually more than one) of those options will be available to you in a few years if not much sooner, and you'll still make well into 6 figures by then.

All aspects of our domestic rotations need work for commuters and in-basers alike.

But bellyaching simply over the fact that there are overnights is just silly.

Originally Posted by Trip7

As an atl73nb in 2021 I dropped nearly all my trips every month and picked up easy WS during the week and GS whenever I felt like it. For nearly all pilots aside from the very very junior there is a fleet and/or category somewhere in the system to go to maximize QOL. If a pilot is hell bent on QOL sacrifice the pay and bid 717B, 220B, Widebody B etc



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Originally Posted by CBreezy

So then send your kid to an in-state public school if you can't afford. There are a lot of good ones. Or God Forbid they get a scholarship or work/work-study

Originally Posted by Mesabah

It's pretty close to averaging $100K per kid.

Originally Posted by waldo135

Let me guess…You don’t have college age kids. Most ‘help’ you reference is ‘needs based’ and guess what…most pilots are above the cut line. Ask me how I know.