ALPA: Don't raise retirement age
 

ALPA has officially adopted a resolution opposing any attempts to increase the retirement age for professional airline pilots.


SOURCE:
https://aerocrewnews.com/aviation-ne...irline-pilots/

Good.
Fix the problem.

Glad I didn’t have to sue to get my dues back. They made the right choice this time

It's been their policy for years. And good.

So the unions don't want to allow an extension of retirement age, and they don't want to lower the artificially high entry barrier, so what solutions are they actually coming up with to help solve at least the current short term acute pilot shortage?

The only option left: increase pay and QoL to attract more people to the industry.

Why should they bother, it's not really their problem to solve???

They've been telling the airlines this was coming for years. Airlines had plenty of time to do something, although covid was a big distraction at the wrong moment.

If airlines didn't want to massively raise compensation and QOL, they could have easily setup paid ab-initio pipelines about five years ago and they'd be fine. Zero => CPL/CFI =>CFI (or just paid to to turn avgas into noise) to 1500 hours => regional => mainline. You'd have all the takers you'd need for that.

yeah, the unions are the bad guys for not wanting to devalue the labor of their members :rolleyes:

There are more ATP holders than commercial pilot jobs. How is that a shortage?

ROI timeframe. How do you convince someone to invest in an idea that may take 5-10 years to pay off? Especially when the competition isn't. Similarly in the military I used to call it three year good idea rule. If something briefs well and at least appears to look good for three years the principal actors have all gotten promoted/PCS/retired before an idea craters and even if it does do well they typically aren't around to see any extended benefit, financial or otherwise. People just don't look much beyond 2-3 years and yes I've been guilty too.

if there was a like button.

so a Project Manager at a tech company can pull in 500k. In their 20s possibly. Whats a wide body CA worth? Double? Triple ?
unfortunatly it’s more like half. Fix that and there won’t be a “shortage” anymore.

If there was a high barrier to entry the compensation would be higher. Surgeons have a high barrier to entry which is why they make a lot of money. You can be a pilot zero to hero in less than two years

That doesn't solve anything in the short term. Maybe not even the mid-term.
False cause and effect. Neither lowering the entry requirements or extending the retirement age at the current point in time will have any effect on wages. Nearly impossible to get to 1500 in less than two years, and for most it costs well over $100k. The hill between wet commercial and 1500 is too steep to climb for most, especially given the training costs. That's really the crux of the issue. And as such, it does indeed create a high barrier to entry.

1. It would absolutely have an affect on wages

2. You 100% can get 1500hrs in less than two years.

3. Do you know how much it costs and how long it takes to get a bachelor, go to med school, and complete a residency? A lot longer than two years and a lot more than $100k. Now that’s a barrier to entry yet folk still getting into the field. I bet less than half do it bc their primary reason is helping people. Big money and prestige are primary. Give us that and no more shortage and you could even make the requirements that much harder.

Good thing we don’t only look at the “current time.”

It's a training shortage, not a pilot shortage. There are still plenty of 1500+ hour qualified guys on the street but the airlines can't train them fast enough. So a flight cancels and they cry "pilot shortage" when they actually should be saying "demand is back and we downsized for covid and now we can't train fast enough, plz help".

They were against age 65 for years before they caved. I wouldn't have been shocked to see them cave on this one too, but I'm glad they didn't.

They will cave. ALPA like SWAPA has screwed the pilots more than once. Just ask the TWA or AirTran guys.

Just because you can go zero to hero in 2 years doesn’t make it easy. Not anyone can be a pilot. Not even close. Medical, education, coordination, personality, etc. Lots of layers

Is rather have a national seniority list, and ALPA and every other Union take care of the furloughed.

What? As far as I know, every person I met while training/building time in my first few jobs had 1500 and were at a regional in well under 2 years. I did it in 14 months. It’s no where remotely close to “nearly impossible”.

Where were you learning to fly and build time? My next push will be to advocate for 2500tt to sit at a regional.

You’re welcome swapa

🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂ ️

You run a flight school and a crappy 135. You're management. This is your problem to solve. Not labor. Bye now.

Exactly. Just like they did last time. ALPA is like an angry chihuahua. They make a lot of noise but run when it gets bad for them.

Yep I know a few guys sitting at home getting paid bc the regional they got hired at can’t train them. Why? Bc the instructors keep leaving. Why bc the majors pay better. No shortage of 1500hr pilots. Shortage of money.

It would align with your post history. You certainly cannot be an airline pilot.

You are significantly missing the point.

Take wet commercials, put them in ASEL with another wet commercial and assign them specific flight IFR operations. Make them use checklists and airline crew style procedures. You could even velcro dummy controls to the panel for added complexity.

Both log it, safety pilot, or just get the FAA to authorize SIC for the training evolution... that's 1250/2 = 625 hours each, or about $90K per student at market rental rates. You could get that cost lower by running your own large fleet.

Obligated service at that legacy's regionals to pay it back.

Maybe get the FAA to authorize R-ATP at 1000 hours for those that complete the program.

Except that supply is being artificially inflated due to regulatory barriers to entry.

Decreased supply = higher price, increased supply = lower price. To claim reducing minimum requirements, therefore increasing pilot supply, would not negatively impact wages is…not accurate.

Besides, most decent professions have “regulatory barriers to entry” - ours just happens to coincide with experience, not education.

Why don’t we just let some middle schoolers become pilots without high school. I mean really why have any barriers to entry at all.

This is Airline PILOT central not airline owners central. Make the barriers to entry high and wages will go up and then you’ll have more people chasing the career. Shortage gone.

In our case, experience IS the best education... nobody's come up with an academic curriculum which is a good substitute for experience. Despite what riddle, et al might claim :rolleyes:

Actually doctors have to get a lot of clinical experience as well after med school, and they used to get paid $30K and work 100 hours/week while doing it (conditions have improved recently). The more lucrative specialties require even more years of clinical experience as an intern.

Sounds similar to CFI until 1500hrs. Just seems like we need to make the money a lot higher after the 1500hrs and then ROI will make sense

The short term is similar to airlines slashing summer schedules they could not fly. It was the prudent BUISNESS decision. Similarly, slowing growth until the labor supply catches up is the prudent thing to do. ALPA is not responsible for reckless growth and therefore should oppose the proposed solutions.

Or airlines pay for initial training and/or time building.

I would argue that's a better solution from a business perspective because you're not then stuck with lucrative CBA's until the next you can justify chapter 11. Paid training can be throttled as necessary based on supply and demand.

If the offer free training with a housing and/or stipend until employed at a regional they'd get plenty of applicants, more than they need I'm sure.

The fundamental problem is that the aviation market is overregulated. These problems are caused by government and will not be fixed until government gets out of the way.

The training will cost more than the CBAs. Let the new pilot pay to train themselves and then they can choose what airline works best for them and the most lucrative CBA being a motivating factor instead of paying for their training and getting servitude.

We are airline pilots did we forget. The idea is to pull as much compensation out of these places as possible. Let the managers run the companies because their other goal is pulling out as much cash as possible for themselves.

The spirit CEO gets $12M in bonus for closing the frontier merger so tells JetBlue they aren’t interested and also they don’t expect any increase in pilot cost for five years.

You’re so silly :-P