Originally Posted by
Excargodog
For starters, three regionals have disappeared altogether and if one or two more don’t go before this gets done, I’d be greatly surprised.
And fleet reductions at some of the legacies may well compel reductions at some of their affiliated regionals, just to meet scope agreements.
Then you are going to have some other career speed bumps. A lot of the senior people at regionals who weren’t furloughed will have graduated to a situation where their going to the majors just doesn’t make sense, they’d have to start all over at the bottom of a seniority list while not making all that much more than what they have at the regional with far less seniority based scheduling clout. They basically have become immobile, sitting in those regional slots until retirement.
In the meantime, 1000 pilots a year who could have been getting out of the military but instead have been waiting for this COVID to be over will all be getting out, probably 2500 or so of them.
Some - those current - will go directly to the majors or nearly so. The others will be going to the regionals for probably a year of ‘touch and go’ to get current before they go to the majors, leaving their fellows at the regional behind. Except of course by that time another 1000 military aviators will have worked off their ADSCs too.
Basically there are just too many pilots too far more qualified than you for this to resolve quickly given reduced airline sizes.
Sorry, but if that’s not the reality it will be damn close to it,
I disagree with this. The regionals that have gone under have left their pilots with no option but to look for other work.
Those pilots will all find jobs during the next couple years (perhaps non-flying). Once the regionals start hiring again, they’re going to offer around 40K starting, no bonus and no hint of upgrading anytime soon.
If the pilots found other, better jobs- I doubt they’ll come back.
Military aviators can’t just extend their contract “until COVID is over.” They have to commit for a specified time. The ones that were getting out were looking to do so because the civilian path looked better than the military path. Not the case anymore.
Civilian aviators need 1500 hours to get hired. Entry level work is going to be hard to find. Instead of 2 years of flight instructing it will likely take 5 years of grinding it out to get that time.
Once the regionals start hiring there will be applicants. Those applicants will run out pretty quickly in my opinion. I don’t think the flood gates will open with qualified applicants until the situation gets bleak to offer hiring bonuses and a reasonable shot at upgrading quickly.
Maybe I’m naive, but it’s just hard to imagine a large number of qualified people jumping at the chance to decrease their overall quality of life for the foreseeable future. That’s why the regionals were so desperate to get people right before the crash. If it were me I’d stick to the military, fire fighting, cargo/corporate or whatever else I’ve been doing