Flying Cheap

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NorthAmericanguy
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Joined: October 31st, 2010, 8:16 pm

Flying Cheap

Post by NorthAmericanguy »

Since this forum is all about travel, I was doing some research on airline pilots and stumbled across at video called Flying Cheap. Wow, I had no ideal that starting out airline pilots make ONLY 17k a year and often have to sleep 10 guys to a room because they can't afford to rent their own place.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1412744270/




I then went on a airline pilot forum to research more and came across some interesting replies:

"Bucking Bar, you're spot on. I was overseas the past 8 years serving our country, and in contrast to the insidious change most other Americans saw, I came back to a culture shock: It seems most Americans have an Ipod, Iphone, and Ipad and are constantly glued to it: facebooking, tweeting or texting all the time. They don't care and don't want to pay attention to what's going on around them. People are so much more selfish and unconcerned with civic affairs or what's really going on in the world than they were even 10 years ago.

Many great empires including the Roman Empire weren't crushed by invaders, but rather rotted from the inside out. Rome's corrupt politicians and crippling bureacracy caused it to implode. America needs to wake up and citizens need to take responsibility for the general state of the country. People need to demand that their elected representatives act in our interests. Oh, wait, I forgot, they're too busy tweeting young girls and sending pictures of their junk over the internet."




"This is the sort of abuse that would have had the US populate from any other time taking to the streets with pitchforks.

Today, there are too many distractions. More Americans will watch Ryan Seacrest talk about whatever useless thing the Kardashians did last night than will read articles like these. "





http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major ... hreat.html
dreamer82
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Post by dreamer82 »

I feel bad for those pilots. That commuter plane that crashed in Buffalo, NY a couple years ago had two pilots that were making about 20K per year.

There are pilots that live in makeshift campers at LAX.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =106970003

A good link for news http://www.informationclearinghouse.info
NorthAmericanguy
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Post by NorthAmericanguy »

Wow^ That is just unbelievable.
manly5000
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Post by manly5000 »

Yeah, I used to be an airline pilot. At the regional level pay starts that low and only goes up to around 30k or so per year until you upgrade to Captain, then it goes up to 50k plus. When pilots are laid off and there's no movement a guy can stay at that sh!t wage for years. The problem is so many young guys have SJS or "shiny jet syndrome" and want to rush to fly some nice equipment as fast as possible, even if it means they get paid a wage below the poverty level to do it. And believe you me airline management uses this to their advantage.

The TSA pedophile oggling your nudie pics and molesting your kids at the checkpoint is making more money than the pilot flying your plane. Ain't America great?
NorthAmericanguy
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Post by NorthAmericanguy »

manly5000 wrote: The problem is so many young guys have SJS or "shiny jet syndrome" and want to rush to fly some nice equipment as fast as possible, even if it means they get paid a wage below the poverty level to do it. And believe you me airline management uses this to their advantage.
?
I can totally understand that.
momopi
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Location: Orange County, California

Post by momopi »

I fly a LOT for work. This week I did LAX -> Winnipeg -> Chicago -> Akron Ohio -> Chicago -> LAX. Next week I'll be doing LAX -> Phoenix AZ -> Omaha Nebraska -> Atlanta GA -> Virginia -> Atlanta GA -> LAX. I think after that I'll be flying to Utah ad Colorado.

In terms of service level, domestic flights & airlines are very much inferior to international airlines. South West is one of the better ones, Delta is kinda OK, but US Airways and United Airlines suck beyond belief.

On Wen, United Airlines had cancelled several flights at Chicago airport. The pilot cited mechanical issues, which I understand and appreciate his caution. As a passenger, it's in my best interest that the pilot doesn't have a cavalier attitude with safety. However, how UA handled it was completely unacceptable. They had a whole lot of us line up at one understaffed customer service counter @ O'Hara Chicago, and I waited 3+ hours in line to get up to the counter. While I was in line, I observed frustrated customers taking it out at UA customer reps behind the counter, and a bunch of us in the back decided to load Monty Python's "always look on the bright side of life" on our smartphone and started a sing-along to defuse the tension. Unfortunately that didn't make the passenger with 3 kids trying to get his luggage happier, because UA refused to give him his checked-in luggage and he was left with 3 kids and no change of cloths for them. >_<

By the time that I made it to the counter, I told them that it'd have been better if they used the post office system of number-tickets, and just handed everyone a numbered ticket and a meal voucher. It'd at least have scattered the people toward the restaurants and made it easier on them. The customer rep suggested that I write a letter to the company with the suggestion. I had to rebook 2 flights because of the delay and she tried to raise the supervisor, who dodged the summons like deadly poison. He knew what was up and didn't want to have his head bitten off by the angry passengers, so he just made himself scarce. LoL. So the rep rebooked my 2 flights and gave me a hotel voucher.

Lo and behold, when I arrived at the hotel via shuttle, I found that it had already been overbooked. So a bunch of us had to wait for the next shuttle (loaded with more passengers intending to stay there), and all of us squeezed in for the trip back to the airport. I tried to call UA to let them know that we were coming (and please verify hotel has rooms before sending us), and I reached customer service in the Philippines, where a supervisor told me that they had no means of reaching the UA desk at Chicago airport. By the time that we arrived, it was past 10pm and only 1 supervisor was at the counter trying to rebook everyone's hotel. He sent us to another hotel in the suburbs, but no shuttle was avail, so he gave me some UA taxi vouchers. But the taxi drivers avoided the airline vouchers like the plague, I had to convince one fellow by giving him $50 worth of taxi vouchers plus $20 cash for the ride. To add insult, next day when I called for a limo pickup at the hotel (which turned out to be a spa resort), the driver asked for only $23 for the ride.

I was able to secure a flight to Ohio the next day, and I asked several times to confirm that my luggage would be on the plane, and was told yes. Lo and behold, the plane arrived late and, in their haste, they left all the rebooking customer's luggage behind in Chicago. When I arrived in Akron, UA's counter was already closed and I had to spend 45 mins to call and find out where my luggage was and get it routed to Ohio on the next flight. Next day, when I went to retrieve my luggage, I was told that nobody would be at the UA counter in Akron until 4:30pm, and nobody else at the airport could assist me in getting my luggage. So I drove to my client's office in Mt. Hope Ohio empty handed, getting stuck behind a traffic jam consisting of 2 Amish horse-drawn buggies. Thank goodness for satellite radio and Amish cooking. Did not know that the Amish are now allowed to drive and fly on airplanes for work. At the plant, I found bearded Amish men driving forklifts everywhere.

When I finally got my luggage that evening (on my way out), I found that the luggage had been rough handled. The handle on top was damaged, the pull out handle was cracked, and when I opened it, I found plastic splinters everywhere inside. I donno how hard they hit the thing, but they actually cracked the reinforced sides. Wow. Ah well, time for a new Samsonite from Costco.

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nishitha
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Joined: July 27th, 2018, 2:49 am

Re: Flying Cheap

Post by nishitha »

You have raised the topic regarding flying cheap. I have done some research on travel agency which offers cheap flights. I found Indian Eagle is one of the best travel agency where you get flights at lower prices.
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