Airlines are lobbying for a change to federal regulations that could put one pilot in the cockpit

Overseas airline can be just-as or more nickel and dimey than spirit and frontier. Ryanair is notorious for screwing people.

Cheap rates but less built-in free customer protections.

 

Capitalism is supposed to give people the services they most want. And what people want are cheaper flights, and outside of this year's crazy shortage, airfare prices have been going down for a couple of decades (including fees). People want more leg space or snacks or better service or whatnot. But when it comes down to it, they want cheaper prices more.

 

I don't remember where i saw it online but the 60s price for an airline ticket, once considered a luxury, is roughly the cost of first class today after factoring in inflation.

So competition "worked" in getting what you pay for with the max number of customers. It's just the race to the bottom is showing cracks in quality at the general service tiers

 

As long as they don't interrupt drink service, they can train a monkey to fly the plane. Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made.

If the plane crashes and everybody dies, there's nobody left to leave a bad Yelp review, anyway.

 

Sounds like a terrible idea. How many disasters are avoided by having a co-pilot who prevents mistakes?

 

Some decent points being made. But yall are overrating first class on 90% of domestic flights.It's usually MID.

 

Just slap one of those Jesus Is My Copilot bumperstickers on the planes and it'll all be ok.

 

I think it could work. Saw it in a movie one time.

 

I appreciate the insights.

 

I don't know why people think Spirit is so bad. I can get a flight from Houston to LA for $60 round trip, which is insane. The airplane is modern and generally on time.

 

Indeed.

There's pretty much nothing that this bbs doesn't have at least 1 ~expert on.

 

actually I'm pretty sure everyone here is an expert on everything. just from my casual observation

 

Os Trigonium: Casual Expert

 

or Expert Level: Casual

 

A lot of the pilot shortage was brought on by covid vaccine mandates. That was at least a decent part of it. Some retired. Some refused. May were temporarily laid off.


I know there's a lawsuit against one of the major airlines with 20,000 employee signatures on it that is in the courts right now.

 

I would say that it was brought on refusal to take the sensible step of vaccinating and not the vaccine mandate.

 

Either way, a lot of the pilots are ex military, and won't be told what to do.

The companies know that.

 

Of course. That is understood. However, others will step in if the companies make it worth their while to do so.

 

I don't disagree. It's the catch 22 of having a niche job. I have one, as well.

It can be hard to find these types at times, but it can also swing the opposite way at times.


If your job requires quite a bit of training, and there aren't that many of you, you have strength in numbers.

As @geeimsobored pointed out, the margins are so slim that the airlines cannot afford to raise pay or incentivize new pilots through other means.

As I said, many of these senior pilots are former military men, some with combat experience. I have one in the family, for instance. Most of these guys have college degrees from decent schools (Columbia for my family member), have undergone military training, and then have years of commercial experience. They can't be easily replaced, and they're not dumb. In fact, you could say once upon a time, they were trained to assess the situation, gather information, and then leverage that situation, and in fairly short order.


Hard to replace that in a pinch.

 

That qualifies for appearing on cable news if you're willing to sell your dignity.