It appears that AOPA has more than one mission, if you look at the about us page it states that AOPA's mission is "To ensure that the sky remains within reach of everyone who dreams of becoming a pilot." AOPA also claims that their mission to be: "We protect your freedom to fly by...
- advocating on behalf of our members,
- educating pilots, non-pilots, and policy makers alike,
- supporting activities that ensure the long-term health of General Aviation,
- fighting to keep General Aviation accesible to all, and
AOPA offers all sorts of benefits to its members such as discounts, insurance, legal support, and they even do a giveaway drawing every year where someone wins a Cessna 172. ALPA's mission is "To promote and champion all aspects of aviation safety throughout all segments of the aviation community;" it goes on for a while so instead of typing the whole mission out, I will attach the link at the bottom. ALPA is better known as the largest airline unions in the world. Advocating for airline pilots to ensure fair treatment as well as contract negotiations.
- securing sufficient resources to ensure our success.
It is important to me to belong to these two organizations for all of the benefits that they provide, if nothing else the advocacy that these organizations offer will be an important aspect in the career of an airline pilot, staying current in the industry with the latest information that they provide as well as the legal information as well as insurance if I ever decide to purchase my own airplane.
References:
https://www.aopa.org/about/mission-vision-and-values
http://www.alpa.org/en/about-alpa/what-we-do
I did not know that AOPA does drawings to give away a Cessna 172. I think that is a good way to attract future members into their organization, especially if those members plan to own their own aircraft. If they are are lucky enough, perhaps they will win one.
ReplyDeleteEthan,
ReplyDeleteI agree that AOPA is an important organization to be a member of, it's easy to forget how much work they do for the GA community and how many services they have available to pilots until to need them. As an organization that is kept alive by donations and member fees, I think that all pilots should maintain an active membership.
I don't have plans to fly as an Airline pilot so I didn't look into ALPA. I found the information about ALPA being know as the world's largest airline union interesting.
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