TPT July 2016

63 / 84

JULY 2016 61
G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E
framag BILLET SAWING
• perfect cutting quality and accuracy
• optimized saw blade life time
• lowest cutting costs
• unique vibration damping due to HYDROPOL® a
specially patented compound material
• unique blade dampening and cooling features
• minimized maintenance expenditures
framag Industrieanlagenbau GmbH
Neukirchner Straße 9
A-4873 Frankenburg
Tel.: +43(0)7683/5040
Fax: +43(0)7683/5040-86
E-Mail:
Mai_Tube&Pipe_125x180_4c.indd 1 22.02.2016 10:22:18
WAITING IN THE WINGS
Making plain her position on this change, Ms Murphy asserted
that it “translates to years of flight instructing or flying on
the often hair-raising fringes of aviation” – aerial pipeline
inspecting, banner towing, corpse transport, and the like –
for meager wages and often in poorly maintained equipment,
before earning accreditation to fly for a regional airline.
Other reasons advanced by Ms Murphy for slippage in the
appeal of a once-glamorous career – “all mirrored sunglasses
and swagger” – include several more years of low pay (about
$26,000); unpredictable schedules and undesirable routes;
and the surrender of nights, weekends and holidays before
“gaining a shot” at employment with a major airline like Delta,
United, Southwest or American. “Even those pilots living the
dream of flying for a mainline carrier say that in reality it’s a
highly automated, button-pushing kind of job with advancement
based on seniority rather than merit,” wrote Ms Murphy.
› Tim Canoll, a Delta pilot and president of the Air Line
Pilots Association, summed up what this means for the
commercial airlines of the United States: “The real problem the
industry is facing is, young people aren’t making the decision
to become an airline pilot.”
› Putting the developing pilot shortage in a time-frame,
Faye Malarkey Black, president of the Regional Airline
Association, said that hiring is not yet a huge problem for the
major carriers because regional carriers serve as their pilot
pipeline. But, she told the Times’s Ms Murphy, “The number
of pilots the majors are going to need in the coming years will
burn through our entire work force unless there’s some sort of
intervention.”
Briefly noted . . .
› The low-cost European airline Norwegian Air Shuttle has
won preliminary approval to expand its no-frills operations
into the United States. The April announcement from the
Transportation Department is a victory for the airline, which
started flights to the US three years ago but whose application
to certify its Irish subsidiary was bitterly opposed by domestic
airlines and labour unions for more than two years.
The issue rapidly became a major test case, pitting proponents
of the open skies agreement between European Union
countries and the US against those worried that Norwegian’s
business model would lower wages and labour standards for
American and European pilots and flight attendants.
As noted by Jad Mouawad in the New York Times (15 April),
the effort by Norwegian to introduce low-fare flights over
lucrative long-haul routes is shaking up the global airline
industry. It flies the latest generation of planes and outsources
some of its flight crews.
Dorothy Fabian, Features Editor (USA)