PILOT PAY: 30 years ago? 30 years from now?
11-20-2014, 02:10 PM
#21
Line Holder
Joined APC: Nov 2011
Posts: 58
I can't imagine a crystal ball with that sort of range.
The potential disruptors are so many, that it seems impossible to make a forecast. To name a few items that could completely change the industry and our job:
1) technology
2) legislation
3) foreign competition
4) geopolitics
5) energy
6) domestic economy
7) world economy
8) pandemics, real and imagined
9) climate issues, real and imagined
10)food
11)water
etc.
Most people that can figure out where one of these variables is going in 10 years are probably rich already.
I predict we'll be in a drastic global cooling cycle, requiring immediate action.
The potential disruptors are so many, that it seems impossible to make a forecast. To name a few items that could completely change the industry and our job:
1) technology
2) legislation
3) foreign competition
4) geopolitics
5) energy
6) domestic economy
7) world economy
8) pandemics, real and imagined
9) climate issues, real and imagined
10)food
11)water
etc.
Most people that can figure out where one of these variables is going in 10 years are probably rich already.
I predict we'll be in a drastic global cooling cycle, requiring immediate action.
Good question and good, thought-proviking answers so far.
Sink,
I agree with you list of factors that could harm the industry, but to take a more simplistic and optimistic look, aren't people still going to demand air travel, even if some or most of those bad factors on your list came to fruition?
I would argue that despite some of that bad stuff happening in the next 30 years - and some of it WILL happen - overall demand for commercial travel will probably still increase. Think about how much more people travel for work, leisure, etc than they did just a few decades ago. Back a mere 100 years ago, something like 90% of Americans never even left the county they were born in. And it seems that most of the folks from my parents generation do not travel - for work or leisure - a fraction of what younger generation people do.
Anyway, I think the industry will definitely take it's licks over the next 30 years, but really, what industry will not (besides the funeral, prostitute and drug dealing businesses)??? I will bet that in 30 years, lots of folks working for the military/government, Google, Apple, Ford, startup company XYZ, medical/hospital chain ABC, will all see dramatic transformations in their industry, way of life, and salaries.
Good discussion.
11-20-2014, 03:23 PM
#23
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2009
Posts: 5,113
OP,
Good question and good, thought-proviking answers so far.
Sink,
I agree with you list of factors that could harm the industry, but to take a more simplistic and optimistic look, aren't people still going to demand air travel, even if some or most of those bad factors on your list came to fruition?
I would argue that despite some of that bad stuff happening in the next 30 years - and some of it WILL happen - overall demand for commercial travel will probably still increase. Think about how much more people travel for work, leisure, etc than they did just a few decades ago. Back a mere 100 years ago, something like 90% of Americans never even left the county they were born in. And it seems that most of the folks from my parents generation do not travel - for work or leisure - a fraction of what younger generation people do.
Anyway, I think the industry will definitely take it's licks over the next 30 years, but really, what industry will not (besides the funeral, prostitute and drug dealing businesses)??? I will bet that in 30 years, lots of folks working for the military/government, Google, Apple, Ford, startup company XYZ, medical/hospital chain ABC, will all see dramatic transformations in their industry, way of life, and salaries.
Good discussion.
Good question and good, thought-proviking answers so far.
Sink,
I agree with you list of factors that could harm the industry, but to take a more simplistic and optimistic look, aren't people still going to demand air travel, even if some or most of those bad factors on your list came to fruition?
I would argue that despite some of that bad stuff happening in the next 30 years - and some of it WILL happen - overall demand for commercial travel will probably still increase. Think about how much more people travel for work, leisure, etc than they did just a few decades ago. Back a mere 100 years ago, something like 90% of Americans never even left the county they were born in. And it seems that most of the folks from my parents generation do not travel - for work or leisure - a fraction of what younger generation people do.
Anyway, I think the industry will definitely take it's licks over the next 30 years, but really, what industry will not (besides the funeral, prostitute and drug dealing businesses)??? I will bet that in 30 years, lots of folks working for the military/government, Google, Apple, Ford, startup company XYZ, medical/hospital chain ABC, will all see dramatic transformations in their industry, way of life, and salaries.
Good discussion.
I tried to look up your class, to shake the hand of a certain freakin' idiot when I was in Atlanta, but it didn't work out.
Good discussion indeed. Technology moves so quickly, and the pace of change is exponential, that I just have no idea how to predict the behavior of people in 30 years. They might have holographic teleconferencing that makes business trips a distant memory. We might have hypersonic aircraft that move the elite around. Maybe the masses will throw a banana peel in their Mister Fusion, and fly themselves to Europe for the week-end. Maybe we'll all be looking for left-over cans of cat food, and fighting each other with hammers.
I'm an avid reader. I enjoy history and Sci-Fi both. When I look at the things my grand-mother saw in her lifetime, and I extrapolate an accelerating rate of "progress", trying to get a fix on the future, I usually blow the old cortex.
Speaking strictly as a freakin' idiot, I must confess my imagination is not good enough to take this profession 30 years in the future.
