Some background:
I am an employed, current airline Captain. I have friends at nearly every major airline, and many at the regionals and commuter airlines. I'm even married to an airline pilot... I have friends who are guardsmen, reservists, and active duty military pilots (bless their souls). I have flown too many types of airplanes to list, taught in most of those, and like most people in my position hold a ton of certificates, ratings, type-ratings, and endorsements. I have spent time flying inverted, sideways, vertical, spinning, looping, diving and even hovering for brief moments. But mostly I have spent my time trying not to do the aforementioned maneuvers with more than me and one passenger onboard!
Learning to fly airplanes is very easy to do. I could teach a monkey to fly a plane if I had enough bananas and a big enough stick! In fact, I've had some students that were harder to teach than a monkey. Most were probably easier than the monkey though. The one thing you can't teach (and the most important thing) is good judgement. You either have it or you don't. The pilots who don't have good have good judgement very rarely, and I mean VERY rarely, make it to the pinnacle of aviation. Most with poor judgement either kill themselves, or wash out somewhere along the line. There are many hurdles to jump before an airline (or the military) will let you take a very expensive aircraft out in the weather, in icing conditions, at night, with the potential for all kinds of emergencies, the liability is just too great. And when I say "great" I mean that every flight has the potential to be a $2 billion loss when you count the lawsuits, loss of hull, deaths, and impact to future bookings from the bad press. This is not to say that pilots with good judgement are not susceptible to mistakes, we are. We are after all human. And there are many human factors that can trip you up along the way, which is why we always have two or more pilots onboard. What has reduced the statistics to nearly zero deaths per year is described by two things; the turbine engine, and the advent of crew resource management (challenge and response between the working aircrews).
Now, let me take the time to address some of the concerns with regards to the subjects I've read on this board:
UNIONS: Some pilot groups have them, some don't. The pilot group with a union, in house or not, is no safer than the pilot group who does not. Some might wonder that the pilot who has a union feels like he/she might be in a better position to make a difficult call than the one who doesn't. Not true. All pilots are backed up by the FAA. Don't believe me? If an airline puts pressure on a pilot to take a suspect aircraft (and I can't think of any of the airlines in my past that have, nor any of my friends) the next call by the pilot would be to the FAA. And I can guarantee the airline will back down if they are in the wrong.
AIRCRAFT: Today's air carrier fleet is a combination of many different types of jets, turboprops and piston driven airplanes, the latter of which are few. Initially all come off the assembly line with occasional problems. Rest assured most of the problems are minor and corrected early in to their life spans. In the past there have been design issues that were not observed until it was too late, such as the hydraulic system design in the DC-10. That was corrected after the crash in Souix City, Iowa. Even then the odds of the number two engine coming apart and damaging all three hydraulic systems was incredibly remote, but it happened. All the aircraft flying today are equally susceptible to human error. An Airbus will not save you, and a Boeing will not save you. Neither will a Piper, Beechcraft, Embraer, ATR, Lockheed, McDonnell-Douglass, Canadair, or DeHavilland. That being said, all aircraft are put through the most demanding tests conceivable by their manufacturers. Aircraft are tested to withstand lightning strikes, hail, birds, icing, stress, and reliability of systems. Heck, even the fuel undergoes tests. Literally the aircraft designer/manufacturer's entire business is on the line if things go wrong. In addition, the engine and instrument manufacturer's get the same treatment. The FAA does not let the flying public go traveling on an aircraft that can't pass these rigorous tests. When I travel I feel just as safe on a Embraer as I do on a Boeing (then again I've been a Captain on both).
PILOTS: There are pilots that are flying the public that have 500 hours of flight time, and there are pilots with over 30,000 hours of flight time who fly for air carriers. Any of which can make a mistake, and have. I've flown with world aerobatic champions(2), Nasa shuttle commanders(2), commuter pilots, cargo pilots, Red Bull racers, banner towers, SR-71 pilots, F-4/5/8/9/14/15/16/18/22, C-17/5A/130/141, you name it. I have been their Captain and their First Officer at one point or another. The best pilot I ever flew with was an Air Force trained pilot, conversely the worst was an Air Force trained pilot. We do all have one thing in common: We are trying to get ourselves, and you, safely from point A to point B while earning a wage. And, most of us have a lot of pride in the work we do. Further, no one is more critical of one's self than the person doing the flying. I've seen some amazing aviators and I've seen some that need some tips, young and old, new or not. It seems to me that the best pilot group is the one that is made up of varied flying backgrounds. And all air carriers have pilots from varied backgrounds.
