Unequal pay

A global perspective on pilot pay rates

The sometimes bitter dispute between the Australian and International Pilots Association on behalf of its long-haul pilots and Qantas for a salary package commiserate with their obvious skills and working life demands is just the tip of a much larger problem for professionals in the embattled airline industry.

Forces arrayed against the pilots and others such as engineers are globalisation, deregulation and the seemingly endless drive to the bottom by LCCs trying to out-do each other in removing any semblance of humanity on an aircraft, right down to window shades.