11-20-2014, 04:28 PM
#24
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2009
Posts: 381
Well, badflaps, that's about 260,000 per year in 2012 dollars, so pay basically matched inflation for NB pilots, minus the A plan, minus the worse health care, minus a few other givebacks. So, there you have my best guess over the next thirty years. I thought I was a rich corporate pilot making 23,500 in 1983; it's about a third of my current salary in 2012 dollars.
The '60s B707 PAA and TW guys bragged about a "Cadillac a month"; those pay rates will never return. It'll be a comfortable middle class income.
GF
The '60s B707 PAA and TW guys bragged about a "Cadillac a month"; those pay rates will never return. It'll be a comfortable middle class income.
GF
11-20-2014, 04:48 PM
#25
veut gagner à la loterie
Joined APC: Apr 2008
Position: Light Chop
Posts: 23,286
In 1984 a Cadillac Eldorado was $31,000.
So you could buy 4 per year if you didn't pay a dime in taxes, alimony, etc.
Today high end Cadillac sedan is say $75,000. So 4 of those is $300,000. At 75/hours a month with a cap a Delta 73NA (a= ******* and b = ***** for those who aren't familiar) would need $333/hr to have the same Cadillac buying power.
Current rate is $210/hr.
Last edited by forgot to bid; 11-20-2014 at 05:01 PM.
11-20-2014, 04:49 PM
#26
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: May 2010
Position: Baja Vermont
Posts: 5,197
True, I grew up in Stamford. Corporate and airline guys lived in Greenwich, Rowayton, Ridgefield in the '60s; now they can't touch a bungalow in those towns. A measure of where money is made--law, private equity, M&A, not flying planes
GF
GF
11-21-2014, 08:12 AM
#27
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2010
Posts: 852
To make a reasonable forecast, we'll have to figure out the relative value of a professional sitting in the front end of an airliner in the future.
1. The range of any possible changes to the occupational qualifications. Will future "Airline Pilots" be Systems Monitor/Operators, or more like the traditional aviator we remember?
2. The magnitude of the Supply & Demand cycles.
3. The fate of existing barriers to globalization (foreign ownership, cabotage, etc)
Plotting the trend of pay from the 80's to now is applicable only if we believe the factors that influenced that trend will be valid in the future. In a theoretical sense, they probably are. In a practical sense, the Invisible Hand is weak and arthritic.
1. The range of any possible changes to the occupational qualifications. Will future "Airline Pilots" be Systems Monitor/Operators, or more like the traditional aviator we remember?
2. The magnitude of the Supply & Demand cycles.
3. The fate of existing barriers to globalization (foreign ownership, cabotage, etc)
Plotting the trend of pay from the 80's to now is applicable only if we believe the factors that influenced that trend will be valid in the future. In a theoretical sense, they probably are. In a practical sense, the Invisible Hand is weak and arthritic.
11-21-2014, 08:22 AM
#28
SDQ Base Chief
Joined APC: Mar 2006
Position: 320 CA
Posts: 5,691
I guess Europe is having this conversation as well:
Change in the Air as EU Reviews Aviation Policy - WSJ
Change in the Air as EU Reviews Aviation Policy - WSJ
ANTWERP, Belgium—The European Commission has begun a review of aviation policy that could trigger changes in everything from passenger-rights protection to airline-ownership rules.
“Aviation deserves to have a key place on the agenda for the next five years,” said João Aguiar Machado, director general for mobility and transport at the EC, the EU’s executive arm.
The review is still in the early stages, with the initial thinking to emerge in about six months, said Margus Rahuoja, the EC’s director of aviation and international transport affairs, speaking at the CAPA World Aviation Summit. The review should be completed in about six months.
“Aviation deserves to have a key place on the agenda for the next five years,” said João Aguiar Machado, director general for mobility and transport at the EC, the EU’s executive arm.
The review is still in the early stages, with the initial thinking to emerge in about six months, said Margus Rahuoja, the EC’s director of aviation and international transport affairs, speaking at the CAPA World Aviation Summit. The review should be completed in about six months.
11-21-2014, 08:33 AM
#29
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Nov 2012
Position: ERJ, CA
Posts: 718
Did anyone mention MPL? That is only going to grow, especially as flying airliners gets "safer" through automation. Airlines with MPL have/ will have apprentices flying airplanes who are locked in to that company. I can see in the future, they will have aircraft which are operated more like subway trains with an operator. Airbuses' primary concern is taking the skill out of flying so that developing countries can quickly field airlines.
11-21-2014, 08:43 AM
#30
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2014
Posts: 745
FWIW, starting F/O pay at Comair in 1984, (30 years ago) was approximately 11,500/year. When they closed their doors 28 years later, the starting F/O pay was almost exactly double that amount, $23,000.
So extrapolating the math, in 30 years starting regional F/O pay should be about $46,000 ,........ in the year 2044.
Moral to the story: just get the finance degree and M.B.A. and ride in first class.
So extrapolating the math, in 30 years starting regional F/O pay should be about $46,000 ,........ in the year 2044.
Moral to the story: just get the finance degree and M.B.A. and ride in first class.
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