Who Wants To Be An Airline Pilot, Anyway?
Like everyone else soldiering through the second–soon to be third–year of the COVID pandemic, airline pilots are getting fed up with the secondary effects. The Allied Pilots Association vented in an interesting video.
From the Are-You-As-Fed-Up-By-This-Pandemic As-I-Am file, this video came pixeling across my Facebook feed last week. It was produced by the Allied Pilots Association, the pilot union of American Airlines. If whatever segment of the economy you’re working in is back to normal, the airline and travel industry definitely is not.
The video takes a none-too-veiled swipe at American management for failing to rehire pilots as travel demand surges. It does so through the wide-eyed wonder of a new hire being shown the blackened ropes by a gray-haired Captain who explains schedule changes are the new normal and, oh, by the way, make your own hotel reservations.
I know the industry is still in chaotic flux as airlines struggle to match capacity with demand, but I don’t know how true this little scenario rings. If you’re a pilot for any airline, I’d welcome your reaction in the comments. On the one hand, pilots are at least back on the job and getting paid; on the other, they can’t count on the stable schedules that used to make the time away from home predictable. It may be awhile before that normalcy returns, if it ever does. The video story line raises the question of who would even want to work for American under such conditions. I’m not sure how shooing the kids away from the job helps things. Of course, I guess it’s supposed to scare management, right?
On the general aviation side, the pandemic has caused a crush of its own. The used turbine and jet market is getting crushed by demand caused by the marginal business travelers who’ve decided they’re done with terminals, the TSA and masks and will gladly pay more for a direct-to charter ride. A pilot I know who flies a Falcon doesn’t have the scheduling chaos the airline pilots face: He flies every day and has to turn down trips. This may be a kind of permanent change that won’t be dislodged until inflation gets checked and there’s the inevitable economic downturn.
Meanwhile, tension in the cabin hasn’t eased but has grown worse. We reported last week that two flights turned back after a passenger refused to adhere to the mask mandate. I feel the vague stirrings of sympathy for a person who doesn’t want to wear a mask. As I said in a blog a month ago, I don’t either. But if you board an airplane to make a point of it, you deserve the large fine coming your way.
I don’t know what latitude the airlines give Captains in deciding to carry on or divert the flight. I’m glad I don’t have to make the decision, but if I did, I don’t think I’d divert and inconvenience passengers. It’s simply not such an emergent situation, in my view, to require an unscheduled landing. Whoever the knucklehead causing the ruckus is will get the fine anyway. If the flight is diverted, the fine ought to be divvied up among the passengers for the trouble caused by one selfish, self-centered jerk.
Having dispensed with that bile and five or six weeks after my last consideration of this, I think it’s time for CDC to read the room. Masks had a place and, in my view, were demonstrably effective in a time of high prevalence. We’re very close to getting past that now and people are just tired of the mitigations. If I were King, I’d command mask optional for airliner cabins by March 1st.
