Originally Posted by
Navmode
Wrong again. This isn't a pilot shortage, it's a PAY shortage. The shortage is of people willing to make 22k /year pretax to fly a large jet. If you make more than 3x that as a captain, then you're not part of the problem. This isn't personal, it's economics. The company doesn't care if you don't like the pay/benefits offered or if they're fair. They only care about cd0/ccf.
There may possibly be a pilot shortage, who knows. There is in fact a shortage of qualified pilots for the reasons for exactly the reason you stated. Pay. Plain an simple.
I live in the DFW area, have for a while. I left corporate and you can make 45K a year flying right seat in a King Air. You're not even a required crewmember carrying up to 10 people and make far more than the average regional first or second year pay to carry up to 8 times as many people.
There is a PR race out there among airline CEO's to make the issue about pilot availability and not about the pay. They love what they have been able to get away with for years and certainly don't want to loose that. If they can convince the public it is again the
"governments fault" for creating poor, useless regulations in terms of pilot requirements, then they win.... again.
It is our job, and the job of our respective unions to continue to make aware to the public what we are paid to fly them around.