Originally Posted by
Flying Ninja
In the GAO report, page 32:
"For example, increasing recruiting requires fewer resources than raising wages; further recruitment efforts could also be halted if labor market conditions change, whereas wages, once raised, may not be easily lowered."
Translation: Airline management has zero desire to raise wages.
Page 33:
"Improve wages and fringe benefits. Increasing wages will help increase the number of personnel willing to work in a particular position or occupation. However, employers are reluctant to do this because they may be forced to raise the wages of current employees as well. Further, unlike some other actions, once wages are raised, it is unlikely that they will be reduced later if hiring becomes less difficult."
Translation: Airline management has a solution to this "pilot shortage" but prefers to find cost free way to solve this issue.
Conclusion: Airline management could care less about their pilots. But they want to have their cake, and eat it in their mansions.
This new GAO report nails what I have been saying quietly for the last year or so on this forum. And yet, the only gripe I have about the pilot shortage story is how untruthful it is. If you say "we are understaffed" when you actually are not even trying to staff your firm, that's unethical. It's lies and myths. There is nothing unethical about saying, "we are parking airplanes now because the labor rate for the better pilots went up a lot recently, we can't afford them any more and are parking planes to save money, sorry for the inconvenience". But that's not what we hear, not at all.