Originally Posted by
RMWRIGHT
just like when they spend more money by hiring foreign nurses i.e. bonuses, free tickets back to their home country etc.
here is my 2 cents on "pilot shortage"
i sent my resume' 3 times to silver airways (to hr email address) and never even got an acknowledgement. last month i sent her another email asking for a simple reply just to know that the email address was good or perhaps i needed to apply online thru their website etc... again nothing. come on, silver is offering 12 grand in bonuses and they dont reply?
yesterday i saw "empire airlines" (never heard of them) were looking for atr pilots throughout the country. well shreveport is cheaper to live in than newark ha ha so i applied for that position and i got back an email the next day saying that upon careful consideration they will be interviewing more qualified candidates. (it was just a cut and paste rejection form) wow you would think they certainly would be looking for pilots ! i have also sent resumes to other parts of the world... macau, hong kong, tajikistan, asghanistan, taiwan etc where supposedly they are hurting for pilots and so far nobody has even replied bothered to acknowledge receipt of emails. the only job offers i get are for flight instructors. so i guess im good enough to teach people to fly for an airline but not good enough to fly in an airline myself
there are 200,000 faa licensed pilots with an atp or commercial and more than 1500 hours with a first class medical or could get a 1st class medical and there are roughly 66,000 pilot positions at the airlines. thats 3 pilots for every job. the airlines say they will be hiring roughly 4000 pilots year and 8000 new atp licenses were issued last year ! after my recent experience in searching for an airline job i really dont see a shortage or lack of pilots. btw i hold an faa atp sel ses mel mes, b737 ce500 a320, flight dispatcher, agi igi, cfi me ia, flight navigator and flight eng turbojet written passed, 2800 total 104 me, 1st class medical, secret security clearance etc etc
All those types and only 104 ME?! That's the reason you're not getting any calls. It looks like you bought your ratings, and that's considered rather fishy, at least in this country. Nobody does that, well except the people who target Southwest.
On the other hand I agree with you 100% on the pilot shortage. There's nothing like that. It's all one big myth, a story invented by greedy regionals and big flight schools with their lobbying teams, and reinforced and spread out by naive pilots hoping they'll make it in to the left seat in a heavy of one of the legacies one day. All just wishful thinking, a dream that never comes true, (at least to most of us). Look aroud, regionals are filling all their classes, some are still very selective and refuse most of the aplicants. They spread the false information in order to change the recent legislation that doesn't play in their favor. However, the truth is they have no problem filling up their classes. Yes, they used to have thousands of applications, now maybe hundreds. Yes, there are examples like Great Lakes that can't attract anyone (we all know why), but other than that, business as usual. Maybe I'm wrong and the situation will change in the future (trust me, I really want to be wrong), but all I see right now is reshuffling of flying between regionals, and the FOs are following it with a hope of an upgrade. Wait till the big ones like Expressjet and Envoy will stagnate and start downgrading next year, there will be lines of experienced pilots ready to start once again at the bottom at PSA, Mesa, Gojet, TSA, Compass, etc. hoping to upgrade quickly and have a shot at a major. Some will aplly at Skywest, Republic, Horizon, or Endeavor hoping for stability of big operations or some enigmatic flow through. Trust me, there will be many different reasons and excuses, mostly to justify the lateral move to ourselves.
Anyways, good luck, and yeah, drop those type rationgs off your resume for now, and prepare a good explanation story for the interview, they'll ask you about it for sure (unless you apply for Mesa, they won't see your certificate over the phone...).