Originally Posted by
CBreezy
That's the problem with your argument.
I know many regional captains that wouldn't leave even if they offered a pay raise to their current pay. The pay, benefits, and seniority is too good to go back to sitting reserve even if it's a short period.
Then how many? Roll out some strong numbers please. You cannot do this, and as such you cannot show enough pilots are not available for the jobs there are to be had. They
are available, they even have their medicals ready, but the pay is too low to attract them from whatever they are doing instead of flying for regional airlines.
...There are many corporate pilots who would NEVER leave for a major. They get weeks and holidays off and similar pay. There are many 91 pilots that fly only a few hundred hours a year. Why would they all of a sudden Want to fly almost 700-800 for a slight increase in pay...Yes. Some would leave but to say all ATPs are major airline candidates oversimplifies the conversation. Also, major airline flying isn't the entire industry. It is composed of cargo, airlines, corporate, on-demand, charter, and private flying...
(1) you have no data to support this for starters, and (2) the stronger reasoning is that if the money is right, these people- whom we know exist- will give the airlines a try. But they do not do so because the money is NOT right and all the other drawbacks to regionals discussed
ad finitum here apply, money being at the top of the list.
...If one of those sectors has a hard time attracting applicants, which I believe they will in the heat of major retirements, it is a shortage. Period.
No it is not. This is false reasoning. If one of those sectors has trouble attracting enough applicants but the pilots are there to be had in the surrounding pilot world in excess, a shortage it does not constitute. We (1) KNOW the regionals have not raised pay commensurate to mainline pay scales, that is a fact, (2) it is low across the board, that's a fact, and (3) in many cases new hire pay is within food stamp territory.
That is why they cannot attract enough people, it's that simple. Bring the pay in line with majors and it's shortage done. But we will never see that scenario because the whole point of creating regionals to begin with was to have a subclass of depressed pay to take advantage of the pilot labor EXCESS in America.