billsaw

The thing is not all will need to get hired. Not even close to half. You take 10% (mind you these will be the major airline qualified experienced guys with 4,000+ hours not the FO's) and you just sent the business aviation pilot market into a tailspin.

With many flight departments already running bare bones (2 pilots per plane) there is no capacity to loose even a small percentage. Could you imagine if you went to 1 in 5 of the flight department in the US running anything Challenger and bigger and took just one experienced captain? Where are they gonna get the guy to replace him?

Which brings us to the FO's. Reports are it's even hard for the corporate operators to hire rookie FO's onto planes that only fly 150 hours a year. Why? Because all they want to do is get to 1,500 and get to the airlines. By the time they do that on 150 hour per year aircraft the hiring boom will be over and they will be at the bottom of a seniority list for 30 years. They aren't as stupid as we may think.

And just that mentality of I am outta here the first chance I get being so widespread should make operators and management companies really reevaluate the corporate pay structure. If the airlines start poaching captains and the FO's en mass have no intention of hanging around past 1,500 hours in a few years bizav will be cleaned out. A brain drain of sorts. Which is dangerous to all these billionaires and millionaires that value their health.

Every single flight department in the US needs to think long and hard about matching airline pay and QOL and they need to do it fast. I would not want to be a chief pilot of a flight department right now who's owners or HR have not or will not come to that realization. It's gonna be a miserable job.

And as far as that NBAA salary survey goes (which is what owners/HR seem to look at) isn't even good enough to wipe my *** with. Those people that produce that should be summarily fired. It will be really interesting to read next year to see what top pay is on large cabin aircraft now that it's basically public knowledge that some are paying big bucks. Before they just refused to publish the high paying stuff bringing the average down.


Two more questions if I were management that would be on my mind. How many guys in my flight department have their applications in with the airlines?
How many applications do I have from Delta, American, UPS etc pilots wanting to come work for me?
That should tell you all you need to know.