By Lisa Gordon | May 31, 2023 Estimated reading time 32 minutes, 56 seconds.
For too long, the Canadian aviation mentality has been focused on less people doing more work – but things have changed, and operators need to wake up and smell the Jet-A.
That’s the message from pilots who say enough is enough: They need to earn a living wage that will enable them to afford an apartment, support a family, and maybe even take an annual vacation.
Following an article in the April/May issue of Skies (recently published on skiesmag.com), where northern and remote aviation operators described their struggle to comply with new flight duty time (FDT) regulations while at the same time grappling with a shortage of experienced pilots, the magazine heard from several pilots who wanted to share their side of the story.
While their experiences all have common threads, there is one theme that rang out each and every time: If operators want experienced pilots to go north and stay there for any length of time, they’re going to have to pay for it. That translates into a total compensation package that affords pilots a realistic lifestyle and the means to achieve their own personal career goals.
“There has to be a reasonable opportunity and a reasonable incentive to go up there,” said Eric Schletz, an Edmonton-area Class 1 flight instructor who has logged more than 5,000 hours total time at 702 (aerial work), 703 (air taxi), 704 (commuter), and flight training operations. He has filled the roles of chief pilot, operations manager, chief flight instructor, and person responsible for maintenance control.
Today, the 37-year-old chooses to be a flight instructor because of the job’s flexibility.
“I can be at home when my kids are sick,” he said. “I can do community and charity work and sustain relationships because I have a flexible schedule. That’s not the same for pilots working at northern operations.”
The way Schletz sees it, the Canadian aviation industry is going through a painful, but necessary, reset. A number of factors are coming together to create today’s pilot shortage.
“Unfortunately, we’re seeing the consequences of historic actions and opinions,” he said. “You could watch a cavalcade of young pilots go up north and come back. I’ve seen lots of friends go up north, never touch a plane, and work 10 to 12 hours a day. The cliché is being told you will get on a plane after six months of working the ramp, but then it turns out to be a year and still nothing.”
As a flight instructor, Schletz also sees students struggling to afford their pilot training, and he believes the lack of funding is another contributor to the pilot shortage – people simply can’t afford their training anymore.
Lastly, it’s about the total compensation package: “Why would someone work in the Arctic with extreme duty days if they could make the same money here? Or fly older aircraft if they could get on a new 737? People have to be incentivized and make logical decisions.”
He compared being a pilot to being a lawyer. While lawyers see a return on their education relatively promptly, pilots can spend $100,000 on their training only to be stuck on a dock, making poverty-level wages. There’s just no sense in that, he said.
And, while Schletz acknowledged that operators’ costs have risen steeply in recent years, he also pointed out that a pilot’s cost of living has increased, too.
“We have all gone through this. We’re all in this together. We need to come up with reasonable solutions, like access to [pilot training] funding and a reasonable wage.”
Part of any attractive job offer is the schedule, and this is where Schletz feels Canada’s new FDT regulations may actually help operators retain pilots.
“The regulations are fantastic,” he told Skies. “It makes it possible for pilots to operate safely and not be expected to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Flying is a safety-sensitive position. Find another industry where it is safe to work that much. A doctor won’t be doing that non-stop, and if they have to do an extended shift, they’ll be given meals, naps, breaks, and compensated appropriately.”
For his part, Schletz said he chooses to restrict his own schedule, “because the accident rate after 11 hours on duty rapidly increases.”
But in the North, “pilots have an increased workload where they are flying more legs in remote locations with less support.”
Northern realities
David – not his real name – is an 1,800-hour pilot who is now working as a first officer in corporate aviation. Prior to his current job, his first real aviation experience was flying a Pilatus PC-12 in the North, where he was based in Iqaluit on two-week rotations.
He agrees with Schletz that pilots need to earn a living wage to make staying in the North a viable choice.
“The pay where I worked was unrealistic to live on,” recalled David. “I felt I was being taken advantage of, especially during the pandemic when my employer got a bunch of new contracts and expanded their fleet. Housing was provided, so that was a benefit; but all things considered, pilots are the lowest paid people in the Nunavut area. Pilots are the lowest tier, even though we’re the ones who can get people in and out of there.”
