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Buffalo crash pilots discussed sickness, low pay

Buffalo crash pilots discussed sickness, low pay (AP)
Political News

AP - A new cockpit voice recorder transcript shows the co-pilot in February's airline crash in upstate New York said she felt ill and would have liked to have skipped the flight.
Source: Yahoo! News: Politics News

pay sickness discussed pilots crash Buffalo

I worked for a regional airline for almost a year. The regionals really do pay extremely low, and overwork the pilots. I think it is horrible that the company would even let someone who lives in Seattle commute to New Jersey to fly. If they know a pilot lives in Seattle, they should schedule that person to fly from the western US somewhere.

I doubt that the company executive discussed how they would have disciplined the pilot if she had refused to fly because she was a little stuffy. If she only made $15,000 the year before, she was probably told something along the lines that every time she failed to show up for a flight, it would reduce her chances for better schedules. After all, there are other pilots just begging for the chance to take her routes.

Having said that, it sounds like the pilots were both at great fault. If they were tired or sick, then they should have skipped the flight, no matter what.

But I will say that if it is true that she only made $15,000 last year, she probably didn't have enough money to stay in a hotel for a single night.