I think of those guilds more as the most effective unions in the world. The reason lawyers, doctors, pilots, etc... are paid so well is because they’ve successfully limited entry into their fields. They’ve all got arduous entry requirements, and you can’t operate without the unions blessing. It’s simple supply and demand after that point.
Senior pilots for the major carriers are reasonably well compensated though not usually at levels that the typical FAANG developer would get out of bed for (likely $100-200K). Many regional pilots earn less than $50K and first officers less.
Partners at big city law firms are obviously very well-compensated. But the glut of lawyers has been something of a story in recent years and employment difficulties/low salaries for graduates of second and third tier schools are the norm.
Neither of these professions are examples of highly constrained supply except to the degree that there are only so many ex-military pilots and Ivy League law review grads.
The quality of life hit is huge being away from home, sitting all the time, working nights, solar radiation, and having to work your way up in seniority in an industry that has a lot of ups and down.
Sure — but I think the original argument — that the pilot's union has artificially kept pay relatively high — is valid. Truck drivers have a very similar job but worse compensation (especially comparing senior workers).
With all due respect to the folks who drive 18-wheelers, flying a passenger aircraft and operating a truck require very different levels of training. Relatively small mistakes in operating an aircraft can have very serious consequences for large numbers of passengers.
Example: crew reacted incorrectly to autopilot problems following pitot tube obstruction by ice on AF 447 and stalled the aircraft, leading to death of all on board. [1]
I don’t think you’ll find a strict correlation between level of training required, and salaries. There’s plenty of highly trained people with low salaries. I’d also be willing to bet that trucking accidents kill more people than airline ones.
Maybe so. But one truck accident kills far fewer people than one airline accident. So each individual pilot has considerably more responsibility than each individual truck driver.
Perhaps, but you could go back and forth on that all day. Look at the list of incidents involving at least 50 deaths on wikipedia[0], comparing aviation and road, there a difference, but it’s not an enormous difference.
My point is that I don’t think there’s a strong correlation between risk to public safety, and remuneration, nor between training and remuneration. There’ll likely be some correlation for both, but you can find huge variations in remuneration across different industries that can’t be explained by those factors.
Training? How long does it take to become a (professional) pilot? I bet it's longer than to get your chauffeur's license... but not so much longer to account for the pay difference.
It occurs to me, though, that vehicle cost might be a factor. How much does a new semi cost? $100,000, maybe? How about a new 737? $80,000,000. Does that influence pay?
Many pilots fly freight — passenger aircraft pilots are a subset of all pilots. And passenger aircraft incidents are exceedingly rare, although I agree individual pilots can have outsized impacts on lives in passenger applications.
