Airline-Pilot Shortage Arrives Ahead of Schedule

RotorAndWing said:
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what was the dream you failed to follow up on ? Surely it's not sitting in front of a metal tube pushing buttons
 
It sounds like everyone here got the career they wanted so good for all of you.
 
I am going to step on my tongue, I just know it, but - back when I started flying, which is more years than I care to admit, the buzz around aviation was that getting on with an airline, working your way up to captain and getting the long haul routes meant making an astronomical amount of money for the times.
Did deregulation ruin all that?
Was it the escalation of fuel prices?
Was it lawyers and torts?
What destroyed that whole thing?
When I was young and all any of my peer group could afford to fly were ultralights, and seem that should have never been flown, some were fabulous but a lot were just shoddy, all the talk was about Pan Am paying long haul captains as much as $105,000 and it seemed like millions.
 
JHW said:
what was the dream you failed to follow up on ? Surely it's not sitting in front of a metal tube pushing buttons
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I don't mind sitting up front pushing buttons on a plane that takes me around the world... I even occasionally fly the thing.. :eek:

and having 20-30 days a month at home being with wife and my children as they grow up while making fairly good bank doing it. I've worked 9 days this year so far, six nights gone from home. Every other day I was home with the family. It's hard to be beat that.


Knock on wood, it's been a good ride so far. Sure, anything can happen, but that's true in almost any career/profession. I'll be the first person to say not everyone that picks up a ball glove is going to play for the Yankees, but one sure way to never make it is to never try.
 
Art VanDelay said:
Then why are some regionals offering $5000 dollar signing bonuses if there is a plethora of suitable applicants ?
Are you aware that also packaged with the 1500 hour rule is the caveat that in order to upgrade to Captain a regional F/O has to have 1000hrs of part 121 time ? What effect do you suppose that would have on things.

I'm glad you're happy with your earthbound "safe" duties - that would never work for me. I look forward to going to places I only read about as boy in magazines all as part of my job.
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Apparently they are not offering a job that anyone wants to do at a price that they are willing to accept to do it. A $5K bonus isn't squat. By the time taxes are taken out, you have about $3,500, or another $300 a month for the first year on top of the $1,700 or $1,800 or whatever, that they pay. The companies offer the bonuses because they hope to use it as a lure that is much cheaper than raising pay which then they would have to give to the ones who are already working there.

There may be a real shortage in the future, but there are only spot shortages now, and they mainly seem to affect EAS carriers flying Beech 1900's. The fallout will be that perhaps these carriers go away. They can't generate enough revenue to hire the skill level necessary to fly the planes. But since these flights are mostly on the taxpayer, I am not sure that they should not be allowed to go out of business.

As for earthbound, I have flown my airplane back and forth across the country a couple of times this year. As for safe, it is safe. I fly it and I don't have to go if I don't want to. I already did all that stuff. I had my excitement shooting an ILS to mins with an aircraft so badly loaded with ice it was land or die. It was a gas in my youth, but like all kids, I was immortal. Now I am quite happy visiting clients in my slow and dependable ole' Twin Comanche. I enjoy the scenery, enjoy shooting the occasional approach and thinking that the old girl has still got it. I don't have to take six month checkrides or have to learn new computers to program. When I fly, I fly with my own two hands and one old brain of the organic type. When the winds are howling over the Rockies, I tuck back in and enjoy wherever I am.
 
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JHW said:
what was the dream you failed to follow up on ? Surely it's not sitting in front of a metal tube pushing buttons
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I've had a wonderful career as a professional pilot and still enjoying it.


JHW said:
Kids at airports ask me how they can get their "big break" to to fly for a "living", I just walk away. Some dreams deserve to be crushed but there is no dissuading someone with so many stars in their eyes.
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Can't see any kids looking up to you for advise since it's obvious you failed miserably at a professional pilot career.

JHW said:
I have been involved in 2 fatal aircraft incidents. In one of them I shared a substantial amount of the fault.
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Everskyward said:
It sounds like everyone here got the career they wanted so good for all of you.
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I wanted to be an astronomer. Gave up on that dream, but still, sometimes think about how it might have happened if I knew then what I know now. Nevertheless, I have lived a good and fulfilling life, so I guess that is what the dream job really is.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Well, how about this, then. There is a shortage of pilots willing to work under the current pay/conditions. Still equates to a shortage. But one that may be able to be solved if the pay/conditions improve.
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They won't. Demand is soft for the product at higher price points. Case in point, Great Lakes lowered their number of routes this week.

