I don’t believe this ....the source is their union.
The WSJ usually researches things like this before they go to print. I trust the WSJ.
PEOPLE AREN’T FLYING! You can thank the TSA. I used to fly 3-4 times a year. Cross country flights were $99. Gasoline costs twice as much under the Great One. Business? Try videoconferencing. That one I’m ok with. Gov’ment is the turd in the punch bowl.
Nothing as low as mentioned in the article but some pretty low numbers for some of the regionals.
https://www.aviationinterviews.com/pilot/airlinepayrates.html
As I am a aviation consultant, believe it. The qualified part is you need a
minimum 1500 hours of flying timer to fly an a scheduled commercial airliner as of Jan. 1. Before you could fly the right seat for as little as 250 hours and build your time from there.
This was a governmental knee jerk reaction to the Continental crash in 2009 at Buffalo.
It is true. Starting salaries are abysmal.
Union or not you should believe this. Commuter airline pilots will often band together to share an apartment. I know a guy whose son shared an apartment with 5 other pilots to make ends meet. Why do they do it? Because they want to fly or set on a course they didn’t understand and can’t easily get off of.
Flying for the larger carriers is not much better for starting right seaters. The work is unreliable, the pay terms and time keeping requirements are insane. It is pretty much just an hourly job. One rate for each of flying, standby, in the cockpit waiting to take off, flight preparation and so forth. The pilots didn’t do themselves any favors decades ago when they set up the union.
Being an airline pilot is becoming a job of last resort for a lot of military pilots coming out. The job pretty much stinks these days.
Old guys with seniority do OK. The system was designed around them and seniority. Every body else is pretty much just getting by.