David’s annual salary as a new first officer on the PC-12 was $30,000. Before he left the company, he asked for an inflation increase and was boosted to $32,500.
“In the meantime, you had competitors who realized they had a serious problem with staffing and set the industry standard for captain’s pay at $90,000,” recalled David. “There was no change at my operator. Captains at my company were still making $60,000.”
David worked in the North prior to the implementation of Canada’s new FDT regulations, but he feels they have likely improved things for pilots. His typical duty day was 14 to 15 hours, but a first officer’s responsibilities also included towing, fueling, washing, and cleaning the aircraft. That often boosted his total time on the job to 17 hours.
“Physically, I was exhausted. The first two days of the two-week rotations were manageable, but I was constantly finding myself drowsy in flight. I was getting an average of four to six hours of sleep each night; the fatigue was physically and mentally draining.”
At the end of the day, David feels he is a better pilot for his northern experience, but the low pay and gruelling schedule made it unsustainable.
“When I look back at what I did up there – cross-winds and gravel strips, and real hands and feet flying – it was second to none. But after one year, I said, ‘OK – I have 1,000 hours and for the salary I’m making, this is a bit too ridiculous.’”
In answer to the “one size does not fit all” counter-argument to the new FDT regulations, David said he understands where charter operators are coming from because every day is different. While he still thinks 12 hours is a fair duty-day limit, he’s not necessarily against smaller operators having fewer restrictions with some concessions – like shorter duty rotations, for example.
Regardless, he feels changes are underway in the Canadian aviation landscape.
“I think our economy is shifting to be more similar to the U.S. in terms of people being more valued for what they do,” said David. “I think people are realizing that when you have a job, you only do work associated with that job title.”
On the other hand, change isn’t going to happen overnight.
Concluded David: “People want to see conditions change drastically, like in the U.S. If they’re making $40,000, they want to go to $120,000 in one jump. People need to be more patient, though – attitude and expectations need to be a bit more realistic.”
Pursuing a sustainable lifestyle
Pilots like Mitch, a 4,000-hour Vancouver-based cargo pilot, said it’s hard to be patient when the cost of living in Canada’s major centers is so high.
His first flying position in 2016 was as a survey pilot in northern Ontario, before he moved to B.C. to fly a Beech 1900 for a regional airline. A year ago, he took a job with his current employer, flying a Boeing 757 and 767 out of Vancouver.
Mitch said experience is the quality that’s lacking in the Canadian pilot pool right now.
“There are a lot of individuals like myself trying to get out of Canada because of how horrendous the pay scale is here,” he said. “The vast majority of us want to go somewhere where we can get paid well and have a good lifestyle. Many are going through the process now. I have a friend who works for Envoy and he’s at US$140,000 per year as a first officer on the Embraer E175.”
To work in the U.S., Canadian pilots must have a high level of experience and be sponsored by an American employer. It’s not an easy feat, so other Canadian pilots opt to work with recruitment agencies that help them find employment in the Middle East or Asia.
The escalating cost of living is making it impossible to work for the low wages paid by Canadian operators, said Mitch. He has been forced to take a part-time job, in addition to flying, to help pay his bills in Vancouver. The situation is untenable, so he and his fiancée, who is originally from Mexico, are planning to move there permanently. Mitch said he’ll keep his current job, with his employer offering the incentive of regular airline flights back to Vancouver whenever he has a shift.
“I need money now,” said Mitch of his decision to move. “I need to be able to afford to live now. I don’t think the first officer salary has changed much at the big Canadian airlines since the early 2000s. If I make the same salary as someone in my position did 23 years ago, that’s not going to work. The cost of living is so high… interest rates, housing, you name it.”
Aside from pay, pilots are no longer willing to work non-stop while living on the road.
