Flatspin

Some smaller airlines' pilots have less experience

February 13, 2009 - 7:40pm

By DAVID KOENIG
AP Airlines Writer
DALLAS (AP) - Pilots and co-pilots for smaller, feeder airlines such as Colgan Air generally earn lower salaries and start with less experience than their counterparts at the bigger mainline carriers.
The captain of Colgan Air Flight 3407 had 3 1/2 years of experience and nearly 3,400 flight hours at the regional airline; his co-pilot had been on the job barely a year.
By contrast, the average pilot at American Airlines has been there 18 years, according to FltOps.com, a financial-planning company for pilots.
Chesley Sullenberger, who guided his crippled US Airways jet to a safe landing on the Hudson River last month, has spent 28 years and logged nearly 20,000 flight hours at his airline.
It's unclear what role, if any, the Colgan crew's experience level played in Thursday night's crash near Buffalo, N.Y., which killed all 49 people on board and one on the ground. The cause of the crash had not been determined by Friday evening, although speculation centered on ice building up on the plane's wings.
But what is clear, experts say, is that flying for regional airlines can be a grueling existence and a sacrifice that many pilots make in hopes of moving up to a major airline where the pay and hours are better.
Beginning pay for a co-captain on a regional airline can be as low as $18,000 a year, according to Louis Smith, president of FltOps.com.
"You won't make a livable income until you get in the left (captain's) seat," Smith said. "Pilots accept this as part of the game, and the companies do it because they can."
Captains on regional airlines may earn far less than the passengers they ferry around the country every day, linking major airline hubs with smaller cities.
According to IAG, an airline industry research firm, Colgan captains make about $58,000 per year and first officers or co-pilots about $27,000.
Starting pay, however, can be much lower. Colgan advertised in late 2007 for a captain's job that paid $40 per flight hour for a guaranteed 75 hours a month _ or about $36,000 a year.
The average pilot at American Airlines makes more than $138,000 a year, according to American.
At regional carriers, "The pay is not as high, the planes are smaller, and they typically have some younger pilots who have less experience when they're hired," said Kit Darby, a former United Airlines captain.
Because they operate shorter flights, regional pilots work more days to meet their limit of about 83 flying hours per month. Darby, who runs AIR Inc., a career-advice service for pilots, said many are away from home 16 or 17 days per month.
Pilots at regionals are often hired with 2,000 hours of flight experience _ much less when pilots are in demand _ compared with 5,000 to 6,000 hours for new hires at the majors, experts said.
The Colgan job listing from 2007 called for captain's applicants to have 3,000 hours, including at least 1,000 in a multiengine plane _ meaning the airline was looking for an experienced pilot, not a hobbyist or recent graduate who would probably lack the experience on multiengine aircraft.
On its Web site Friday, Colgan said it was hiring first officers or co-pilots with 1,000 hours of flying time. But in a listing last month for a co-pilot, Colgan asked for as little as 600 hours of flight time.
Horizon Air, the regional affiliate of Alaska Airlines, requires 750 hours for new co-pilots; American Eagle, the regional sister to American Airlines, requires just 500 hours.
The captain of Flight 3407, Marvin Renslow, joined Colgan Air in September 2005, and co-pilot Rebecca Shaw had flown for Colgan just over a year. A third pilot who was off-duty but aboard the plane was hired by Colgan in September 2005.
Despite repeated requests, Pinnacle Airlines of Memphis, Tenn., the parent of Colgan Air, did not say how much experience the captain and co-pilot had before they joined Colgan, or where they were trained.
While they may begin with less experience than pilots at the major airlines, pilots for regional airlines become highly skilled by performing many takeoffs and landings in their short-hop flying and by dealing with all kinds of weather _ sometimes in the same day _ said Jack Jarvis, a former Piedmont Airlines captain.
"These guys are very experienced pilots and used to those conditions," said Jarvis, now the DC-9 chief pilot for cargo airline ABX Air Inc. "They've seen a lot of this stuff."
Years ago, most airline pilots came from the military. Now many are trained at specialized schools such as Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Daniel Webster College and the University of North Dakota, and there are flight schools that groom people for the cockpit in six months.
Flight 3407 was a Dash 8 Q400 turboprop made by Bombardier and put into service by Colgan last April. Bombardier spokesman John Arnone said the price, which was not disclosed, almost certainly included training Colgan's pilots on a simulator.
The smaller regional airlines used to be a stepping stone to better-paying jobs at the major airlines such as Delta, American and United. But since the terror attacks of 2001, that career path has been closed as the big airlines furloughed thousands of pilots.
According to FltOps.com, there are 3,100 pilots who have been furloughed at the major airlines and are waiting to be rehired, and another 930 at regional airlines. The job market for pilots is also crowded by nearly 4,000 pilots whose carriers have gone out of business.
That has forced some pilots to consider a career spent entirely at a regional carrier.
"Now lots of people at the regionals are senior pilots who like the lifestyle and aren't going anywhere," said Bill Swelbar, an airline industry researcher at MIT and a director at the parent of Hawaiian Airlines. "If I can live in my small town in Utah and fly for SkyWest, I'm pretty happy."