Originally Posted by
CALTEX
1. Get rid of PIC requirement for Mainline job. Replace with 5 year 121 experience. After 5 years, you are more than qualified to sling gear at the majors. This will solve all the problems of racing to the bottom to get that coveted PIC time. How many guys take crappy jobs with low pay, terrible work rules, sadistic management, and etc., just to get PIC? Who would take a job at a bottom feeder if all they need is years and not PIC?
A lot of guys do and its the wise thing to do, hate to say it. And you are exactly right to say that contributes to the overall issue of having low ball regional carriers because they know they can startup and find cheap labor thirsting for the PIC experience to get a better job.
I like this idea a lot. Promoting to legacy airline recruiters that hey don't count out the AE or Comair or ASA or Coex guy with 5 years as an FO because upgrade times were sky high. The only issue of course is PIC is preferred, and understandably so, and next time carriers start hiring they'll have a lot of PIC time pilots to select from and then if things get short they can go to low time PIC guys and then after that the SIC guys, which by that time would be PIC. Its self correcting.
But I don't discount that this is a good idea.
And as someone else said, 5 years Part 121 OR military.
Originally Posted by
CALTEX
2. Mainline guys stop giving up SCOPE to save pay, jobs or to get a shiny jet. The regional jet should have been mainline flying. Any plane that can leave the "region" should have been mainline. The jobs would have come back, the pay would be better than it is now, and the company is going to get the jet anyway. How many DC-3's are still flying?
A lot of us, A LOT, are working on it.
Originally Posted by
CALTEX
3. Be willing to sacrifice. Do not pick up OT when staffing is low, or worse, guys on the street. Do not sell out your junior guys! Yes, you have been there, done that, but that doesn't mean it is someone else's turn to eat the sh.t sandwich. Ten years ago the senior guys sold SCOPE to save their A$$es and now it is the very thing that is killing the profession.
I'm sure you can all add something, but these are the three things that I see need to be addressed.
Valid point about open time pickup, especially when pilots are furloughed or furloughs are pending.