The year was 2012. I was flying to Mexico to be with my wife. Next to me on the plane, there was a guy reading the operations manual for an Airbus A320 plane. I asked if he was a pilot. He was. But, he, along with all of his pilot buddies, was forced to retire at 60 — the airline was cutting expenses.
He was getting a one-time gig taking an A320 airplane which belonged to the defunct Mexicana airline and delivering it to an airline in Egypt by flying it there. He said that he was lucky to get one-off gigs like this; a lot of his fellow flying buddies were unable to get even that kind of work.
He was a bitter man — having his job and livelihood taken away from him by corporate America when he still wanted to work and contribute to society left him upset at life and the world.
I just looked it up, and while hard working pilots are being discarded like trash, airline CEOs are getting millions of dollars when they leave, regardless if how good of a job they actually did.
What most people want are good jobs where they contribute to society and earn a good living wage. Politicians who forget this and concentrate on other issues risk losing elections. The phrase “It’s the economy, stupid” mattered in 1992 and matters just as much today.
Comments are closed