Why? The customers aren't there in those cities in sufficient quantity to pay for the flights.

You have to have raw demand for the product itself enough for prices to go up, to pay staff better.

All it'll take to kill a few more regionals is another international incident that adds $1/gal to fuel prices. The industry runs on fuel. The customers also are already mostly in debt to their eyeballs and not willing to pay to fly.

It's all about the middle class demand. Arguing whether it's pilot pay or the 1500 hour rule or TSA stupidity is window dressing, if the passengers don't buy tickets.
 
Thank god people aren't buying plane tickets, another horrific pilot shortage avoided.:lol:
 
Kristin said:
Apparently they are not offering a job that anyone wants to do at a price that they are willing to accept to do it. A $5K bonus isn't squat. By the time taxes are taken out, you have about $3,500, or another $300 a month for the first year on top of the $1,700 or $1,800 or whatever, that they pay. The companies offer the bonuses because they hope to use it as a lure that is much cheaper than raising pay which then they would have to give to the ones who are already working there.

There may be a real shortage in the future, but there are only spot shortages now, and they mainly seem to affect EAS carriers flying Beech 1900's. The fallout will be that perhaps these carriers go away. They can't generate enough revenue to hire the skill level necessary to fly the planes. But since these flights are mostly on the taxpayer, I am not sure that they should not be allowed to go out of business.

As for earthbound, I have flown my airplane back and forth across the country a couple of times this year. As for safe, it is safe. I fly it and I don't have to go if I don't want to. I already did all that stuff. I had my excitement shooting an ILS to mins with an aircraft so badly loaded with ice it was land or die. It was a gas in my youth, but like all kids, I was immortal. Now I am quite happy visiting clients in my slow and dependable ole' Twin Comanche. I enjoy the scenery, enjoy shooting the occasional approach and thinking that the old girl has still got it. I don't have to take six month checkrides or have to learn new computers to program. When I fly, I fly with my own two hands and one old brain of the organic type. When the winds are howling over the Rockies, I tuck back in and enjoy wherever I am.
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5000 or 3500 dollars may not sound like much to a "Big-Shot" San Francisco lawyer but to a CFI in Nebraska it makes a difference. The mere fact that they are having to do this in an industry were dumbsh*ts were once PAYING to work there kind of speaks volumes to me but I guess it takes a little more for some people to be able to see things.

Let's take a look at the very bottom part of the pyramid. Are student pilot starts trending upward or downward ? Let's look also at the top of the pyramid - are major airline retirements increasing or decreasing ? Hmmmm, what could we deduce from this very simple observation ?

BTW, When the winds are howling over the Rockies I just climb to 410 - end of problem.
 
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denverpilot said:
They won't. Demand is soft for the product at higher price points. Case in point, Great Lakes lowered their number of routes this week.

Why? The customers aren't there in those cities in sufficient quantity to pay for the flights.

You have to have raw demand for the product itself enough for prices to go up, to pay staff better.

All it'll take to kill a few more regionals is another international incident that adds $1/gal to fuel prices. The industry runs on fuel. The customers also are already mostly in debt to their eyeballs and not willing to pay to fly.

It's all about the middle class demand. Arguing whether it's pilot pay or the 1500 hour rule or TSA stupidity is window dressing, if the passengers don't buy tickets.
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Most of the cities Great Lakes serves are part of Essential Air Service routes. I've always wondered just how essential some of this air service is. Here in Georgia the two EAS cities are Athens and Macon, both of which are about 80 expressway miles from ATL. I've also wondered about who the passengers on these flights were, if they were business travelers or individuals traveling for personal reasons. Considering how expensive those flights are per mile, I would have to think not many individuals would be willing to pay for those short flights.

In the western part of the US, where the distances can be long, that's a different story. I've also wondered about the continued viability of most of the short haul routes that some of the feeders run. The income levels in most of the smaller cities don't provide a lot of demand for leisure air travel, and the way most businesses operate these days tends to reduce travel as well. I'd expect the smaller cities to see fewer flights using larger aircraft, and some cities losing air service altogether.
 
