Sully to the Rescue

The kicker was at the end. Workable wages, you'll have applicants lined up out the door.

Also telling was that info graphic from WSJ on the screen, Commercial pilot certificates down 30%.

The graphic didn't say over what timeframe, however. So it's a worthless number. That could simply be the economy and fuel costs.
 
I have a lot of things to say about this in particular. I personally chose to leave the industry and I know many others that have left voluntarily because of pay/benefits/work rules etc.... and there was not a lot of hope that things would get better. So there are people leaving that are fully qualified because of these issues.

I completely agree that there is some lack of training and hiring standards with new pilots getting to the regional or higher level. While it is true like he said that he just haven't seen enough cycles of the season with thunderstorms and ice, that will not change for most of them as time building for the younger generation is just flying patterns and doing stalls with students. Those that are lucky can find a job flying freight or some other "Real world" experience to gain the knowledge necessary to move to the next level, but many of them just will not.

I know you need to set the bar somewhere and 1500 hrs and an ATP is a good starting point but as many of you know sometimes its not all about quantity of hours as much as quality time and quality time is getting harder and harder to accumulate. A young instructor may have a couple thousand hours and no real actual IMC to speak of. Does that make him/her more qualified? Maybe but I don't think so.

While I believe that there will not be a dramatic shortage, it will be harder for the younger generation to get to hiring status and could shorten the list of those actually willing to put the time and money into a job that doesn't pay much. Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents of this.

When you make the job worth doing then you will attract quality applicants.
 
denverpilot said:
Also telling was that info graphic from WSJ on the screen, Commercial pilot certificates down 30%.

The graphic didn't say over what timeframe, however. So it's a worthless number.
Click to expand...

That's what TV will do for a story - dumb it down.

Here's the quote from the original print version of the WSJ:

FAA data show annual private and commercial pilot certificates—both required to become an airline pilot—are down 41% and 30%, respectively, in the past decade.
 
NoHeat said:
That's what TV will do for a story - dumb it down.

Here's the quote from the original print version of the WSJ:

FAA data show annual private and commercial pilot certificates—both required to become an airline pilot—are down 41% and 30%, respectively, in the past decade.
Click to expand...

Yeah TV. Normal.

A decade, eh?

Damn. Those are bigger percentages than I realized.
 
So where will the new pilots go to get the hours they need? Will they have to flight instruct for more years to get the time? Will that really do anything for safety? Raising the number of hours did not really do anything to make them quality hours and that is what happens when you have congressmen deciding technical issues.
 
I thought of switching careers from rotarywing to fixedwing regionals but it just made no economic sense. I really don't see how those guys get by on that pay. I start off at over twice they make and my schedule and work conditions are far better. They won't save any pilot shortage until they address the pay/work condition issue. That's not going to happen though because the airlines are marginally profitable at best. If the company isn't making money it's people aren't going to be happy.
 
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The whole idea behind starving wages for flying airplanes stems from the social contract of a quick upgrade and a move up to livable wages via mainline jobs. That model is dead, there is no movement. People however, dead set on flying for a living, choose to put themselves in a "life holding pattern", staunchly pursuing regional work for decades, and the rest is history, as is Colgan Air not ironically enough. People who pursue regional work with the express intent on making it a career are fooling themselves, all because they regard flying for money as the only worthwhile pursuit in their lives that provides contentment.

The only way to sustain the current model is to up the pay at the regionals, but that's simply not in the cards. The airline compensation model has always been back-loaded. Why is it so backloaded? Because people keep showing up , debt or no debt alike, for a 22K job. It's a very inelastic demand. It's pretty sad when the government has to step in and discourage people to work for free via barriers to entry. Usually the low pay would dissuade people from pursuing such employment. The reality though is that most people go in with optimism bias: "Im only gonna make crap for a couple years, I'll make decent money here in a little bit". For many, that little bit is 10 years and a lifer regional CA position where the only place your seniority number is going to get you is back to square one when the now mature regional airline folds due to top heavy labor costs on a model that depends on the premise cheap entry level labor costs, and you have no line number at Delta to prevent you from summarily being priced out of your own vocation.

It is a free country though, people are free to work for peanuts....

