Should EMS Receive Discounted Airline Tickets?

Summit said:
Wonder why the airlines dont offer the bereavement fare as an ex post flight rebate with death certificate. No insensitivity at the time, lowers the ease of abuse.
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Agreed. And while it is a sad commentary on today's state of affairs, who from the airline will prove the proof?

I traveled to Ohio last weekend for my Uncle. Here is a copy of his obit...can I have $200 back please? Oh wait, my grandma died yesterday in DC. Here is her obit. Death certs? Why would I have any of those...typically reserved for spouse, child, or parent of deceased...so where do we draw the line?

Who do we include, exclude and do we establish a cap. From a business perspective, too much effort for too little gain.

Humanist in me says sure, everyone is all telling truth and we should help them as it is the right thing to do. Practical businessman says there is zero incentive to do as you have suggested after the fact. I love the idea...but I see it never being possible or desired to be possible.
 
NysEms2117 said:
I haven't gotten on a plane in my "adult" life. as you may have been able to tell lol
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Yes, I think that EMS personnel should receive discounted tickets. The reason is because they work so hard for the general public and the airlines I believe should do something nice for them for their public service.
 
savemachine said:
Yes, I think that EMS personnel should receive discounted tickets. The reason is because they work so hard for the general public and the airlines I believe should do something nice for them for their public service.
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Garbagemen work hard. Lawyers work hard, doctors work hard, cops work hard, I don't recall ever seeing a garbagemen/woman discount.
 
NysEms2117 said:
Garbagemen work hard. Lawyers work hard, doctors work hard, cops work hard, I don't recall ever seeing a garbagemen/woman discount.
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while that is very true, it was my understanding that most of the jobs you listed pay much better than EMS.
 
And while they may get more pay, does it mean they have more disposable income? And if we are going to make this about who deserves it more...then I vote teachers! Arguably, they are the most consistently underfunded group of all, yet are tasked with the job which has the most impact on all generations, every generation.

In general, the topic is stupid. Trying to argue that a private company should yield some of it's profit to other professions simply based on perceived value is ridiculous.
 
A new-hire airline flight attendant makes about $14k-$17k a year (depending on regional/mainline, hours flown). If they can't/won't pay their own employees decent wages, they're not about to go giving "discounts" on their product because another industry "works hard".
 
AtlasFlyer said:
A new-hire airline flight attendant makes about $14k-$17k a year (depending on regional/mainline, hours flown). If they can't/won't pay their own employees decent wages, they're not about to go giving "discounts" on their product because another industry "works hard".
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damn...... I'm surprised anyone would work for 17K a year. I know i couldn't afford to live on that, even ramen might be too high priced... is there a cheaper knock off ramen that new employees are referred to?
 
AtlasFlyer said:
A new-hire airline flight attendant makes about $14k-$17k a year (depending on regional/mainline, hours flown). If they can't/won't pay their own employees decent wages, they're not about to go giving "discounts" on their product because another industry "works hard".
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My fiancé looked into being a flight attendant. The way they pay is so confusing.

Long story short is there's hundreds of hours of uncompensated time per year that you have to work and get paid dirt until you can get a promotion to a supervisory FA roll on the big airlines.


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Handsome Robb said:
My fiancé looked into being a flight attendant. The way they pay is so confusing.

Long story short is there's hundreds of hours of uncompensated time per year that you have to work and get paid dirt until you can get a promotion to a supervisory FA roll on the big airlines.
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I was a FA for 7 years, husband is a pilot. I've been in and around the airline industry for over 20 years now. It IS confusing!

Flight attendants and pilots are paid by the "block hour". Which is the time the plane leaves the gate, til it arrives at the gate. So the whole time the pilots & FAs are doing their preflight checks, boarding, deplaning.. all that.. they're not getting paid.

So someone outside the industry sees the new-hire FA payrate at $17/hr and thinks "Damn that's not bad!". But, it's NOT 40 hours a week. Generally a pilot or FA will be paid for 70-80 hours a month. That's working full-time. Gone from home 2-5 days a week. If you bust your *** and are almost never home and work constantly you can do 100 hours a month. I did that, once. Never again. I thought I was going to die and spent about 5 days at home that month. You do get 'per diem' for every hour you're signed in on a trip, it's about $1.50/hr. It's to pay for meals/incidentals. The company pays for hotel rooms but not for your food. You're not paid by the "duty hour", so you can be "on duty" for 14 hours for the day, but you only had 6 hours block time, so you get paid 6 hours for that day, even though you've been on duty for 14. Yep.

As a very rough estimate, you can take that hourly pay rate, call it "thousands", and that's about what you'll make in a year. That's average, and yes it can be more or less depending on how much you work, but I've found it to be a good rough ballpark estimate. (i.e. as a new hire you'll make about $14k/$17k, with a $14-$17/hour payrate.)
 
Short answer; NO.
This is what's wrong with our society today. Everyone feels entitled to something. You're entitled to your constitutional rights (barely, at that anymore) and your opinion. Why should we get discounts for being EMS? I'm not going to say I turn down discounts if they're offered (had a few meals comped, or meal discounts when buying food on duty) but I don't feel the need to demand discounts. I didn't do that for the 14 years I was in the military, why start now? And tbh, if people knew just how good we have it in the military, those discounts would be gone too. If you decided to join the military or public service for rewards and recognition, you need to reconsider why you're here.
 
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