Art VanDelay said:
5000 or 3500 dollars may not sound like much to a "Big-Shot" San Francisco lawyer but to a CFI in Nebraska it makes a difference. The mere fact that they are having to do this in an industry were dumbsh*ts were once PAYING to work there kind of speaks volumes to me but I guess it takes a little more for some people to be able to see things.

Let's take a look at the very bottom part of the pyramid. Are student pilot starts trending upward or downward ? Let's look also at the top of the pyramid - are major airline retirements increasing or decreasing ? Hmmmm, what could we deduce from this very simple observation ?

BTW, When the winds are howling over the Rockies I just climb to 410 - end of problem.
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Do you always get angry and nasty when people disagree with you? I pity your FO. So much for CRM.
 
Art VanDelay said:
<SNIP>

Let's take a look at the very bottom part of the pyramid. Are student pilot starts trending upward or downward ? Let's look also at the top of the pyramid - are major airline retirements increasing or decreasing ? Hmmmm, what could we deduce from this very simple observation ?
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Student starts were almost exactly the same in 2012 (last year available) as they were 10 years earlier. They aren't what they were in the mid-2000's, but they're still way in excess of what's needed to fill the professional pilot ranks. I do realize that most of these students aren't going to be pro pilots, but if seven or eight percent of them do, there will be more than enough professionals to support the industry.

If you look at the total number of airmen certificates, you'll see that over the last 10 years, there's been a little growth in the number holding ATPs, a little decline in the number holding the commercial certificate, and a big dropoff in those holding private tickets. Also, if you look at the number of pilots retiring from the majors, it's still not that many people. There are more than enough potential pilots to fill the ranks. What there appears to be a decline in is those who are willing to work at poverty wages to get an outside shot at someday maybe being a captain at a major. Up the pay for a regional FO to something reasonable and the problem all goes away.
 
AuntPeggy said:
I wanted to be an astronomer. Gave up on that dream, but still, sometimes think about how it might have happened if I knew then what I know now. Nevertheless, I have lived a good and fulfilling life, so I guess that is what the dream job really is.
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Peggy, did you continue your interest in astronomy as a hobby? Perhaps go into a peripherally related field like education where you might touch on the topic?

One of my daughters wants to be a paleontologist and study fossils, but she came to me the other day and said she has been thinking about being a geologist instead. The reason being, its related and she loves rocks, and a geologist can get paid by an oil company instead of begging for money from a museum. These are her words at age 8. She has a lot more time to sort it out.

I am a little disturbed that these kids dont have a chance to just dream. Witnessing the economic events of the last few years has changed their childhood. They see friends, neighbors, and parishioners long term unemployed and needing assistance. Pre-teen kids should not be worried about their earning potential.

For me, my dream as a kid on the farm was to work for a tractor manufacturer. After a couple detours flying airplanes i made it. I'm not in the division of the company that makes tractors but its close enough to tick the childhood dream box. My other dream was to play left wing for the blackhawks. Never got close to that but we have a pond at our US home we can play hockey on with the neighbors.
 
JHW said:
Peggy, did you continue your interest in astronomy as a hobby? Perhaps go into a peripherally related field like education where you might touch on the topic? <snip>
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No, I was too bitterly disappointed. Treating it as a hobby was like a sharp hot knife. And, there was no opportunity because we were so very impoverished.
 
FormerHangie said:
Student starts were almost exactly the same in 2012 (last year available) as they were 10 years earlier. They aren't what they were in the mid-2000's, but they're still way in excess of what's needed to fill the professional pilot ranks. I do realize that most of these students aren't going to be pro pilots, but if seven or eight percent of them do, there will be more than enough professionals to support the industry.

If you look at the total number of airmen certificates, you'll see that over the last 10 years, there's been a little growth in the number holding ATPs, a little decline in the number holding the commercial certificate, and a big dropoff in those holding private tickets. Also, if you look at the number of pilots retiring from the majors, it's still not that many people. There are more than enough potential pilots to fill the ranks. What there appears to be a decline in is those who are willing to work at poverty wages to get an outside shot at someday maybe being a captain at a major. Up the pay for a regional FO to something reasonable and the problem all goes away.
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Really ? Tell me your perception of major airline retirements and just how you arrived at that information ? How many pilots do you "guess" will leave from American, Delta and United ?
 
