Originally Posted by
rvr1800
Says the free market. They can't recruit experienced pilots because they pay peanuts. We don't. We can recruit very experienced pilots. I mentioned nothing about safety. I am saying the program is unnecessary to recruit pilots to work at Jetblue.
I'd be more inclined to agree with the free market idea if airlines weren't making record profits while paying their executives 7 figure salaries. They pay low salaries because they can (our economic system encourages this), and bright-eyed pilot bought into this for a long time. Turns out it's not what they thought and now we have thousands of regional pilots trying to move to the Majors, but competition for available spots is tough - and why would Management change as they're getting cheap labor on regional routes?
As mentioned earlier, the first graduates of the program wouldn't hit the line until 2020, representing roughly 6% of the new pilots for that year. While I agree that what you're saying is true for today, what about in 5, 10 years? Honest question, but is this whole pilot shortage just some big fallacy?
For those of you that currently work at JetBlue, have any of you asked why they're doing this program? I'd be interested to hear what they say.