“People like to know they can go home at the end of the night,” explained Mitch. “Not everyone wants to commit their time to two weeks on, two off. It taxes your family time and puts a strain on your family. Post-Covid, people realized they can work closer to home.”
Asked specifically about northern opportunities, Mitch said, “Nobody wants to freeze in -45 C temperatures for $40,000 per year. People don’t put their resumes in for a job if it doesn’t pay what they want. I’d rather get paid well now, when I’m young, so I can have the lifestyle I want.”
He said northern operators could sweeten the deal by offering a commuting policy so pilots can return home regularly, along with staff housing, a congenial work environment, health benefits, and cost of living pay.
“I can almost guarantee that you’d see an uptick of resumes going in there.”
In terms of the new FDT regulations, Mitch said they give crewmembers more time to recover. He operated under the old system in his last job, where he worked up to 14 hours a day, doing 10 to 12 daily flight legs, and working up to 18 days per month.
“The old regs gave operators more flexibility to work pilots to the extreme,” he commented. “Nowadays, there is an advantage to the crewmember to be able to plan their lives around the regulations. I’d like to believe these regs will eventually contribute to pilot retention.”
Mitch said pilots are out there, but they simply want to be paid what they are worth.
“Anybody being offered a good salary and benefits package will stick around long-term,” he predicted. “Just to know that when you do hit retirement, you will be able to live comfortably.”
An experience shortage
According to John, a recently retired airline captain and training pilot, the experience shortage in aviation is real. As a former member of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF), John – who has 25,000 hours total experience – believes the airlines are not geared to fast-track pilots through to the left seat.
“In the military, people are upgraded pretty quickly to captain within two to three years,” he said. “The first minute that candidate is in the cockpit, everything is geared to training them to be captain. Typically, at the airline, you show up, do your job, and go home. The training is great, but on a daily basis, captains are not usually under any obligation to train the first officers.”
However, John said he could practically see the experience level in the cockpit dropping over his last years on the job.
On long haul flights, before he left for prescribed rest, he felt compelled to review emergency procedures and escape routes with the relief pilots. Several years ago, John said he would have left the cockpit without thinking about it.
While the new FDT regulations didn’t affect his airline much because it already had stricter regulations than the norm, John said they are a step in the right direction – but they don’t go far enough.
“They still didn’t bring Canada on par with other countries,” he said. “For example, we would cross the pond to Europe with two pilots. Other carriers wouldn’t even look at it without three pilots.”
He said that when Transport Canada was writing the new regulations, pilots and flight attendants at the major airlines said Canada needed tighter rules like the rest of the world. But at the same time, northern operators said they couldn’t work under those conditions.
“So, the government was caught in the middle,” summarized John.
However, he believes that pilots in the North work hard and will benefit from the new rules.
“I take off out of Toronto in February and I’m deicing, then 15 hours later I land in Asia in a typhoon and torrential rain. But a guy up north is putting up with that six to eight times in a single day! In the meantime, I get hourly updates on space weather and these guys are working twice as hard as me, with a worse duty day and fewer resources. It doesn’t make sense.”
When it comes to enticing pilots to go north, John said paying them more may be the cost of doing business today.
“Safety is expensive,” he mused. “So, whether it’s operating two pilots or three pilots, or four instead of three, or shorter duty days – it costs more and more. And, if the government wants these remote communities to be serviced, there has to be a political will to support the airlines so they don’t operate at a loss, or they have to charge more for their services. There certainly is a tension there between the carrier being commercially viable and the communities needing service.”
Southern attraction
Gerd Mannsperger agrees with John that experience takes time to build, and it’s sorely lacking in the industry right now.
As the owner of Alpine Aviation in Whitehorse, Yukon, Mannsperger is technically an operator – but he’s also a 32-year northern pilot who founded his own company 26 years ago when there were no flying jobs to be had.
He said there has been “phenomenal” upward movement through the industry in recent years.
“There is just nobody out there with any level of experience that has not been vacuumed up,” said Mannsperger. “People are in positions that would have been unheard of five years ago. But it still takes time to build experience.”
