Originally Posted by
FlyJSH
Done twice a year is $10,832 per pilot.
And don't forget the cost to keep the IP current (unless you are wet leasing the sim: higher hourly rate).
Also the ancillary costs of the pilot: drug testing, background checks, etc.
But let's stick with your 5k number:
Say the "average" hourly rate for a pilot is $70 (CA and FOs blended). 75 hours per month is pretty standard guarantee and totals 900 hours per year. IF the company were to pay 150% for every hour over 75, how man hours would that $5400 pay for? 155. That is the extra cost of overtime is $35/hour, $5400/35= 155. If the company only under staffs FOs, it might get twice that many hours. So, for the cost of training one part time FO, the company can drive three current FOs to 1000 hours. (Or in the case of some companies, offer a $5k hiring bonus and get a full time FO.) Where is the benefit to the company?
All the numbers I fabricated were for 2x a year in the sim so we're still at 5k. Obviously some things I left out but I also grossly exaggerated some of the other costs....like 150/hour for instructor and 100/hr avg pilot. This was also assuming 1k/hr sim time, which was pure conjecture but again, my guess is that it's significantly lower for companies that own their sim. As far as training costs for IPs, well that is spread out over the whole company's worth of pilots. Adding more pilots isn't going to make that cost go up, it's fixed.
With 117 it would be difficult to "drive" anyone to 1000 hours because its all rolling....There is no more clean slate on Jan 1. The company isn't going to want a bunch of pilots bumping up on 1k hours every month, a couple weather days and the airline is shutdown from everyone timing out.
They'd also save on health care costs/retirement etc because a part time employee wouldn't be eligible. This could amount to a large savings.
SO anywho, I don't really see this happening any time soon, but to fully disregard it is a little shortsighted. Yea, 10 hours is a little ridiculous but I guarantee that there is a number(hours) that would make it work.