Mach8Forest

Jetprop,
Alpo does not get it and you do. An outsider to the industry and you see it clear. Truckers across America or trains stop running and it takes a couple of days for the lettuce to get brown. Planes stop flying and the nation shuts down that day. I have heard the guys that drives the barges up and down the Mississippi make $350k a year, (strong union). Pilots have never exercised their power to get what they deserve. Instead they take what the bean counters feel that they will settle for. They don’t do that with fuel because OPEC is stronger than ALPO and the plane will not fly without fuel/pilots.
To make things worse some have splintered off into separate unions away from ALPO. They became worse than the corporate guys with greed (see my late night, self pity, open wound ranting above) these pilots mistakenly aligned themselves with their corporation and not their trade. This splinter group of pilots has fatally wounded our profession for a chance at national strength, respect, and security in our trade.
Mach8Forest

Ottopilot

Yea, that's one of the problems. ALPA is not one union of pilots. It is many separate Unions of pilots. If you had everyone in ALPA on the same page working for the same thing, you would have a powerful force. My local ALPA union leadership were just removed for scaming tons of money from the members for doing nothing. What happened to strength in numbers?

surreal1221

What a ****in joke. I already have little faith in ALPA, and then I see this? Bunch of dickheads.

CargoBob

Go ahead and judge the entire union for what those bad apples did...real smart.

rickair7777

Unions by their very nature lend themselves to corruption and the hijacking of the agenda by the select few for the benefit of the select few. Union organizational structure is severely lacking in the sorts of checks and balances that are prevelant in, say, a typical democratic form of government.

Unfortunately a union is a necessary evil in this profession, and it would work a WHOLE lot better if EVERYONE were part of the same one instead of ALPO, AAPA, SWAPA, Teamsters, etc. AA really boned us all on that one...

SkyHigh

It is difficult to become a barge captain. The opportunities for training and experience are rare. In addition few grow up dreaming of driving a garbage barge. I am sure that unions help but the real problem for us is that there are simply too many pilots. Evidence of this lies in the sharply raising minimums at the major airlines. How else are employers to stem the growing swell of pilots?

SkyHigh

In six months one can become legal to fly as a FO on an airliner. Pilots have nothing to bargain with.

GauleyPilot

I talked to a guy onetime who said he was a pilot also, except on the river instead of in the air.

We talked about training for both kinds of pilots. I was impressed with what river pilots had to learn.

For example, he asked about how much training and testing we had on radar. He told me that he had to be able to distinguish the radar signatures of other things in the water. He had to be able to tell the difference between debris and a person by radar alone. He was very technical in his descriptions of his trade. There is a lot to it. It can also be very dangerous working out on the barges.

We didn't get into pay, so I have no idea what that deal was.

tomgoodman

The really big bucks go, not to the towboat operators who push fleets of barges on the Mississippi, but to the pilots who board oceangoing ships and guide them in the river. There are three state-licensed unions, each with its own exclusive franchise. One from to the open water to above "head of passes", one from there to New Orleans, and one from there to Baton Rouge. They get well over $300k per year, because the state legislators (to whom the unions give massive campaign contributions), require foreign-flagged ships to use them. Getting into the union requires family or "political" connections. New members give the union an initiation fee of about $250k, via a loan which they pay back out of earnings. Needless to say, this funds a massive PAC. U.S.-flagged vessels can use much cheaper federally-licensed pilots, although both groups must pass the same Coast Guard exams.

A very skillful group, both operationally and politically.

CargoBob

2 friends of family are MMA grads (Kings Point, NY) and they do make coin...too slow and boring for me...like crossing the Atlantic in a herc I assume (don't get mad herc guys...I know the low-level stuff is a kick!!)

jetproppilot

Yes your post is accurate.

Only problem is these jobs arent available unless you have the right name....MAJOR nepotism.

Great job though.