The pandemic caused many to leave aviation, he added, whether through early retirement or opposition to vaccination mandates. Some pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers retrained in other occupations to find work.
As a small 703 floatplane operator, Alpine Aviation offers mining and exploration support, northern hunting and fishing excursions, and some 702 aerial work such as wildlife surveys. Today, Mannsperger tries to attract pilots who are looking for fun and enjoyable northern adventures. He employs three full-time pilots and two part-timers, and believes he offers them a fair wage.
“I start guys from a bare commercial licence and I can say that in the first year, they often make significantly more than a new co-pilot with a feeder airline,” he told Skies. “I know there are segments in the industry that have been quite abusive and the pilots’ comments about them are correct. But other segments are completely different. When I came through the ranks, you couldn’t buy a job and people were being abused. I think that is long past us, though.”
Within the last year, Mannsperger said his pilots’ average wage has increased by one-third, and he sees this across the industry.
“We are paying more money for less experience,” he noted. “A less experienced pilot means we have to do more training, so that cost goes up dramatically to maintain the level of safety. Our training is likely triple of what is required by the regulator just to operate – and that’s in addition to all the other rising operational costs.”
In his business, Mannsperger has to be wary about passing those escalating costs along to the customer.
“It’s a balancing act. The pain threshold of what people are willing to pay for our services is what it comes down to,” he said. “When people can’t do those fly-in trips anymore, we’ll have no more revenue coming in. When customers can’t afford us, we will just die.”
Mannsperger believes northern and remote operators will eventually be forced to cut service levels.
“Either we throw unprepared pilots at the job, resulting in incidents and accidents, or we cut down to doing just what we can with the experienced pilots and bring the new pilots along slower,” he said. “You will see a significant decline in service overall, or an increase in incidents and accidents. We cannot just put people into jobs that are beyond their capabilities.”
He said all northern operators can do is try to provide a better work experience, despite the lure of southern Canadian jobs that might be more lucrative – or positions outside the country that might pay several times as much.
“One of the guys I started this company with has been flying out of China and Hong Kong for years now,” said Mannsperger. “When he moved there, he easily tripled his salary.”
The lure of foreign jobs is strong, and all the pilots participating in this story said they can’t blame anyone for job hunting outside Canada.
Flight instructor Eric Schletz said a North Carolina flight school is paying US$73,000 to start as a flight instructor, while a first officer at a U.S. carrier makes more than a 12-year veteran Boeing 787 pilot in Canada.
“People are saying ‘enough is enough,’” said David, the corporate first officer. “American Airlines pays US$590,000 per year to captains, and it only takes five years to get to that. Meanwhile, getting to $300,000 or $400,000 at Air Canada takes 30-plus years. The low wages they are offering make it impossible for some pilots to go there and accept the salary drop, especially if they have to live in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. They simply cannot afford it, especially with a family. But nothing will change as long as applications keep coming in the door.”
Added John, the retired airline pilot: “I’m not sure how they can pay them that much more (in the U.S.), but they do. I was in Hong Kong talking with another crew, and their jaws dropped when they heard what we were getting paid compared to them. People would definitely go to the U.S. if they could. Unfortunately, it’s like a knife fight in a phone booth to get any sort of wage parity between like carriers around the world.”
Conclusion
Pilots are adamant: They need to be paid a living wage that will help them get out from under crippling student debt, rent an apartment or even buy a home, and carve out a comfortable lifestyle. For many, it’s simply a matter of going wherever the money leads – even if that’s out of the country.
The cost of doing business has certainly skyrocketed for northern and remote operators, but pilots point to the rising cost of living as evidence that reasonable solutions are needed for all.
Indeed, working together for the common good may be the only way around the many challenges facing Canadian aviation, particularly for northern and remote operators.
“We have pilots pointing at operators, and operators pointing at pilots,” said Gerd Mannsperger. “That is all old school stuff. We can’t make this industry function on outdated ideologies like that. It will take everyone together to solve these problems, including the regulator.”
Instructor Eric Schletz offered some constructive ideas.