Art VanDelay said:
Angry ? Nasty ? I'm just getting warmed up. None of my F/Os think airline flying is horrible.
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Reminds me of one friend who left a long haul FedEx job to take an MD-80 FO job at Delta. Best career move ever, according to him.
 
Art VanDelay said:
Really ? Tell me your perception of major airline retirements and just how you arrived at that information ? How many pilots do you "guess" will leave from American, Delta and United ?
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There's a good discussion of it here: http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major/71998-mandatory-retirement-numbers.html.

Expecting no more than 3000 mandatory retirements in any year. Some will leave early, shall we say 4000 retirements max? Certainly out of 55,000 student starts we can come up with 4000 new pilots. And should the chances at getting to the majors improve, you can expect an increase in the number of prospective professional pilots.
 
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Statistically, how many of those student starts go on to actually get a certificate? Of any kind?
 
Haha it takes six months to make an airline pilot, there will never be a shortage.
 
FormerHangie said:
There's a good discussion of it here: http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/major/71998-mandatory-retirement-numbers.html.

Expecting no more than 3000 mandatory retirements in any year. Some will leave early, shall we say 4000 retirements max? Certainly out of 55,000 student starts we can come up with 4000 new pilots. And should the chances at getting to the majors improve, you can expect an increase in the number of prospective professional pilots.
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That's pretty close I'm showing a bit more at 4800. What your not factoring in is the TIME factor. It takes more than a year to produce a 1500 hour wonder. As the majors pull them from the regionals the regionals can't backfill them fast enough. Eventually the regionals won't have any more to give.
 
Art VanDelay said:
That's pretty close I'm showing a bit more at 4800. What your not factoring in is the TIME factor. It takes more than a year to produce a 1500 hour wonder. As the majors pull them from the regionals the regionals can't backfill them fast enough. Eventually the regionals won't have any more to give.
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If you read that same discussion, you'll see that they have the same opinion of the future of the regionals as I do, that is, they will be operating fewer flights. There are already announced plans to retire most of the smaller regional jets, and replace them with fewer flights using larger aircraft, so I don't think that will be an issue. Also, I'm going back to the US Airmen stats, with over 19,000 ATPs issued. I realize that some of them are for foreign nationals who will be returning to their home countries, but it's clear to me that there are plenty of available pilots and will be for the forseeable future. The only pilot "shortage" I think will happen is that some of the EAS carriers will have a hard time attracting pilots at the current (dismal) salary levels. Only time will tell which of us is right.
 
I think that the key is that the EAS service in small planes, to small markets, will go away. The regionals will be operating 70+ passenger aircraft and will pay what it takes to get pilots. When the career track is better, then you will have more people entering it and fewer dropping out.

All due regards to Great Lakes and other similar EAS carriers, they are a drain on the taxpayers to the turn of around $3,000 a ticket and only serve as a training ground for the majors. If this 1,500 hour requirement kills them off, it will open up opportunities for charter operators.
 
From: BryanBedford <[email protected]>
Date: February 10, 2014 at 9:39:37 PM CST
Subject: Bryan Bedford letter for 02-10-14

February 10, 2014

Bryan Bedford letter for 02-10-14

Dear Co-workers,

Good evening, I want to take a few minutes of your time to bring you up to speed on an announcement that will hit the wire tomorrow morning. As you probably have read, United Airlines has made a decision to significantly reduce the number of flight departures at their CLE hub. In their press release, they mentioned that their decision to reduce flight service was prompted by news that some of their regional airline partners were experiencing difficulties in hiring suitable pilots to crew their aircraft. That disclosure has caused quite a bit of media attention as to whether or not we (our country) are experiencing a shortage of qualified pilots. I’ll come back to that question later, but the reality is that our airline, more specifically Chautauqua, is having a very difficult time finding new-hire pilots that meet the 1,500 hour rule AND meet our quality and competency requirements.

It is no secret that many of our small jet, fixed-fee agreements are scheduled to expire this year. In fact, we have 41 ERJs which, unless extended, will expire off contract over the course of this year. Since our successful Chautauqua financial restructuring in 2012, we have consistently said we expect to be able to keep these aircraft in productive service for years to come; however, the pilot staffing challenges are changing that outlook.

