bunk22

Define part of the problem? I understand you say some not all. I think if an officer can offer something to the Navy then there should be no issue staying until retirment. Retirement was never in my plans but it happened that way. Luckily, last tour, I helped pump out X's at VT-6. I took a job here in Pusan, S Korea that nobody wanted. Next I'll help pump out X's in Kingsville. Meaning I've at least got a skill that the US Navy can use.

I've been lucky too in that my during my DH tour, I had a 5 month and a 3 month deployemnt. Busy job no doubt but plenty of family time. Prior to that, was a 2.5 year shore tour followed by the 2.5 year DH tour, 2.5 shore in P-cola, 1 year unaccompanied but family can come here anytime they want. I will finish with a 2.5 year shore tour in Kingsville. I guess my point is it's not always bad, being a away from family is sometimes minimal relatively speaking. Luck of the draw and community dependent though I'm sure. I'm E2/C2 community which is certainly not a always a good thing for family togetherness time. Then again, it's the military and that's military life.

BDGERJMN

I generally mean those sitting around waiting for higher tenure or taking another set of orders to make high 3 and/or TIG considerations. Again some...I'd argue as you would I'm sure, that those filling billets in a production source are doing some good work for their respective service. I'm talking more about some of the deadwood filling chairs on staffs surfing the internet all day long doing 10 minutes worth of work. And you're right there are plenty of folks out there who's work ethic isn't mired by the scope of their job. Hope that clears up my statement..

__________________
On Wisconsin!!

CANAM

Any forcast for hiring is as reliable as a long range weather forcast. There are way too many variables to make a solid guess.
1. Oil prices
2. Global economics
3. Terrorism
4. Global pandemics
5. Inflation
6. Availability of credit
7. Possible chapter 11/7 of several airlines in the very near future
8. New entries into the market/Cabitage

Any one of these factors will greatly affect airline hiring in the next few years. I'm sure I forgot several other factors too.

USMCFLYR

I'm glad they are there so I can stay in my production job. Unless you took REDUX, you're going to get you high three regardless.

USMCFLYR

Scoop

The talk of a future pilot hiring boom has been around forever. There have surely been some boom years for the majors (1998-2000) but by and large it has always been cyclical. What’s worse is that now with the commuters getting so large there will never be shortage of pilots for the majors; any pilot shortage will be mostly in the commuters and mostly in the right seat.

The talk of a future pilot hiring boom reminds me of a sign you see in some bars "Free beer tomorrow." As CCR said "tomorrow never comes."

Scoop

FL450

There might be some demand at the majors eventually as hiring picks up since most 4-7 year capts at the regional level have the QOL in terms of schedule they want. Also for most the pay cut to go back to first year is hard to take especially if you have younger children IMHO

Gomerglideslope

That's a SHACK!!!

seaav8tor

Started flying in 1976.

in 1978 deregulation was going to create thousands of new airline jobs.

It did. No shortage.

Wages have been cyclical as pointed out, but, over time have trended down. No shortage to drive the pay trend line back up.

When push comes to shove hiring requirements change. No shortage.

I have been watching this for 33 years. No shortage yet.

If you are waiting for a shortage to make things better, you are going to be waiting a very long time.

tomgoodman

When pilots say "there's going to be a shortage", they mean "a shortage of people like us". That might be true, but airlines will gladly hire people unlike us, if necessary, and they have proven it. Whether that's good or bad is, of course, a matter of opinion.

Bucking Bar

How true.

Orville and Wilbur Wright had to flip a coin to decide who was going to fly the first airplane. (true) Before flight was officially invented there were already twice the number of pilots needed. Nothing has changed.

We can never expect a "shortage" to increase our pay. We have to some how convince our union that unity is key to our power and our ability to negotiate.

The leading indicator for the downward trend line in our negotiation results is scope. When we relax scope, the next round of negotiations inevitably is done in an environment where we must compete with our outsourced flying.

Our ability to unionize is key to elevating our profession. We must adopt as a matter of morality common sense that we can't sell one pilot's job to enhance another pilot's without paying the price in the next round of negotiations.

... at my former airline the President lamented there was a "pilot shortage" and several of us corrected him, that there was no "pilot shortage" just a shortage of pilots willing to work for $18,000 a year. He also wondered why survey respondents answered they thought XXX was a good place to get a job, but also responded that more than 80% of them were looking for work elsewhere. The obvious answer was that it was a good place to get some flight time and move on at the first opportunity.

Thus leads to the confusion over a "pilot shortage." There will never be a shortage of pilots for the good jobs, only the bad ones.