“If northern operators want to keep pilots up north, train people from the local communities,” he said. “We also need an easier financing model that will incentivize student pilots and then a pay scale that allows people to pursue their dreams while providing for a family.
“In the end, it’s a market economy,” he concluded. “If you want someone to live remote, you have to pay them for it. People will make a reasonable choice and pursue the lifestyle they want.”
Hmm. This all sounds very entitled to me. Pilots are paid well compared to the rest of us and yet here they are moaning about earning more than most. Bear me with me whilst I fetch my tiny violin.
Mitch planning on moving to Mexico and commuting FOR FREE with his airline?! Sounds like the “lifestyle” is dreadful. Dear me. SMH
And if I may ask , what do you do for a living ?
GTFO. You go up there and work 13 hours a day 6 days a week doing 8 legs a day in -40. Oh, but you have to spend 60k+ to even get a job. Even when you get hired you probably won’t even touch a plane for a year or more, then when you do your take home pay is 20k to live in love the most expensive places in the world. The fact is pilots do not get paid well until 10 plus years in the industry. Even starting at airlines starting pay is 40k and take-home is around 28k to live in the most expensive city’s in the country. We need change and we need it now.
Are you a pilot Alex? If not you are not qualified to comment!
Commuting to work isn’t restful personal time when it comes to pilot fatigue. Pilots can’t afford to live in the ludicrously expensive cities where they’re based, so they commute. I did a commute like Mitch did for 4 years between coastal BC and Toronto and it took a chunk out of me, I can’t imagine going back to it and being able to perform as safely as I can by living where I work. And I still commute, but it’s to the tune of a 20 minute flight, not a 5 hour beast. My body only knows the stress of the commute, and commuters all have one thing in common – we can’t afford life where our job is. A ‘free’ commute doesn’t put a meal on the table, or a roof over our head, but it does cost us time with our loved ones, or time spent actually resting. If we were paid more, we could be more rested, live closer to work, spend more time with family, live less stressfully. All of which contribute to being safer at work.
Next time you’re flying, look at the crew, and hope your pilots didn’t have to fly 6 hours from Mexico that same morning before embarking on a 12 hour day just so they can afford rent.
As for pay, it is about not having to work for 5 years on a licence worth $100K before hoping to see a paycheque above $60K. Americans figured it out. Europeans as well. Asia and the middle east are also there. So why has Canada failed to do what the rest of the world has done?
So I’m sure if you were in their position as an experienced pilot, you’d gladly say “no” to the head hunters that are offering triple the money for the same job overseas, and you’d keep working for low money? Because otherwise that would be entitled? Then why aren’t you out there doing it, everyone is hiring.
The people in this article are the ones that want to make a change for the better, otherwise they wouldn’t have commented at all, they would’ve just left to work elsewhere, along with the rest of them.
Maybe you don’t think pilots are worth this kind of money, good for you, but the market thinks different and that’s what matters. Besides, three years ago, thousands were sent packing with no warning, so that made many rethink the world loyalty with regards to their career choices.
This isn’t working a job serving coffee dude, if you haven’t walked a mile in a man’s shoes you have no clue what you are talking about.
You pilots better not forget about all the other workers in aviation that make peanuts in Canada as well. I balance your aircrafts with hundreds of passengers on them and make $18 an hour! Peanuts! Don’t forget about us!
Great article
People are simply not entering this career and things need to change or communities will be cut out
We all lose with a pilot shortage.
It is going to take money to fix it
I’ll pardon the average reader for this comment, as it comes from ignorance of the reality:
The highly paid pilot is mostly a romantic myth ever since the late 1980s.
It DOES exist, after:
1- $80,000 – 120,000 CAD in training.
2- working the ramp for 6months to 2 yrs.
3- start flying with a small carrier for 20-30K/yr and working 40-60 hours a week. (and taking a pay cut from when working the ramp, for the privilege).
4- gain enough experience after a few years and join a major carrier.
5- stick with that carrier for 20 years to get onto the bigger jets.
