To tweet BA pilots that I earn less than the INCREASE they're demanding?

[CheapSeats]

I earn 18000 a year. BA pilots are asking for an increase of 20000 a year. Yeah I know about skills and responsibility blah blah blah but AIBU to be upset that my holiday might be ruined? They're bleating in the papers today that they're upset that they now only get to stay in 4 star hotels instead of 5.

One which I'll never forget was a pilot who managed to keep control & land with the canopy detonation cord wrapped round his neck after a bird strike smashed the canopy open (the cord being an explosive cord)

Are you ground crew for a tiny Cessna or something? It's never more obvious to those actually in the aviation industry when people who are on the very fringes pretend to be central.

Get duty free stuff into the UK. Two boys at school their dad a pilot would bring back all sorts for them to sell at school, raybans, dvds, movie discs, etc. they were a great source of cheap stuff. I picked up my DS from their home one day, the kitchen was like a market stall, daddy had just got home with quite a haul of goodies

That's not duty free, that's the knock-offs from the Chinese markets etc.

The boyfriend I lost my virginity to was taking his pilot's licence to fly little planes with a view to being an airline pilot.

Which he went on to do.

Can't offer any aviation details though .

Are you ground crew for a tiny Cessna or something? It's never more obvious to those actually in the aviation industry when people who are on the very fringes pretend to be central.

Not a Cessna, no

An F3 tornado

Was married to a pilot for 15 years. The most entitled over paid under worked twat I’ve ever known all my life.
But the pilots say they took a pay cut in the lean years and now their pay doesn’t reflect the profits BA is making. Tricky.

picked up my DS from their home one day, the kitchen was like a market stall, daddy had just got home with quite a haul of goodies.

He
D perhaps been to the bongo bazar in Bangladesh where if you don’t buy something people threaten to throw shit on you.

No India was not his route, caribbean which I have never been to so perhaps they throw shit too.

Pilots have one of those jobs where day to day it might be quite boring and meh but when shit hits the fan they have to be ready and trained to act now.

I’m pretty sure lifeguards and firemen get bored and have easy shifts but if they weren’t bored and getting some easy shifts it means something’s gone wrong and someone’s life is in danger.

My fil did a job that paid more in tax than a lot of people take home. He worked a couple of days a month because when he was needed meant shit had hit the fan and was costing the company possibly millions his expertise made him worth the money.

And to be fair on my ex twat of a pilot husband. I would put my life in his hands if it came to landing a plane. They are highly not only highly trained they are high functioning highly skilled people. The exception rather than the rule. Maybe that’s what makes them twats.
I was always amazed at how many “ little things” went wrong in flight and how the pilots knew which circuits to cut / faff around with to be able to carry on flying safely.
Maybe give them their money?

My dad is a pilot and gets an allowance for B&B stays. Definitely no 4 or 5 star hotels!

It's important that pilots are rested though - he's 61 years old and will often have to get up at 3:30am to do a training session in the simulator. Or be at the crew room for 7am.

Sometimes he gets called to work from a different airport he's based at so will have to drive 3 hours to work at short notice and then fly a few thousand miles.

How beautifully put op.
I hope your holiday, that you have worked so hard for, goes off without a hitch.

I teach maths and had to jump through hoops to get my ridiculously overworked underpaid job - I am educated, dedicated and knackered and also earn just a little more than a pilot's pay rise.

No you are not, greedy bastards who should’ve grateful to be in a high paid job but instead choose to do their upmost to ruin people’s holiday plans who have probably saved up all year.

YANBU. At all. They are paid what the market will pay them - fair enough. The problem isn't what the high paid earn. it is that the low paid (which is most people) don't earn enough to get by. Raise the minimum wage, pay for it with increased tax on the high paid, and they can earn what they like.

YABU to believe why you read in the tabloids OP.

BA were always the cheap ones when it came to paying their pilots. You had to retire at 60 which is pretty young (it might be a little older now but not much). My father was a Captain for BA for 30 years and SIA for 10 years. It's not as glamorous as it sounds and you are away a huge amount from your family. You are responsible for 400 people and things do go wrong that you never hear about. There were arseholes, as in any job, but most of them are skilled, honourable people. Just pay them a bit more. Staying in any hotel a lot is very lonely and a bit miserable. You never have a time zone - you live in your own time zone - so most of the hotels he went to were somewhere he just slept in.

Raise the minimum wage, pay for it with increased tax on the high paid

How would that work exactly?

Not unless you do a job where thousands of people’s lives are quite literally in your hands, day after day.

TabbyMumz Thu 01-Aug-19 12:30:20 They have to pay about 40 grand to train themselves up I think.

The three commercial pilots I know were trained in the air force (at no cost to themselves).

One of those pilots works for BA. He gets a lot of perks with his job, more so than the two other pilots I know who work for other airlines.

When you have spent £120,000 or so on degrees, masters degrees and vocational training, please come back and post with your realistic view
Ps - I never ever fly with BA so I feel your pain :(

It's not a race to the bottom, or it shouldn't be, and I'm ok with workers leveraging their power against their bosses to get whatever rate of pay they deem fair. The airline companies are still extracting a huge amount of value from their skills. As is your boss I am sure. You deserve to be paid well enough to live decently on, so does everyone else. I guess with pilots I feel a little bit more ambiguous because all the pilots I have known (not many) have been quite wealthy to begin with as it is hard to get into that without financial backing to begin with. But...on the whole...I would support any worker anywhere who is kicking off about their labour being exploited.

LauraRo Exactly... the crab bucket mentality on this thread is really depressing.

YANBU. There is no reason why they can't stay in 4 star hotels. Unnecessary costs will make the company insolvent, loads of airline companies have disappeared.

I think they deserve to ask for more pay. They are highly trained etc etc. It’s not that they are over paid it is the fact that the rest of us here are underpaid. As someone else says let’s not knock those who get paid lots instead let’s petition for the average wage to be increased.

Its awful that holidays are being cancelled for this - but its not the fault of the pilots striking its the fault of the executives in charge who tried to stop them striking and never believed they would because they want to maximise their profits and the returns that they make

^ This. IMO more people should strike more because the degree to which we've allowed the super rich to get even richer while expecting employees to suck up small increases (if any) in pay is one of the great issues of our time

BA pilots are in a better position than most to stand up and say this isn't just. The rest of us should take note and think about the same kind of action.