Originally Posted by
bedrock
UNtil the 90's there were no "regional" jets. Everything was commuter turboprop feeder airline--which paid crap. BUT, you did eventually move into a good paying airline job after 5 years or so. Regional jets popped up and mainline wanted to buy them and have mainline pilots fly them on a B scale. Mainline pilots said no way. Mainline mgmt., then negotiated scope relief to create alter ego airlines flying the "small" 50 seat regional jets over 5-700 mile distances. A few years later, after 9/11 bankruptcies, these "regional" jets are flying transcons on mainline routes and mainline pilots are ceding more and more scope.
The COMAIR strike of early 2001 CRIPPLED Delta and forced them to increase pay. After that, EVERY mainline was hellbent to outsource flying to multiple regionals to diversify risk. But they got greedy and went overboard. Post 9/11 meant pilots were cheap and plentiful, there were no flight time regulations, other than commericial mins of 250 hrs. So "airline pilot" suddenly became an entry level job. MESA and maybe some other regionals were hiring at 250 hrs in order to pay 19,000/yr.
That pretty much sums it up.
I just commented on the other thread where people were so impressed with the fact that it was possible for a person to get from student pilot to Delta Airlines in 12 years flat! 20-30 years ago that would have been an eternity. Back then "regionals" really were regional airlines and employed about 15% of the pilot workforce who could reasonably expect to move on within a few years (5 years when things were slow). You would go from left seat of a 19 seat turboprop to right seat of a Boeing...a logical transition.
These days most pilots work at "regionals" flying full sized jet aircraft. It's become a game of musical chairs and they keep pulling away more chairs.
A lot of pilots just refuse to play the game anymore and have walked away so they scream "pilot shortage" and claim to need more new pilots instead of trying to attract or keep experienced pilots that are already out there.
The lure of one day getting to one of those chairs when the music stops still seems to work though.
My argument is that all this wasn't caused by the unions, it was enabled by the unions and the seniority system which has become a leveraging tool of big airline management, without which the modern "regional airline" payscale model would not be possible. If pilots were able to leverage their experience to compete on an even playing field they wouldn't be married to their job and could jump ship anytime their airline tried to push more crap on them.
As far as "greybeards" go...yes...I have one (day off)