Pilot Pay Has No Impact on Safety? Oh, C'monMost of us who fly with commercial airlines want to rocket through the sky with well-rested pilots who are reeeally happy with their jobs. Maybe that's why I've never heard one person ever suggest that pilots make too much money. I always thought pilots' salaries were in the heart-surgeon range. Fine with me. To paraphrase the famously fretful flier Bob Newhart, when I'm on a plane, especially one of those little commuter thingees, I want to hear a lot of hi-ho, hi-ho coming from the cockpit. Pay them lots and lots of money, put them up at the Ritz and make me kiss their rings before I can board if it means I land with wheels down. But judging from last week's congressional hearings on flight safety, it appears that some regional airlines are deep-discounting the value of their pilots, and our lives. During the hearings, we heard that co-pilot Rebecca Shaw, who died with 49 others in February's fiery plane crash in Buffalo, earned less than $16,200 when she started with Colgan Airlines, a carrier that flies regionally for Continental Airlines. A Colgan vice-president said that Shaw once augmented her salary with a second job at a coffee shop. No, no, no, another Colgan official later insisted. The 24-year-old Shaw made a whopping $23,900. So, Shaw made a few thousand dollars more than someone working for minimum wage, but not as much as helpful clerks who sell paint but, to my knowledge, are never responsible for human lives. I feel much better now. The hearings were full of surprises. Shaw's paltry salary wasn't unusual for those who fly regional planes. Nor was her long commute rare. Shaw and Captain Marvin Renslow, who was 47 and made $67,000, had to travel hundreds of miles to work and were probably tired when they slid into the cockpits in New Jersey. Many pilots, we learned, violate company policy by actually napping in airport crew lounges. Training is an issue, too. If you're a frequent domestic flier, all this news might make you feel a little uneasy about your next commuter flight. If you were already a white-knuckled flier, you probably see a lot of road trips in your future. As the Associated Press reported, it's hard to avoid regional airlines if you travel domestically: "Once considered industry runts, (regional planes) are now joined at the hip with the big airlines. People who buy a ticket on a major airline often find themselves on a regional carrier for some part of a domestic trip. Passengers often don't even realize they're traveling on two airlines. Regional airlines account for half of all domestic departures and about one-quarter of passengers. They are the only scheduled service to about 440 communities." Did you catch that last part? Regional jets are the only way to fly to nearly 440 communities. The LA Times reported that a regional airline job is a "stepping-stone" for pilots who want to work for major carriers, where they make an average of $125,000 to fly the big jets. What? We're practice? Roger Cohen, president of the Regional Airline Association, said all this talk about pilot pay is so beside the point. "Compensation has nothing to do with safety," he told AP. He apparently said this with a straight face. We all know that low pay attracts less-experienced workers, from table servers to schoolteachers. What most of us didn't know was that this includes airline pilots. In a lot of jobs, employees can learn from mistakes and nobody gets hurt. If you're a pilot, though, your first mistake may be your last. When that happens, everyone on board pays. Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
|
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
