周日早上去OHare 机场乘中午的飞机到南方一所大学参加一个会议。刚刚进入机场的 driveway ，就看见迎面一个硕大的广告牌，上书 “United Airlines. No. 1 in on time arrivals”。看得我一愣 - 什么时候UAs on time arrivals 变成第一啦？那西南航空什么时候从第一的位置上掉下来了吗？心里正嘀咕呢，却看见大字下方还有一行小字 -- “ of the five largest global carriers in 2009- Ahead of US Airways, Delta, Continental, and American”， 让我不由哑然失笑 -- 这可是 "truth in advertisement" 的 经典注解吧，至少没有睁着眼睛说白话，不过不注意小字的过路人，恐怕就会被它蒙蔽了去啦。
呵呵，我希望我也能说出这样的“豪言壮语”，可惜的是，两周后还要到同一所大学参加另外一个为期三天的semnar ，机票主办方已经定好了 -- 您肯定也猜到了-- 还是UA ，因为飞这个中型城市的航班实在是有限。But maybe the third time is charm, and the same "disaster" wont happen again in June!!
这是典型的美国自信和自夸风格/文化 - 你永远都能找到一个第一名/最好的事情： I am/we are the best of ……。对于联航，我从来都没有好印象。记得多年前从欧洲来美国开会，对美国的第一印象是美国的警察都带枪，第二印象是航班（联航）的服务差，要个耳机还收了五块钱。第一次拖家带口来美国时，坐联航的飞机在上海临起飞时才发现机械故障，坐在机舱内在跑道口等了四个小时，最后返回候机楼改乘别的飞机。最后，在西雅图转机去最终到目的地时，还丢了两个大行李，过了两个星期才找到给我。也曾经说过“只要不是联航，其他航空都行”的极端话。
"Just how much do pilots at major airlines earn these days? FltOps.com, an information source for pilots, recently released a salary survey. On the low end, first-year pilots at US Airways would, theoretically, earn a minimum $21,600 a year. For that, they would work 72 hours a month at the controls of a plane (lots more hours are involved in flight preparations, overnights and sitting around waiting).
US Airways hasn’t been hiring pilots, so there aren’t any first-year pilots. But that’s the starting minimum by contract. Airline pilots typically can earn more with overtime, extra trips, per-diem allowances and bonus pay for international trips.
At the top end of the airline scale, Southwest Airlines has a first-year minimum of $49,572. Southwest typically hires more-experienced pilots than other airlines do, so it can demand thousands of hours in the logbook -– enough to qualify to fly as a captain -– from its applicants.
On average, starting pay at major airlines is $36,283 –- about double where many regional airlines start pilots, but darn low for mid-career professionals who likely take a pay cut from regional airlines to latch on to a major carrier.
And how big is that big payout they hope to get someday? FltOps said on average, captains top out at minimum salaries of $165,278.
The lowest top-scale captain’s salary was $123,480 at JetBlue Airways, and the highest among passenger airlines was again at Southwest: $181,270 a year. Many Southwest pilots pick up more trips than the minimum scheduled -– some fly right up to the federal limit of 1,000 hours of flying a year -– so their actual paychecks are higher.
The only airlines offering higher pay right now: UPS and FedEx. Their captains max out at a minimum of more than $200,000 a year.
At Delta, American, United and Continental, the top minimum for captains is between $156,000 and $167,000 per year.
The obvious lesson: A profitable company, whether UPS, FedEx or Southwest, can pay its workers more."
And here's a salary comparison for the pilots at the major airlines, as well as UPS and FedEx:
http://www.fltops.com/content.asp?ID=57
Looks like the "golden days" during which a pilot at a major airlines can earn up to $300,000 is long gone:).
美国大航空公司的员工的工资恐怕比你说的要高很多吧？我看到的资料，美联航的飞行员（或机长）平均工资至少早十五万以上，这一是因为 ，另外也是各种工会人为地抬高了他们的价格。至于等，收入好像就更高了。这些大航空公司之所以问题多多，和工会过分强大也有直接关系-- 没有哪个其他的行业有这么多不同的工会参与 collective bargaining ，当然抬高了人力资源的成本。当然他们的工作强度也的确很大，很多时候出问题也不见得是他们的问题，而是一些structural and process problems。
