Delta’s pilot force, like a growing list of others before them, are now discovering that their profession is being dismantled by forces far stronger than any union, or by the eighty-plus years of tradition and expectation that those before them had created and defended. Traditional compensation models for pilots evolved to reflect the fundamental understanding that pilots, like doctors, are professionals whose skills with their hands and minds can make the difference between a routine experience and tragedy. They are highly-trained, highly-motivated technicians who often make more life-and-death decisions in one eight hour workday than most people make in a year. Society used to understand this.
These days, however, the professional respect for pilots that has always been taken for granted is being attacked from all quarters, including from the very judge who has been assigned to Delta’s bankruptcy case.
Prudence Carter Beatty, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge in New York who’s hearing the case, added an unwarranted and ignorant attack on professional pilots with her recent courtroom comment about how much money airline pilots make.“You know, what’s really weird,” she said, “is why anybody [agreed] to pay them as much money to begin with. I mean, they get paid an awful lot of money.”
In mid-September, Judge Beatty was quoted as calling pilot’s pay “hideously high.”
She has also been heard to say that the only good thing about pilots is that they have to retire at age 60.
Remember, this is the judge who is tasked with impartially determining if Delta pilots should have to suffer another pay cut, on top of the substantial one they’ve already taken. Delta employees can be forgiven if they think their case is already lost, even before the proceedings have fully gotten underway. This judge, without hearing much evidence, obviously has allowed whatever previous biases and stereotypes she has accumulated in her life to override the safety mechanism on her mouth.
I never thought I’d become casually conversant in U.S. bankruptcy law, but since my company’s recent and highly-visible experiences in Chapter 11, I feel like I know quite a bit about the process and the emotions involved. I know exactly what Delta pilots are now feeling. If you’re one of them, I can only offer my observations and advice.
To my fellow professional pilots: A significant portion of your happiness and fulfillment in this world may have hinged, in the past, on the existence of your airline, your career, and your way of life. It’s my contention that that was an understandable mistake. We all believed – with good reason – that our many years of building flight time, the long pursuit of FAA ratings and experience, the difficult process of actually getting a job with an airline, our endless training, our many nights away from home, our hectic and stressful schedules, the constant scrutiny and checkrides to which we are subjected, and our years of safe and faithful service to our companies and passengers, was enough to warrant a secure paycheck and a comfortable retirement. I have learned, since 9/11, that these assumptions were wrong. It took four difficult years of near-constant stress and worry about my career and my self-identity for me to realize that I must take 100% of the responsibility for my own happiness. Now, I will never have to rely on any company, institution, or employer to provide “life stability” for me.
As it turns out, “Social Security” is not secure. A “Defined Benefit” pension is not defined, and it’s not a benefit any longer. “Guaranteed Health Care” is not guaranteed. Nothing is as it once seemed. You and your loved ones are your only true support system.
This epiphany will not come easy to you. You might have to go through a major bankruptcy or corporate liquidation in order to internalize it. You must adopt the attitudes and attributes of a free-lancer if you want to be truly happy and truly free. You must find whatever it is that makes you truly, deeply happy, and make it your reason to leap out of bed in the morning. You must begin to explore the possibilities for an alternative career or an alternative course for your life.
When you were a kid, you probably felt that you could be anything in the world you wanted to be. The world was wide open. After years of settling into the “groove” of your chosen profession, it’s easy to forget your youthful idealism. Time to get it back. When you re-discover that you’re still completely capable of being any damned thing you want to be, you’ll stop worrying about what’s going to happen to your employer. There are an infinite number of ways to be employed. If you’re like me, and all you ever wanted was to fly, you may not believe that you can do anything else, but believe me, you can, and you can be happy at the same time.
If you’re one of the people at Delta, Northwest, Independence Air, ATA, Aloha Airlines, or other struggling air carrier, and you’re now standing at the edge of a dark career pit, looking down and wondering how deep it is, I want you to know from personal experience that the abyss does have a bottom, and you’ll make it out the other side eventually. Maybe your company will succeed, maybe it will fail. Just don’t make the mistake of equating your company’s struggles with your own.
In the mean time, I wish all Delta pilots good luck as they face a judge who's seemingly bent on adjusting our profession further downward.