Starting shortly after the new law became effective in August of last year, we began to see a steady decline in the number of qualified applicants applying at Republic. As a consequence, by the end of last year, we were concerned enough about the trends that we reached out to all our partners to get their read on the situation and to warn them we could have real problems keeping our aircraft properly staffed. The applicant flow problems continue to persist in the new year and it has become all too clear that we can no longer consider extending all our small jet contracts; in fact, we have asked one partner (United) to accelerate the removal of our 12 ERJ aircraft so we can redirect Chautauqua flight crews to EJET training. Effective April 1, we anticipate ending our Chautauqua ERJ flying for United. We also are no longer able to extend our American Connection agreement covering 15 E140 aircraft. Those aircraft will be removed from service between March 1 and August 15. In total, we plan to remove 27 small aircraft, which we had otherwise expected to continue to operate in to the future.

Of course, this is very disappointing news and will naturally cause some of our co-workers to have real concerns over their personal situations. Wayne is on his way to Louisville to discuss the situation with our team down there, but let me say we see tremendous value in our Louisville base and with our people there, and we have no intention to do anything other than keep it running normally and bring work into the facility to replace the work that may be affected by this development.

We also intend to continue to receive new E175 aircraft for American. Those 25 aircraft are scheduled to go into service this year. And while we have not made any final decisions, we do still have four Q400 aircraft that were anticipated to go in to service this year for United, which we would like to satisfy. Of course, it all depends on our ability to find the kind of women and men who can meet our standards.

So do we have a pilot shortage? Well if you define a shortage as not having enough people that meet the requirements of the 1,500-hour rule and not being able to pass muster with our standards, then yes, we have a shortage, and we are not alone. However, I do not think the country has a shortage of truly qualified pilots, at least not yet. There are ample pilots for today’s needs, but these young people, who have graduated with aeronautical aviation degrees no longer qualify for employment. And there are not enough ways for them to get the hourly time the new law requires. It is a real catch 22, and one you will probably be reading a lot more about for the foreseeable future.

Longer term (and that may only be two or three years away) we will certainly have a much bigger problem, even if the hour requirement is reduced from 1,500 hour to say 500 hours. Why? Because the age 65 rule will mandate retirements for nearly 18,000 mainline pilots over the next 10 years. It started last year with about 1,000 retirements. That number grows steady over the next 10 years. Even under the old system, our country simply does not have the ability to train that many replacement pilots. It’s the same problem countries like China and India have been dealing with for years. We are going to have to develop an entirely new way to train future aviators in this country. But that won’t be much help in the here and now.

Finally, it is reasonable to ask how the lack of a new pilot CBA has affected our recruiting situation. It’s a fair question, but a hard one to answer. It seems reasonable enough that not having a new CBA isn’t helping and certainly may be hurting our efforts in recruiting new pilots now, even though it wasn’t a problem before the new law went into effect last year. However, while we very much want to get the negotiation behind us, the reality is a new CBA won’t create a single new qualified pilot in the USA. I do think it will help bring some people to us that otherwise do not want to consider Republic because of the uncertainty here, but that is a hard thing to quantify. Suffice to say we want to close out the negotiations with a fair deal and, when that happens, if it allows us to hire more pilots such that we could staff more aircraft, of course we will discuss adding these small jets back to service with our airline partners.

For the time being, we should all keep our focus on providing the outstanding levels of service that have become a hallmark of our three great companies. We have faced challenges in the past and as a team, we have prevailed. We will face challenges in the future and, together, again, we will prevail.

God bless,

Bryan
 
Kristin said:
All due regards to Great Lakes and other similar EAS carriers, they are a drain on the taxpayers to the turn of around $3,000 a ticket and only serve as a training ground for the majors. If this 1,500 hour requirement kills them off, it will open up opportunities for charter operators.
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I doubt that it will create much of any charter volume. Many of the EAS cities are less than 100 miles from the next air carrier airport. If anything, this will create some business for the economy parking lots at those airports because those passengers will just revert to driving themselves to the next airport.
 
In case anyone reading this thread doesn't know, CBA = collective bargaining agreement, i.e., a union contract.
 
Did Mr Bedford offer any anecdotes as to whether he found convincing people there is a pilot shortage to be a more or less difficult task than proving Santa clause is real ?
 
Raise prices on tickets so you can afford to pay for qualified pilots then. There's shortage of pay, not pilots. Simple.

No point in bitching outside the 99c store about the fact you only got 50c and they won't sell you anything.
 
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