GLAMOUR GONE: THE DECLINE OF THE AIRLINE CAREER

[Blue_Tires]

The once-envied lifestyle of jet setting glamour that airline crew members enjoyed has become merely a job…one of disappointment, heartbreak, and loneliness. Reductions in pay, benefits, retirements, and increases in work days away from home have created careers which will give airlines difficulty recruiting and retaining talented people in the future.

During my career as an airline pilot I've seen the airlines alter their business models from a high-end luxury service, to one of commonplace high-capacity basic transportation. The airlines made that shift without engaging their employees, and as a result, entered into a period of dramatic cost-cutting. With aircraft prices, airport facilities, and even fuel costs fixed for the long term, or changes such as fuel price volatility absorbed as a necessity for keeping the companies aloft, the only place left for airline managements to force cost-cutting measures was the employees, and the industry as a whole engaged and competed in a race to the bottom. Airlines successfully used the out-of-date corporate bankruptcy laws as a strategic business tool, forcing wage cuts, reductions in forces, increased flight time away from home, and the loss of basic promises such as health care and retirement funding upon career employees. The government, airline industry lobbying groups, and the court systems methodically restricted the use of union industrial action to counter the decimation of contracts with employees. In short, airline employees subsidized low fares.

In response to the trimmed-down bare-bones business models, airline traffic flourished and the flying public took to the skies in ever increasing numbers, as it was less expensive to fly to many destinations than drive their automobiles. However, this democratization of airline travel destroyed the very careers that powered the expansion. Pilots and flight attendants spent increasingly more time away from home than ever in the history of aviation. Flight crews and ground support personnel worked longer days, and nights, forced to do more with less. As airline companies ordered incredible aircraft which could fly halfway around the globe without stopping to refuel, they required overworked crews to operate the flights as if there was no difference from a short domestic hop.

http://www.f8mag.com/projects/item/glamour-gone
excellent photos that tell the story at the link...

[marmar]

1. You can read it on the faces of the employees......

....... and in lots of jobs, really. 'My employer treats me like a commodity, so why should I give a damn!?!?'

[HughBeaumont]

4. +10000 for "and in lots of jobs, really".

Corporate America simply does not work for the average Joe and Jane anymore.

It's no wonder we lead the world in anti-depressant consumption.

[Sherman A1]

5. Agreed

It is an example of what is wide spread across all of corporate America

[Blue_Tires]

6. I think somewhere along the way that safe flying became so commonplace and routine

that we lost a lot of appreciation of just how technologically complex a modern airframe is, and the thousands of hours pilots spend sharpening their skills to a fine edge (to say nothing of how many different types of aircraft they become proficient on)...The same phenomenon has been happening with public disinterest in NASA, imo...

For some reason we've lowered "pilot" to the same general professional esteem as "bus driver" or "train conductor"

[marmar]

9. And air travel in general has lost the "special" factor.....

....... On my last flight, there was a twentysomething woman wearing pajama-type pants and those furry ugg boots.

[trof]

2. Too true. I retired from flying (TWA) in 1999.

I was there in the glory days of the 60s and 70s.
What a shame.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. "These employees are exposed to excessive doses of inflight radiation on every long-distance flight,

I'd be really intertested in hearing your views on that topic.
Was overall radiation an issue when your were with TWA?

[CTyankee]

3. I remember the glory days, long ago. My mother worked for Braniff in Dallas and I traveled with

her on her employee passes to Europe and to South America. It was exciting and very nice, if not glamorous (long flights before commercial jets). They had "Silver Service" on the long flight over the Andes, as I recall. Out came the silver tea set and the china cups and saucers. That was very grand.

[SoCalDem]

7. Pilots are now the 21st Century Ralph Cramdens

They drive a big flying bus.

Flight attendants are there to maintain order among the confined passengers so they do not turn on each other.

We were once on an Air Jamaica flight that had free Pina Coladas for all (adults) and a fashion show put on by the stewardesses (they were called that back then)..After that, we were treated to a great inflight lunch before we got to Montego Bay....and as we exited, we all got a nifty straw hat with AJ logo on it...(Had to wait in the hot sun to go thru customs back then )..

Top notch..

Now, the only thing missing in air travel is a cattle prod..

[ThatsMyBarack]

8. I don't need glamour.

I just need my figure skates to get there when I compete!

[SheilaT]

10. The glamour disappeared a long time ago.

I was a ticket agent at DCA (National Airport) from 1969 to 1979. It was hard work even back then, and I often tell people that nothing I have done since then, including childbirth, has been nearly as difficult. The hours were remarkably long. We didn't get to go home until all of the flights had arrived or departed, and all of the passengers had been taken care of. More than once, we on the afternoon shift called up the day shift at 3 am and asked if they'd come in a little early so we could finally go home.

But flights weren't often full, other than at holiday time ( and I learned to hate holidays in that ten years) which meant that when a flight was cancelled, it was reasonably possible to rebook the passengers. Of course, when weather caused a series of cancellations, it was a lot more difficult.

Working the ground as I did, I got to have regular passengers, people who commuted between DC and somewhere every week. That was a very nice aspect of the job. Some of our regulars also looked out for us. I can recall one man, one of our regulars, who one evening when our flights were all delayed, not only told some unhappy passenger to stop yelling at us, but then went down the hall to the candy store and bought us a large box of candy. We had already liked him a lot and after that he was everyone's favorite passenger.

On board the planes it was totally different, as all of you older folks like me, can recall. Meals were served at meal times on any flight longer than an hour. Even in coach. The quality of the food was pretty decent, and sometimes could be quite high. As an airline employee I usually got to fly first class, and the first class service was quite amazing. Especially on a very long flight. Nowadays, you could practically starve to death if you took a series of flights and not one was long enough for a meal. I've even flown first class several times since leaving the industry, and among the things I've noticed is that the first class seats are closer together than they used to be. I actually haven't flown at all in the past four years, since I'm so disgusted with the TSA, and since I was around before the first security procedures and now how ridiculous things are these days.

The TSA aside, blame deregulation for the total collapse of glamour and decent service. Back when it was first suggested, we employees said that it would result in airline travel being taking a Greyhound bus in the air. We could see that there would be an erosion of travel benefits -- the main reason many most of us took the job -- and if pay scales eroded, which took somewhat longer, you'd started getting the quality of employee you were paying for. And that's with all due respect to the employees who are working very hard in a very difficult job. I suppose that for pilots things aren't a lot different, in that flying a plane is flying a plane. But their wages have been cut also, and pilots for the little commuter/feeder lines are making about minimum wage these days. The saying that you get what you pay for is true everywhere.

Another comment about pay. The airline industry was, when I worked there, highly unionized. Even though my employee group was not unionized, we benefited enormously from the unions out there. It kept our pay scales at a pretty decent level, far above what I could have earned at almost any other job with only a high school diploma. If we worked more than eight hours in a day, we got time and a half for the additional time, without having to complete 40 hours in the week. And the travel benefits! They were amazing, and I took full advantage of them for ten years. I often told people that the travel allowed me to live as if I were rich. I used to keep track of what the full price ticket would have been, and what I actually paid. There was usually a trivial service charge, and some of them were outright free. At least one year I used more in airfare than I actually earned.

Nowadays, you could not pay me enough to go back to the job.