"Union agreements and seniority-based schedule assignments lead to reduced safety for passengers, as the least experienced workers are pushed the hardest and get the least amount of rest. " The reason junior officers get paid 16k a year is because there are people willing to do the job for 16k a year. Without the unions airlines could probably get volunteers (much like Greenspun who is certainly not doing it for the…
In the case of Southwest, one would think corporate culture had something to do with it.
Regardless of whether the U.S. is able to maintain its trade barriers, a sustainable long-term structure would be a pilot-owned airline. If the pilots are the owners there need be no conflict concerning distributing profits. Selling the company to the union, or rather, worker-owned companies seem to be the best case solution to the "union problem" - If my employees started unionizing, that'd be my first shot at a sol…
United (UAL) would be an example of that happens when you do that (the result in my experience is resentful cabin crew who treat passengers as if they're doing us a favour by allowing us aboard their personal vehicles).
eh, at least they are taking the financial hit for doing so, right? I mean if you are going to treat me poorly, for me to keep buying tickets either you need a monopoly or I need a discount.
It adds 15 minutes to the trip. It makes no pragmatic sense to shift your crossover point back seven hours in response. But I suppose if you derive some serious negative utility from security inspections that would make sense for your personal case.
15 minutes? I have to arrive up to 2 hours earlier now. The security scan itself doesn't take so long but rather everything leading up to it.
My wife arrives one hour early for domestic flights and has yet to miss one (she travels as part of her work). I even in my anal-retentiveness about flights rarely arrive more than an hour and a half early. So there is a good amount of time you are leaving on the table that you could reclaim. I hope this series of comments will help you waste less time and money driving.
A pilot's job is one of the easiest to replace with a computer. It is already happening in the military. In fact, the only actual role of a pilot today is to take off and land the plane, the rest is auto-pilot. If the unions make it so hard to employ humans, it would only give incentive to further develop auto pilots, and the problem will solve itself.
Pilotless military planes are designed to kill people. I would prefer not to use that as a criteria for creating pilotless passenger-carrying aircraft.
>I can fly anywhere I want with insane convenience. At least you could before 9/11. Pre-9/11 I would have flown anywhere that was more than 3 hours away. Now I would drive up to 10 hours to avoid flying.
At least you could before 9/11. Pre-9/11 I would have flown anywhere that was more than 3 hours away. Now I would drive up to 10 hours to avoid flying. I read this all the time on HN, but I fly relatively frequently I have never had a problem flying post 9/11. Flying out Denver I can get through security in 10-15 minutes tops. The biggest domestic problems I have had have either been delays at the giant airports (ATL…
Exactly my thoughts. I just came back to London from New York (JFK) a couple of weeks ago. The immigration & customs officers, the TSA officers were very quick, polite, nice and helpful. It all went incredibly smoothly. One TSA officer lady even flirted with me lightly (which doesn't happen very often). In general, it was an A+ experience.
Regardless of whether the U.S. is able to maintain its trade barriers, a sustainable long-term structure would be a pilot-owned airline. If the pilots are the owners there need be no conflict concerning distributing profits. Selling the company to the union, or rather, worker-owned companies seem to be the best case solution to the "union problem" - If my employees started unionizing, that'd be my first shot at a sol…
Why don't you just give them back the money you stole from them in the form of profit? I'm sure they'd have plenty of cash to buy your company then.
It adds 15 minutes to the trip. It makes no pragmatic sense to shift your crossover point back seven hours in response. But I suppose if you derive some serious negative utility from security inspections that would make sense for your personal case.
15 minutes? I have to arrive up to 2 hours earlier now. The security scan itself doesn't take so long but rather everything leading up to it.
What all does that involve, and how was it different pre-9/11? You can't pack a bunch of fluids in your carry-on, so you have to get little travel things - that's not worth 7 extra hours.
A competent pilot union negotiator will present the airline with a plan to transfer essentially all expected future profits into the paychecks of pilots
and
...the pilots, having expected to collect 95 percent of the airline's profits, will in fact be entitled to 115 percent...
WTF! Did the pilots think about the poor entrepreneurs and shareholders who own the business?
More reason why labour should be fungible. Some unions really rile me up.
I think it's safe to say that Greenspun isn't working as a junior pilot for the money since not too many people making $18k/year have their own plane, helicopter and Acura NSX.
Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden got his commercial pilots license. You can assume he didn't do it for the money: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Dickinson#Aviation
A competent pilot union negotiator will present the airline with a plan to transfer essentially all expected future profits into the paychecks of pilots and ...the pilots, having expected to collect 95 percent of the airline's profits, will in fact be entitled to 115 percent... WTF! Did the pilots think about the poor entrepreneurs and shareholders who own the business? More reason why labour should be fungible. Some…