Originally Posted by ZapBrannigan

The problem is that air travel is being treated as a public utility.

There are a shortage of medical specialists. You know that because when you try to make an appointment, they can’t see you for weeks or months. But nobody is trying to reduce the qualifications or requirements to become a specialist in medicine.

In our profession though, everyone from airline executives, to the media, to congress, and even some of our very own PILOTS are actively trying to lower the barriers to entry to make it easier to put a seat warmer in the cockpit! It’s absurd… you wouldn’t find a doctor arguing that it should be easier to become a doctor. They know their worth.

Why? Because every family feels as though they are owed a trip to Disneyland for $49 round trip. And airlines are trying to extract any costs they can from the business to make that happen. Labor is low hanging fruit. But why have we as pilots been helping those efforts? Because pilots have always been our own worst enemy…

Gulfstream International… pilots paid $20,000 for 100 dollars in the right seat of a Beech 1900 doing revenue service…
Kiwi International Airlines… pilots paid $50,000 to the company in exchange for a job
Valujet… pilots paid for their DC9 training
Comair Academy… pilots paid $10,000+ for training at Comair, Great Lakes,
FlightSafety… pilots paid $10,000+ for training at Chautauqua, Commutair, Pinnacle, Mesaba, Continental Express, etc… and didn’t get an official job offer until they successfully passed.
SWA… required a 737 type rating for many years to even earn an interview. The lucky few had one from other airlines. The rest paid for their training.

And today, pilots advocate to reduce the ATP rule, increase the retirement age… anything we can do to get there quicker and stay longer, experience and safety be damned. Shiny jet syndrome. Pilots want the job, but can’t seem to wrap their heads around why the job is as lucrative as it is. Because if it were easy, everybody would do it. And that’s just what management wants. To turn this profession that we love into just another public transportation system. We went from crisp uniforms to leather coats and ski jackets. They make training easier. They look for ways to adopt a European type system of master and apprentice. Every day they chip away at the passion, dedication, and tradition that made todays pilots strive to reach that goal. And we are helping them do it.

The pilot shortage is a management problem forged by three decades of treating commuter airline pilots like beasts of burden. Let management fix it without our help.