At ECS, we’ve spent years working with professionals who can add immense value to your case. To help you get an idea of the breadth of industries where we can help you find an expert, we’re going to let them show you exactly how much depth they can bring to your case in their own words.
The following is a guest blog post written by Diane Damos, PhD. Dr. Damos is President of Damos Aviation Services, Inc., a company that specializes in pilot screening and hiring. Because of their 20+ years of experience analyzing the detailed work of pilots, Damos Aviation has developed a life-time earnings model for pilots, which may be used to estimate life-time income potential for pilots, should the need arise. Other industries may want to consider the shortcomings of the Labor Statistics data and think about how this could potentially affect other cases dealing with life-time earnings potential.
Employment litigation involving professional pilots who can no longer fly often requires a life-time earnings estimate. Determining the life-time earnings for a professional pilot is far more complex than for many other professions because of large differences in the pay and benefits among different types of professional flying. To obtain an estimate, the analyst first must determine the pilot’s ultimate employment goal and then identify the most likely career path leading to that goal. Although the goal of most professional pilots is to be hired by a major US airline, not all professional pilots obtain this type of employment. The analyst, therefore, must also determine if the pilot was likely to be hired by a major airline.
A pilot’s life-time earnings are affected not only by the pilot’s ultimate type of employment and the career path to that type of employment but also by the time spent at each stage of the career path and the time to upgrade from co-pilot to captain at each stage of the pilot’s career. The types of aircraft (jet versus piston) available within a company may also affect the pilot’s lifetime earnings.
Relying on the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics data to determine a professional pilot’s lifetime income can be misleading for two reasons. First, the data may be out of date. The career paths, experience required to upgrade, and hourly pay rates are changing very rapidly at both regional and major airlines. Signing bonuses, which were very rare a few years ago, are now commonplace. Other benefits, such as subsidized training costs, are becoming more common. The Bureau of Labor Statistics data may not reflect these changes in pay and benefits.
Second, the Bureau of Labor Statistics data lump (for example) all airline pilots together. As noted earlier, the pay and benefits for pilots employed by regional carriers are very different from those employed by major US airlines. Salary and benefits information based on a combination of data from regional and major airlines as well as from other types of professional flying is often very misleading.
Damos Aviation Services addresses the shortcomings of the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics data by continually surveying regional and major US airlines to obtain the most up-to-date information on pay and benefits on an airline-by-airline basis. It also periodically collects information on career paths and the experience required to upgrade from co-pilot to captain for various airlines. This information is used to provide more accurate estimates of life-time earnings for professional pilots.
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Damos and Damos Aviation Services, Inc., you can visit the company website at www.DamosAviation.com or call 847.855.9582.