I doubt that the number of flight instructors being hired will go up if flight schools offer a higher pay that airlines. CFIs making $40k are leaving their job to work for $20k at a regional as a F/O. I'm planning to leave my $45k desk job for a $20k job at a regional too, so I don't think that pay has anything to do with it.

 

Instructors are pilots first of all. If given the opportunity to have an actual flying job I am sure that most would jump at it no matter what the pay was.

Those who can do the rest teach. Ancient Chinese Proverb

Skyhigh

 

Those who can't, teach. That's what I've always been told.

 

Western Michigan University, where I graduated from, just gave their instructors benefits and higher pay. For a family man this might work over going to an airline. I myself never got a CFI because at the time the lack of benefits and pay made for a regional job if I could get one a better choice so I took it. I Think that flight instructors need to be looked at as a long term professional career with pay to match. I think that there are some people out there that would leave an airline job to be home. Only problem there is that now you have raised the cost of training and lost more students. Supply and demand, airlines will have to start paying more to get pilots and that will trickle down and more people will start flying. Of course plane tickets will increase, lowering numbers of passengers, which lowers the demand for airlines. It is quite a chain of events but it will all work out.

 

Actually, it has a lot to do with it. We've got 40 instructors and presently there are none that are planning to go to a regional job anytime soon. I'm trying to save $$ to open up some options, but going somewhere else just isn't discussed in our crew room on a regular basis.

Families, homes, and financial situations dictate staying at a stable job instead of jumping into a unstable segment of the industry at an uncertain time just for the sake of doing whatever it is the people seem to think that they need to do by going to the regionals.

 

Someone mentioned that CFI rides have slowed. I know a lot of students see the airlines hiring at 300 hours and don't even want to get their CFI. They'll do anything to skip it. Maybe I'm biased, but my best students are the ones that want to teach, even if only for a year or so. Personally, I'd love to teach after retiring. If I could command 40 dollars an hour for instructing, I'd do it. But a 22 year old with 600+ hours can't really do that. If you have the track record and experience though, it is possible.

 

Yeah, I think that's what Skyhigh meant, his punctuation just sucks.

Those who can...do, the rest teach.

 

Thanks for the grammar lesson. I am not very good with spelling and grammar.

SkyHigh


Those who can...do, the rest teach.

Why wait to go to the regionals? The hiring boom could come crashing down at any minute with just a few simple changes in the market. Don't take it for granted. If you have a job opportunity at the regionals then go for it.

My generation was paying 15K for a regional job and 5K to be a CFI in the early 1990's. It was common to be stuck as a CFI for three years to be followed by three to five more years as a night piston cargo time before even coming onto the radar of a regional airline.

In any case it was no fun and made life very difficult.

 

If the pay was better I would become a full time CFI because I have 3 young children, so I can't be gone 4 days a week at an airline job. I have a cheap house and my wife works also, so even if the pay was 40-50k, I could live with that and be fine. But I would never leave my day job to be a CFI now because they make so little. So I do think $$ is the biggest thing. But like was stated above, if you double or triple the CFI salary, the cost of training will go through the roof...

 

If they were paying that when I was doing the full-time CFI gig, I would've probably went. I made $17-19k/yr when I did, and that was about 700hrs dual/yr, plus some other flying. I'm only 26, but I know when I "retire" I will still teach. I haven't ever stopped though either, minus my freight job.