All told: ~100000$ investment, 30 years, being forced to move to another city, renting a second residence, and often a broken marriage from being gone too often.
The industry has already burned through the pilots that would sacrifice everything, for the passion of flying. Now they need more pilots, and most sane people are not willing to deal with all the frustrations and sacrifices demanded by the industry. To attract new people, money and lifestyle need to improve.
The story of Mitch getting a free flight to work was the highlighted exception to how some companies are being forced to adapt to keep their existing quality pilots. Many commuting pilots have to pay for a ticket, and have to rent a hotel or crash pad when away from home, because their company home base is in another city, away from their family, and it costs too much to move the whole family to that new location. And their base will likely change within a couple years, so it’s not worth uprooting everyone.
My advice (after +6000 flight hrs, 14 yrs), become a tradesperson or nurse. Live in the community of your choice, save up some money, and if you think flying is neat, get a private license through a local club and do it as a hobby.
Flying IS fantastic. But the Aviation Industry is extremely frustrating and preys on the passions of pilots, and many give up after a few years and lots of wasted money. Things need to change, and this was the 1st article I’ve read that didn’t do a one-side quoting of an Operator complaining about TC (finally) making things a bit safer (but still behind most of the world).
Thanks Skiesmag,
Bob
I’ve been in this industry for over 5 years now. I still haven’t exceeded 55k in compensation while regularly working 13 hour days. In fact I have averaged 37k per year since entering the profession.
I will start seeing an appreciable increase within the next year. But career progression, will have me take a pay cut if I change employers. All in all it will take over ten years for pay to increase over 100k. And on average I will have made just under 55k/year over that time frame.
I won’t fit your preconceived notion of the well paid pilot before I am well into my 40s. That is provided no global/financial crisis of any kind affecting aviation, and I manage to stay medically fit to fly all these years without interruption which is far from a given.
I’m so tired of people that make comments like Alex…
I finished my flight training years ago, and went to one of those airlines promising a job after 6 months on the ramp. That never happened
What I ended up finding was working for the companies FBO I made double what the pilots made, and more than most pilots I knew at the major airlines. It’s pretty sad when the people working on the ramp for you are getting paid more than the people flying your planes.
To this day, have never got paid to fly, yet still make just as much as I would if I got a job flying day 1 out of school.
Sad how pilots get treated in this country
It’s going to take money to fix this pilot shortage problem
Sad to see communities get cut out due to industry neglect
What about Transport Canada’s ridiculous time lines. My daughter and another student in her flight school have been waiting 6 months for the approval of the medical certificates. I have also read a story about how it took them 7 months to issue a commercial pilots license to someone. For one my daughter wants to and has gotten the experience level and hours to solo but without the medical she’s stuck!
Yup my son experienced the same delays with his medical certificate from TC – took almost a year. During that time he seriously questioned whether it is worth it to pursue a career in aviation. Spending $100K for flying instruction to start at $30K doesn’t make financial sense. Some of his other friends are also re-evaluating this career. But we all know what will happen next. Air operators will claim that they can’t find enough Canadian pilots and will ask the government to fast track foreign trained pilots.
It’s attitudes like Alex Dean’s that will continue to push Canadian pilots overseas. You’re obviously not in the industry and seeing how short staffed we are and also the experience deficit and institutional knowledge that has walked out the door.
I don’t know how you can say they’re paid well… Did you even read the article? Also, pilots should be paid well. They’re away from home all the time, they work a stressful and high performance job where their performance directly affects the safety of hundreds of people. Either pay them what they’re worth or they’ll leave for better pay and young people won’t bother to even get into the industry because there’s easier ways to make more money and be at home.
Sounds like you didn’t read this article well.
Aircraft Maintenance Engineers (AME) are the aircraft mechanics whom look after the industry aircraft. We are experiencing a shortage as well due to the poor pay, long hours. It makes no sense to enter this field ( I say field as we’re not even classed as a trade) as it takes ten years to get to the top of the pay scale, in other less demanding industries it only takes five. AME’S have a huge responsibility to keep aircraft safe and airworthy and they just aren’t being paid near enough to do that.
