"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"gatt" wrote:
Salaries will always be low in an occupation considered to be
glamorous.

The people paying the salaries, and the pilots earning them, ought to
know
better. Salaries should always be high in an occupation considered (by
the
general public) to be dangerous.

Should? Maybe so, but simple supply and demand is setting pilot salaries.
Mike is right: as long as there are plenty of people willing to accept the
joy of flying and the prestige of being a pilot as part of their
compensation, salaries will be correspondingly depressed.

The only reasons some senior U. S. airline pilots are making $200k/year
now
are regulation and unions. Regulation is mostly gone and the wide open
market is destroying the unionized carriers. The $200K left-seater is a
fading anachronism.

Unless there is an industry-wide revival of the union movement, watch for
salaries to continue to decline for all pilots. It will be interesting to
see where pay bottoms out, and what the general quality of Part 121 pilots
will be when it does.
--
Dan
C-172RG at BFM


Additionally the $200k is somewhat of a farce because the pensions are so
underfunded. There is a recent newspaper article on the United
restructuring saying that many of the pilots recieving $175K a year in
retirement may be getting $28K from now on.

Mike
MU-2