More Culture Shortage Than Pilot Shortage
#1
Line Holder
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Dec 2014
Posts: 73
More Culture Shortage Than Pilot Shortage
Based on my Air Force experience, here's my advice to managers and pilots in the regional airline game:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-vi...ot-chris-dupin
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-vi...ot-chris-dupin
#3
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2014
Posts: 128
Great post.
Regional management operates under the assumption that any warm body will do the job. What they fail to realize or appreciate is the return on investment for having a winning culture and happy/invested pilots.
How many times do disaffected pilots blow their entire day's pay worth of fuel by running "go home day" power settings? Pilots that are happy and appreciated can save the company a lot of money without sacrificing safety.
Regional management operates under the assumption that any warm body will do the job. What they fail to realize or appreciate is the return on investment for having a winning culture and happy/invested pilots.
How many times do disaffected pilots blow their entire day's pay worth of fuel by running "go home day" power settings? Pilots that are happy and appreciated can save the company a lot of money without sacrificing safety.
#4
Covfefe
Joined APC: Jun 2015
Posts: 3,001
Great post.
Regional management operates under the assumption that any warm body will do the job. What they fail to realize or appreciate is the return on investment for having a winning culture and happy/invested pilots.
How many times do disaffected pilots blow their entire day's pay worth of fuel by running "go home day" power settings? Pilots that are happy and appreciated can save the company a lot of money without sacrificing safety.
Regional management operates under the assumption that any warm body will do the job. What they fail to realize or appreciate is the return on investment for having a winning culture and happy/invested pilots.
How many times do disaffected pilots blow their entire day's pay worth of fuel by running "go home day" power settings? Pilots that are happy and appreciated can save the company a lot of money without sacrificing safety.
If management makes it just appealing enough to check career boxes (jet/captain experience), but not that great of a place to work, then people will come, regardless of the culture or pay, and hopefully not stay. Management will do the bare minimum financially to get meat in the seat. The lowest paying regional in the industry, Mesa, is still filling classes. It doesn't have a good reputation throughout the industry, the culture is okay, nothing great, but it is the movement and opportunity that brings people in. No one comes to Mesa saying "I like the culture." They come thinking they will upgrade quickly. Our last few classes still have a lot of people coming from other 121 carriers that have better pay and better cultures.
It is evident most regionals don't care who they hire in this environment. And that isn't just bottom feeders like Mesa, that is the case across the board. Sure culture will help reputation/word of mouth recruiting, and a bad culture will do the opposite in some cases (i.e. RAH). But it doesn't really matter to them. The culture metric just isn't important to bean counters and managers, because it doesn't really matter in the regional model.
And to the last paragraph re pilots trying to stick it to the man and burn more fuel...mainline buys our fuel. Sure my .82 vs .78 may burn a few hundred extra pounds, but regional flying contracts with mainline are hardly affected by fuel efficiency. Regional management likes to tout fuel savings, but I don't think they care. In Phoenix for example, they could hire more rampers at $10/hr to save 5-10 minutes per running CRJ that is waiting for marshallers, which happens several times a day. They routinely (at least at Mesa) wait until the last minute to fix MELd PACKS. I flew LAX-YEG-LAX-DEN one day at 240/250. That seems to happen a lot more than it should if they really cared about fuel savings.
#6
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jan 2015
Position: E-175
Posts: 458
Great post.
Regional management operates under the assumption that any warm body will do the job. What they fail to realize or appreciate is the return on investment for having a winning culture and happy/invested pilots.
How many times do disaffected pilots blow their entire day's pay worth of fuel by running "go home day" power settings? Pilots that are happy and appreciated can save the company a lot of money without sacrificing safety.
Regional management operates under the assumption that any warm body will do the job. What they fail to realize or appreciate is the return on investment for having a winning culture and happy/invested pilots.
How many times do disaffected pilots blow their entire day's pay worth of fuel by running "go home day" power settings? Pilots that are happy and appreciated can save the company a lot of money without sacrificing safety.
But I agree with what you are saying. Many other examples would work well too.
#7
Line Holder
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Dec 2014
Posts: 73
#8
Line Holder
Joined APC: Oct 2013
Posts: 77
I sit in the jumpseat over half the time to get to work, and I've never once seen the crew fly any kind of econ speed. I think that old trope is just what the mainline "partners" hit the regional management over the head with to justify not paying them more.
#10
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jul 2013
Posts: 10,061
This is not true. While raising pay would help the regionals, there haven't been enough pilots training to replace those retiring and the people the regionals would take from 135 and 91 jobs. Big picture. I'm all for more money but actually believing that will 100% fix the problem is naive.
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