Paul has a great point; AMEs spend more and take longer to train than a car mechanic, and yet average ⅔rds the pay. And most AMEs have to move to another city to get a apprenticeship, and yet again to get a long term job.
And yet, they are the life line that keep our aircraft safe to fly.
Thanks Paul (and other AMEs)
Bob the Pilot
I’d like to see Skies write a column about this issue as well. I’ve had 1 year licensed AMEs getting full on management and QA jobs because they know they have no future as a AME spinning wrenches. And the fact that companies are willing to bring on people with such low experience for these roles is a true tell of the times.
Most companies are preying on the passion of young people who love aviation and have for decades, and now that the true nature of the shortage is showing up they’ve had to start training kids fresh out of high school on their own dimes, because most of the AMEs with any sense got out of the industry. Our skills make use extremely adaptable, we can transition into almost any trade and have marketable skills (mind you with ZERO credentials because we aren’t Red Seal) and most other trades recognize the value of skilled personnel. Even automotive technicians get paid on par with what AMEs do and don’t have to deal with the responsibility, the stress, night shifts, rotations, poor family life, and hazardous conditions we often develop crippling health issues later for.
The airlines had a tough go due to the Covid crisis and we need to manage our expectations
Top pay at the biggest airline in Canada is more than what doctors make and with seniority you can work less days
The pilot union even saved jobs by taking pay cuts and throwing new hires into the streets. Such an entitled group. Be happy you get to fly planes.
I’d do this job for less!
You sound like an airline CEO who wasn’t able to buy his 3rd yacht. You certainly aren’t a pilot because if you were, you’d already be doing the job “for less.”
I am an AME. It’s funny to hear you all complain about how hard your job is. Everyone in aviation starts out with low pay, apprentices leave school and make less than a Mc.Donalds worker and most time no vacation, long hours, no benefits or pension and once we reach the 10yr mark we are lucky to get 100k a year and we have to live in the same cities as the pilots. Pilots at the high end kill it! 300-400k a year, working less than half the month, give me a break! I’ve worked up north a lot in my 15yr career so far, it sucks but we do what we have too. I am not disagreeing that we are all under valued in this business and that needs to change, Rotary and fixed wing alike. But please spare me the whining of how hard it is to fly a plane that flies its self most of the time. I know up north flying is a little more tricky, I’ve flown across the arctic enough to know.
All that being said, just be thankful TC is looking out to pilots with duty time regs. AME’s have non and I’ve done shifts where I have been on my feet working for 27hr straight and Ive worked 6-7weeks straight with no days off on a regular basis. So, if you are looking for pity look somewhere else.
However, I will say this, operators a lot.of them in the smaller Rotary and fixed wing hide behind the ole federally approved “hourly averaging agreement” which allows operators to not have to pay OT until work hours exceed 2100hr/yr. At which point they have to pay time and a half or send you home with a regular salary, but there is a catch, if you aren’t available you don’t get paid. This is something that was developed for seasonal workers, last I checked I Pull wrenches and pilots Fly all year round, so I don’t see how this agreement applies to aviation on a broad scale. Anyway, it’s a greasy business, operators slit each others throats all the time undercutting their competition and the pilots and AME take the hit. It’s a horrible industry but I love it all the same.
First, Alex appears to be a bit of a buffoon if he believes pilots in this country are living an entitled life. He has his head stuffed well up his arse. His unfounded and uneducated remarks make me believe he is a troll trying to spark comments from us (pilots). If he isn’t, I’m sure he also complains about why his meal doesn’t come with metal silverware either.
That being said, I’ve worked in this industry for a long time and know how hard it is to get into it and sustain a livable lifestyle compared to other professionals. Many pilots are leaving Canada NOW. Many are leaving for the United States right now. Others are heading overseas to escape the crushing weight of taxes and piss-poor salaries provided by employers in this country.
Things need a massive reset in this industry if things are ever going to change.