MAINTENANCE: Just like pilots, these folks are highly trained, highly skilled, motivated individuals. They too take a great amount of pride in their work. And like pilots, are tested and retested and trained through the air carrier's programs. The FAA oversees both the pilot and maintenance training and testing programs. Any changes to the training or testing programs are required to be submitted to the FAA where it takes an act of Congress to be approved, unless of course it was changed by the FAA in the first place. Maintenance personnel have the same investment in their job, and company's future, as does the CEO, CFO, Flight Attendant, Dispatcher, Provisioner, or even the pilots. They know that if their work is suspect, the cost to the airline could be as much as $2 billion. I have never met a mechanic that has not been on par, or better. I kinda like these guys, I break it and they fix it. It's a great symbiotic relationship.
HOURLY RESTRICTIONS: The FAA requires that no airline pilot be scheduled beyond certain restrictions. They are, and the key word here is "scheduled", 8 hours in any twenty-four hour period, 30 hours in seven days, 100 hours per month, or 1000 hours per year. The FAA makes these restrictions so that we avoid getting fatigued by the job. Most airlines have a fatigue policy that states if you feel fatigued, you get to go home (or to the hotel) and get some rest with no repercussions. This is a great policy, after all who would want, or need to take that risk? There are times when you might exceed the aforementioned restrictions. But it doesn't happen very often and there have to be some extenuating circumstances. Same thing goes if you are sick. Go home, get better, maybe talk about it later, maybe not.
EGPWS: For those who are worried that their flight crew will fly them into a mountain, radio tower, or some other immovable structure, there are advances that make this darn near impossible these days. A great tool we have to use is the Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System. This system is a GPS map of the earth that is displayed in our cockpit as red, yellow, and green pixels (usually on our primary navigation display). This system is both forward looking and vertical looking. The color represents the threat to the aircraft based on the aircraft's altitude at that particular time. If we get too close to high terrain, or rising terrain the aircraft will tell us all about it. And it's LOUD, and there's no volume control to turn it down. CFIT (Controlled Flight Into Terrain) is extremely rare since the advent of the EGPWS.
TCAS: Ever wonder why airplanes don't run into each other more often while airborne? Another safety system we use is the Traffic Collision Avoidance System. This system displays aircraft symbols, on our instruments, who may be flying in our vicinity. The symbols change color and shape as we get closer to them as well as displays their altitude or relative altitude to us. This system will also provide us with vertical escape maneuvers (both visually and aurally) in the event there is a potential loss of separation between the two aircraft. Works good, lasts long time.
WX RADAR: Our onboard weather radar detection and display systems really help us out. We can use this system, at varying angles and distances, to detect and display rain or thunderstorms. Our moving map display depicts our course, and the radar displays the weather on the map. It's pretty simple and just like the EGPWS, stay away from the red stuff. The system also has a secondary function that is very helpful. The system can detect and annunciate to us wind shear conditions. Wind shear is simply wind moving at different directions and at different velocities (wind shear can be detrimental to the performance of the aircraft). It can tell us where the wind shear is, or how severe it might be. It can even tells us about the wind shear while we are on the ground, so we don't take off into it. I'd like to shake the hand of the person who invented this system!
QRH: Air carriers have in their cockpits a Quick Reference Handbook. This handbook helps us to remedy almost any problem we might have with the systems of the aircraft. The book we use is like a flowchart. If this happened, then do this. If it was your fault, blame it on the Co-Pilot. You get the idea.
DISPATCH: This is the group who plans our flights. These folks are normally located at the air carrier's operations center. They work round the clock, in shifts, and are always on duty as long as one of the air carrier's airplanes is in flight. They file our flight plans, put our weather information together for us, estimate our payload, calculate or flying time, watch us and warn us of any threats to our flight, be it weather or delays or whatever. They can advise us of braking conditions, fog, turbulence, thunderstorms or practically anything that might be of interest to us. While airborne we can transmit to them over the radio, or by way of ACARS (think texting). These folks help the pilots to no end.
I hope some of this makes sense to and helps the travelers who are worried about flying. We have a great many tools to our disposal, and really well trained folks that look out for us, and us for them all the time. And remember, Southwest Airlines loves you and your money! Come see us.