As I've said before, I'd love to proverbially ride roller coasters for a living, but I ain't gonna do it for Malaysian shoe maker wages just because I like riding roller coasters. I'll do something else to pay for life and fly for fun. Make no mistake, Colgan happened because two people valued manipulating the controls of an airplane more than to recognize they had no business nor the economic ability to afford to de facto recreationally zoom people in the sky for hire. They had no quarrel commuting from BFE on two red eyes and doing it on the subsidy of their parents housing. And innocent people died for someone else's dream. I love flying as much as the next guy but that's not ok.

Life's not fair. We don't all get to get reasonably paid to live our dreams. Sometimes we gotta live our dreams through avocations. Recognizing that is maturity.
 
Government meddling has distorted the airline labor market in many ways but in two in particular: the first is the fact that the Railway Labor Act does not prohibit "supervisors" from engaging in collective bargaining like the Wagner Act does in the rest of the economy. This tees up the airline income "lottery" that causes folks to accept abysmal pay and working conditions in hope that they will eventually win the lottery and join one of those collective bargaining units at the majors. The other is the new 1500 hour barrier to entry. Both of these distortions prevent a normal smooth compensation spectrum that characterizes a stable competitive labor market that remains in equilibrium and where ability will bubble up to the top jobs in the industry.
 
Sully mentioned that the 1500 hours gives pilots extra experience and that pilots need to experience a lot of weather cycles to get experience w ice and thunderstorms.

Problem is no instructor, banner tower, will get any experience with ice and thunderstorms the way the airlines do. The flying is going to be fair weather. Even freight dogs have to get 1200 hours before they can fly instruments.

Interesting on the CVR the pilots of the colgan air flight were discussing how they had virtually no experience with ice until they joined the regionals.
 
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Correct. If you can find candidates that are more experienced then great, but in this job, just because you have 1500 hrs doesn't say how much real world experience you have.

It not genuine to say that we cant have newer pilot getting "On the job" training with passengers on board! They are still qualified just a little less experienced. Nothing wrong with that. Most industries do on the job training. Even doctors get OJT with real people.
 
hindsight2020 said:
The whole idea behind starving wages for flying airplanes stems from the social contract of a quick upgrade and a move up to livable wages via mainline jobs. That model is dead, there is no movement. People however, dead set on flying for a living, choose to put themselves in a "life holding pattern", staunchly pursuing regional work for decades, and the rest is history, as is Colgan Air not ironically enough. People who pursue regional work with the express intent on making it a career are fooling themselves, all because they regard flying for money as the only worthwhile pursuit in their lives that provides contentment.

The only way to sustain the current model is to up the pay at the regionals, but that's simply not in the cards. The airline compensation model has always been back-loaded. Why is it so backloaded? Because people keep showing up , debt or no debt alike, for a 22K job. It's a very inelastic demand. It's pretty sad when the government has to step in and discourage people to work for free via barriers to entry. Usually the low pay would dissuade people from pursuing such employment. The reality though is that most people go in with optimism bias: "Im only gonna make crap for a couple years, I'll make decent money here in a little bit". For many, that little bit is 10 years and a lifer regional CA position where the only place your seniority number is going to get you is back to square one when the now mature regional airline folds due to top heavy labor costs on a model that depends on the premise cheap entry level labor costs, and you have no line number at Delta to prevent you from summarily being priced out of your own vocation.

It is a free country though, people are free to work for peanuts....

As I've said before, I'd love to proverbially ride roller coasters for a living, but I ain't gonna do it for Malaysian shoe maker wages just because I like riding roller coasters. I'll do something else to pay for life and fly for fun. Make no mistake, Colgan happened because two people valued manipulating the controls of an airplane more than to recognize they had no business nor the economic ability to afford to de facto recreationally zoom people in the sky for hire. They had no quarrel commuting from BFE on two red eyes and doing it on the subsidy of their parents housing. And innocent people died for someone else's dream. I love flying as much as the next guy but that's not ok.

Life's not fair. We don't all get to get reasonably paid to live our dreams. Sometimes we gotta live our dreams through avocations. Recognizing that is maturity.
Click to expand...


Maturity sucks. :sad: My father was right after all. :sad:
 
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