I don't believe that women earn 75% less than men at a certain airline.

[Gromance02]

I just don't. Unless they are talking about completely different roles. Eg, pilots (generally men) compared to air stewards (generally women). I'm not defending the airline but I don't think they deserve this utterly misleading headline.

Obviously if a female pilot with exactly the same length of career with the same number of sabbatical/maternity/paternity leave as a man is on less than her male counterpart, that is wrong.

Pilot skills are really not scarce though are they? The hardest part is wanting to do a job that would take you away from home so much...and the cabin crew have the same rough deal on that one...

Just what are you talking about?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/business-42917181/pilot-shortage-who-s-going-to-fly-our-planes

oh and having the cash to train of course...but we should definitely be rewarding people for starting life with additional cash resources...that's obviously totally fair.

The job market, as was ever the case, rewards people who are willing to invest in themselves. It's a skill worth going into debt for.

I think reading through this, that people expect Pilots to be intelligent. You don't have to be intelligent to be a Pilot.

So long as the pilot in question manages to jump through the various FAA hoops, I'm satisfied.

yes, I think this is all about expectations....

I think being a pilot genuinely used to be a big deal that required a lot of physical and mental skill. It also used to be a relatively dangerous job.

None of this is now true....but the historic image is likely making a lot of people who could be pilots (possibly the majority of cabin crew for one thing!) think that its beyond their skill.

I read some of the advertising bumph for a few pilot training schemes and the entry requirements and even cash up front were very low.

I would imagine the shortage of pilots would be down to a lot of potential pilots not realising they could ace the job and not actually have to go into more debt than the average undergrad.

Its probably not in the best interests of current pilots to promote the role as anything other than exclusive and hard to get into though...

road you do get that the skills could be present in 50% of population and there might still be a pilot shortage right?

We have a massive shortage of care workers at the moment too...in my county we recently had a bin collector shortage...

We are about to be plunged into the biggest fruit picker shortage the country has ever seen...

Doesn't mean any of these skills are scarce.

road you do get that the skills could be present in 50% of population and there might still be a pilot shortage right?

Surely you can appreciate that we don't just take people's word for it that they have the neccessary skills to fly a plane or remove a brain tumour or drive an HGV. Or maybe you can't. I'm not sure. You seem completely bonkers, to be honest.

bonkers is a required skill in my line of work...

I've asked what skills are really needed and what are just historically assumed to be needed....I've looked up what the entry for various training schemes funded by airline look like. These seem to say high school level education - maths and science background MAY be an advantage....and reasonable hand eye coordination. A medical screening and probably some sort of mental health screen if they are at all sensible...

The medical is probably the main limiting factor...leaves maybe only around 15 million people in the country as potential pilots as its pretty strict!

Then there is motivation.

Plus the confidence required.

Tbh I want the barriers to entry to piloting passenger planes to be high.

Remember Sully!

And, there's absolutely no shortage of fruit pickers - there's a shortage of fruit pickers willing to pick at the prevailing wage (a victory for fruit pickers, surely).

Increase fruit picking wages by 20%, and you'll see a spike in supply (it's elastic). The same can't be said for pilots, because the labour market would need time to respond (the supply is inelastic).