Frankfurt airport BULLSHIT or why I hate to travel

[mhendo]

@fatnugly

As long as the flying publc demands the lowest possible price and the airline CEO’s get $10 million a year and pilots get their $500,000 a year there ain’t much left for the ground staff.

I’m not disputing your point about low-paid ground staff, but is the typical airline pilot really on half a million dollars a year?

It could be true–i admit to not knowing much about the airline industry–but if it is then it’s higher than i expected.

[pilot141]

@fatnugly

As long as the flying publc demands the lowest possible price and the airline CEO’s get $10 million a year and pilots get their $500,000 a year there ain’t much left for the ground staff. In the US ground staff are started at $10.00 per hour given minimal training and are expected to produce.

Not disputing your ground staff numbers, but the pilot numbers are way out of whack. A widebody Captain at the most profitable airlines (FedEx or UPS) comes in at half of your number - around $250K. A Southwest Captain can make $230K if he really works his butt off. The legacies - AA, UAL, DAL are all under $200K. And these are the highest-paying jobs, held by at most 25% of the pilots, but more likely around 10%. (Other than SWA, where it is closer to 45%). The First Officers make anywhere from 50-70% of those rates, and often much less.

Again - I can’t speak to the ground workers pay.

[Uzi]

@fatnugly

They are little people in little jobs with a tiny bit of power and for that brief moment you are under their thumb. There is nothing you can do to make the experience better.

Little people? The gorilla telling me to rescan my bag was anything but little. He didn’t look like he was missing any meals between sets at the gym.

Yeah, it is probably a shitty job, but if you choose to make it shittier by inflicting your pain upon innocent passengers then you shouldn’t be in that job. The attitude that the people walking through those scanners are the enemy rather than the customer is what really pisses me off. Security should be helping me, the passenger/customer, have a safe trip, not annoy me so much that I prefer to stay home.
Hey, I am prepared before I go through the scanner. My watch, wallet, and everything else that could set off the sensor is in my one small carryon bag which is all that I take (I don’t check things if I can avoid it. I have about a 30-40% lost/delayed rate with checked bags over 7 years of overseas travel). I don’t wear any shoes with metal plates in them. I don’t have metal nipple rings, mother’s milk in a bottle, or a plate in my head. I drop my bag down on the conveyor belt and walk through the scanner without it hardly ever going off. I pick up my bag and carry on. Easy. I smile at people when they look at me directly, otherwise I am entirely neutral in my demeanor. I am not a trouble passenger.
What I can’t stand, and increasingly won’t without voicing some objection, is security impeding me when it is unnecessary. Honestly, it is probably getting close to the time where I should look to work back home and leave the travel for vacations. And if enough people do the same thing then ol’ Magilla there can go back to pumping iron full time and not worry about being paid low wages (assuming he is) as a security guard or whatever the hell they are called.

To mcott: We did have the option to go through LHR at one time, but the cost differential is not insignificant, so we must have a valid reason for doing so. Me standing in an extra security line won’t cut it. The same cost issue arises if we attempt to switch to different carriers. Volume purchasing gets us better deals. Having everyone mix and match eliminates that benefit.