Someone had to say it….

I noted with interest the comments of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who safely splash landed a US Airways jet into the Hudson River last month. I don’t know if the Airline Pilots Union put him up to it-but he said some things that truly need to be said:

“I am worried that the airline piloting profession will not be able to continue to attract the best and the brightest,” said Captain Sullenberger, 58. Captain Sullenberger went on to point out that he, like many pilots had been forced to accept some pretty heavy pay cuts over the last few years.

[He] told the House aviation subcommittee that his pay has been cut 40 percent in recent years and his pension has been terminated and replaced with a promise “worth pennies on the dollar” from the federally created Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. These cuts followed a wave of airline bankruptcies after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks compounded by the current recession, he said.

The reduced compensation has placed “pilots and their families in an untenable financial situation,” Sullenberger said. “I do not know a single, professional airline pilot who wants his or her children to follow in their footsteps.”

When I heard that, I thought of the article I had read in New York Magazine, which I purchased when I saw this cover:

The article was basically a comparison of the training that produced military aviators of Sully’s generation and the type of training that goes on for aviators today. One of the key points of the article is that military flying builds a type of aviator that cannot necessarily be replicated in the Flight Safety programs that train commuter pilots-and they also point out that it can both work for good and for ill:

But the truth is, in the years since Sully began flying commercial jets, piloting has become anything but glamorous. Automation has taken much of the actual flying out of the job. The airlines’ business woes have led to longer hours and lower pay. Flying is now governed by enough rules and regulations to fill several encyclopedias. The people attracted to the profession today are different, too. Where the piloting ranks were once made up of former Air Force jocks, many of them combat veterans, they are now filled mainly with civilians for whom flying is less an adventure than a job. “Twenty-five years ago, we were a step below astronauts,” says one veteran pilot. “Now we’re a step above bus drivers. And the bus drivers have a better pension.”

From a passenger’s point of view, that’s mostly a good thing. Each year, hundreds of millions of people fly commercial in the U.S., and fatalities are almost always in the low double digits. In the past two years, there have been absolutely no deaths at all. Changes in the way pilots are recruited and trained are a key reason: In the vast majority of situations, airline-safety experts say, you want the company man, not the cowboy. But then there are the exceptions, the Miracles on the Hudson, the rare moments when it is following the rules, not subverting them, that becomes the riskier course of action. Pilots like Sully who can perform in such circumstances are a dying breed.

Now the article does go on to point out that aircraft are safer than 30 years ago and many great strides, like crew resource management training ( training that focuses on working together as a crew -for the good of the whole flight), have made great improvements in aviation safety. However, at the same time, the cuts in the airline industry have made it much less attractive to the military aviator leaving the service. Unlike my generation, who in my humble opinion, was much more focused on the adventure and the excitement-along with the camaraderie of a primarily male profession-the current breed understands the economics of the business far better than their elders did.

And because of airline changes, and mismanagement that allowed worthless assholes like Glenn Tilton to walk away with 36 Million and a pension worth at least that much -while stiffing United Employees out of their pensions. That has made the airlines no longer attractive monetarily. Especially when one considers what a military pilot with 8 years and one bonus under his belt has made. This happened while service levels went downhill on United Airlines and other American air carriers.

The full testimony can be watched here.

Now the flip side of the story is that airline pilots don’t work 24 days a month in general-probably closer to 16. However, for better or for worse, they work in a profession filled with a mortal responsibility. Screw up bad, and over a 100 innocent people will pay for that mistake. So working 15 days a month and paying them a decent wage is probably a fair trade.

There once was a time I did not think so.  I always used to hate guys who left the Navy early and went to work for the airlines. I hated the fact that NFO’s never had the same opportunity-my dream job is still: pilot for Cathay Pacific ( based in Hong Kong).  However, as I have aged I also realized something else. Many of the guys who left probably did not have much of a future in the Navy. Some did, but a lot did not due to their performance as officers. However, very few of them were what I would call bad pilots. The profession has a tradition of identifying those who cannot perform in the air early and finding other things for them to do. As I used to tell my JO’s, ” If you can perform in the airplane, people will forgive a lot on the ground. However, if you can’t get the job done  airborne-there is little slack left that anyone will cut you.” I also used to tell them that being an officer was 90% of their job. ” If the Navy just wanted you to fly, you would be a warrant officer”. That never set well with some folks-but its the truth.

Some took the advice and did well both as aviators and as officers. Others did not, and went a separate path-but the simple truth is they still had a lot of experience and a contribution to make. The nation as a whole is probably better served when the military produces the majority of the nation’s airline pilots.

Better business guys like Glenn Tilton lost sight of that. And if you look at the demographics of today’s pilot population it should make you nervous.   I still maintain that people will pay for higher levels of service-and if anything, we could do with a transportation infrastructure that was not totally dependent upon the airplane-particularly within the Northeast.

Having a trained cadre of good pilots is one of the benefits of investing in military aviation.  Of course, with the changes that are happening within the military these days-sometimes I wonder about that -but there is still no other place to gather a grunch of hours quickly. In 1984 at the end of my first sea tour I had almost 1400 hours. Those days have come and gone, however.

I submit that airlines can offer both service and timely arrival, even if it means a little more money for a ticket.  What the traveling public must understand is that cheap airfares come with a hidden “fee,” and that fee is the cost of not having the right folks in the right places.

Money is tight to be sure -so I’m not sure what the right answer is.

I’ll close with a story about a great pilot I once flew with.  He left the service right in 2000 and got picked up by a major airline. He got furloughed right after 9-11. The thing he used to say about flying with him was that “you are as safe as in your mother’s arms”.  My ability to climb into my trusty War Hummer rested on that belief-and he never let me down. Even when the deck was pitching in the North Atlantic.

Can US Airways tell me the same thing in 10 years?