Originally Posted by
eaglefly
It will help, but not near enough. This "pipeline" will take years and all the legacies should be sucking up regional pilots in 12-18 months and they'll be losing more pilots then they gain. The pay raise(s) required to attract the number of pilots needed for the regionals ruins the economic advantage of the RJ.
Why choose an airline career in college when it costs an additional $75K above tuition, if it still significantly drags other careers in compensation and lifestyle ?
The fact is, managements went too far in gutting this job and the tab for that is almost here and there are no cheap, quick fixes. This band-aid won't stop the arterial spray from jugular that is about to burst.
I hope you are right. I don't know if the majors will be picking up guys as quickly as some think within the next 12 to 18 months though. Delta is overstaffed and American/US Airways will be downsizing by probably about 12%. I think the regionals will be hurting for pilots I just can't put a finger on how bad and when.
As far as the first year pay in the regional airline business goes this is 100% the union and pilot groups fault. What most don't realize is management has figured out how to pen pilots against pilots / top vs bottom etc. and this is how they get what they want. Take a look at ExpressJet and ASA. Look at what they did to pinnacle and Comair. The list goes on and on. The pilot groups listed above are made up of good guys and in no way am I faulting them especially Comair for what they did. At least they tried to take a stand. However, management will always pull the strings until the pilot group as an industry whole takes a stand and cuts those strings. This will never happen so it just is what it is at this point.