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Comment by jpatokal | Hacker News Reader

Paying everybody 14k/year might work if they were hiring people to dig ditches. However, it's a seller's market for pilots right now: if they try to cut the salary of a captain who's been flying widebodies for 20 years to 14k/year, he'll be off to Emirates faster than airline management can say "Oops".

And to complete the circle, said shortage is largely caused by the fucked up seniority system, which makes it a huge gamble to become a junior pilot:

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/aviation-internationa...

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>Paying everybody 14k/year might work if they were hiring people to dig ditches. However, it's a seller's market for pilots right now

So why are pilots still earning less than bus drivers and having to apply for food stamps?

>However, it's a seller's market for pilots right now: if they try to cut the salary of a captain who's been flying widebodies for 20 years to 14k/year, he'll be off to Emirates faster than airline management can say "Oops".

Where, as Greenspun points out, they'll be paid the same as the rest of the new hires.

Re: why, Greenspun's article goes into that in some detail.

Also, Emirates is in the United Arab Emirates, not the US, and about as militantly anti-union a country as you'll find -- and they're famous for luring pilots away from other airlines. By and large, the pilot seniority scheme is a US-only problem (although vestiges remain in Europe), most of the rest of the world competes tooth and claw for pilots.

>pilot seniority scheme is a US-only problem

This is a union thing, as I pointed out - not a problem, but a solution to an otherwise intractable game.

The low wages is likely because lots of people have the ability to learn to fly in the US and lots people REALLY want to. Supply and demand.

Yep, the cost of getting your license in the US is a lot cheaper than Europe (well, the UK at least)

> So why are pilots still earning less than bus drivers and having to apply for food stamps?

Part of it has to be the fact that some people want to fly so badly that they'll put up with poor pay & conditions if it means they can fly.

Bingo. Airlines have most of the commercial piloting jobs. The BIGGEST provider of employees is the US Military. A civilian pilot just doesn't stand a chance in that market versus kids that come out of service with 8+ years of high quality military training and thousands if hours of heavy duty piloting experience. (And the military wasn't paying them much over $16k anyway) There are FAR MORE entry level pilots (which takes $50k of civilian school and practice) than there are jobs to go around.

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