"Pilot Shortage" - well ?
 

Well not much talk lately of the supposedly looming pilot shortage. Any more developments on this topic ? Any signs ?

I say "no"

Look at the major airline retirement schedule 4-5 years from now and then for 20+ years. Maybe not a "shortage", but game on for anyone in the business looking to land a sweet gig.

Just my opinion.

A guy from my airline hired at DAL/AA/UAL...so 2 of them are getting a no show phone call. Another guy left UAL groundschool after INDOC to go to DAL.

Two chinese airlines in the past few months are now hiring Expat FOs. China has NEVER hired any expat FOs before. Emirates does a Road Show for new pilots in Singapore...no one shows up. New airlines starting in China. New mainline routes in China. New regional routes in China. New airports in China. LCC in Asia (outside of China/ME) have 1000 aircraft on order.

DAL capt told me DAL hiring is bringing in more guys than they need...they are trying to get guys now that would have gone to UAL/AA. DAL's plan is to have those guys now, and keep them, which will hurt UAL/AA down the road when the shortage gets even worse.
Etc., etc., etc.

shortage will only ever be at the regional level. I think it's only a matter of time before the majors start specifically targeting the pilots of each other's regional's to hurt the competition's feed

[QUOTE

Two chinese airlines in the past few months are now hiring Expat FOs. China has NEVER hired any expat FOs before.[/QUOTE]

Which airlines?

Heck, Delta went and BOUGHT a regional, just to get those pilots into the Delta pipeline! :rolleyes: (Pindeveavor)

At peanut pay rates of course, but... if you are willing to fly for peanuts until you get some time, you'll get a "Guaranteed Interview" at Delta!

Whoo Hoo!

Chinese hiring ? Who ? what about the reputed difficult Chinese medical ?

Look back at the last big hiring spree, it was not the Majors who were hurting, but the RJ's and the FBO Puppy Mills, who were losing every 250+hr. IP they had to the RJ's, who were losing every 2000hr. Captain they had to the Majors.

So, now that there is a new FAR, where RJ F/O's have to have 1500hrs., where are they going to find F/O's?

The chinese medical is difficult. The airlines are working with the CAA to make it easier. Every chinese airline is hiring..mostly DECs...base pay ranges from $15-22K/month. A guy at my airline said his buddy went there as DEC and asked for and got $30K/month. Don't know the 2 CHinese FO airlines...it was an recruiting email sent to me. *************.com has some good threads on China. They also need bizjet guys in CHina. I was offered a Falcon 7x DEC slot...but I don't think I could pass the medical...hearing loss and over age 50.

Something like that.

Which airlines?[/QUOTE]

Lucky Air in Kunming is hiring qualified 737 FOs. Hainan is looking for A-320 or B-737 FOs. I have heard China Eastern is looking at hiring some FOs and as always Yangtze River has hired FOs in the past. There are several Business Jet operators who have hired in the past. If you can get hired at a US Major, I recommend that over coming here to China but if you are looking for a short term most hire based upon a 3 year contract.

You haven't failed until you try. Hearing is not that big of a deal here, the bigger issues are difficult blood/urine tests which evaluate over 30 criteria. Heart related issues like BP, EKG, pulse rate and treadmill stress test. Another big player is kidney stones or gall bladder sludge. If you have the time/patience you have a chance at a great Falcon Jet job and a commuting contract. If you want stability and security then don't come here but the reward might pay off handsomely if your willing to take some risk.

No pilot shortage will happen. The planes will get bigger, and customers will have to drive to the hub. Fares will be outrageous, and if the unions can get their acts together, the old pay will return.

It is also impacting the smaller corporate operators that require an ATP as part of an SMS or internal policy. The requirement to take the ATP "prep" course before getting an ATP that is.The Fortune 100 operators never have a problem attracting top tier applicants (much like the majors, there's no shortage there). Corporate job postings are gradually shifting from "required" to "preferred" (e.g. type rating, 1000 hrs in type, etc.) Everyone is fighting for the same available candidates right now.

Not just that, they also evaporated an airline and told 2000 pilots to go pound sand...

Many wound up overseas rather than go back to $20/hour.

I don't think that Delta is going to experience a shortage.

Two weeks ago I spoke with one of our new hires, who had just left United. It could get tricky at the FFD carriers, who cannot fill their classes.

ETD is DOA.

This is a process, and not a fast one. The current status as I see it:

The U.S. is producing new pilots for domestic consumption at a negligible rate. Embry Riddle and Flight Safety International are over 90% foreign pilots with commitments overseas. They have money and buy luxury apartments while in training, so they have U.S. addresses on their licenses, and the FAA reports they are licensing U.S. residents, but they aren't going to U.S. airlines. U.S. schools will be graduating only a hundreds of American commercial pilots every year for many years, based on current enrollment.

Young Americans are not entering flight training, they consider the career undesirable, and doomed to obsolescence due to automation and technology. The FAA recently released a statement that this would not happen soon, which came across as assuring young people it would happen, probably later during their peak earning years. There will not be a surge of new American pilots, or a surge of foreign pilots taking pay cuts to come here.

U.S. major airlines are hiring 4000+ pilots per year (Boeing forecasts 4,500/yr), mostly from the regionals. That number is supposed to be going up according to the airlines. The regionals have around 16,000-18,000 pilots, it won't take long for this hiring to decimate them, and the U.S. domestic airline networks they fly the majority of.

Regional airlines are in a shortage, are cutting routes and parking airplanes due to lack of pilots.

U.S. business aviation has over 13,000 jets on order. Their pilots have been stagnated as long as the majors, they are approaching normal retirement age. They will need a lot of pilots, especially if they see scheduled airline service cut back in this country. Some estimates (NBAA and Bureau of Labor Statistics) show business aviation hiring more pilots than the airlines over the next ten years. Maybe not, but it will be significant.

All of this is before the industry sees over half the commercial pilots in the U.S. retire in one decade, and a surge in demand with the economic recovery.

So the question is not "will it happen", it is already happening, but how painful will it be and who will win and who will lose?

Scottm, try not to confuse the issue with the facts. Those that believe there will never be a shortage can't handle the facts.

?

Define "shortage" ?

No. I think Scottm did just fine. But you go ahead and look it up. We'll wait.

Good question. Most people define it based on how it effects them, which is a problem when pilot union leaders aren't going to feel the effects for some time, and management may never feel adverse effects.

Most of us would say Great Lakes has a pilot shortage, but economists would say they don't, as they haven't raised their pay. Economists look at effects for evidence of a cause. The declining number of pilots available is increasing profits at most airlines, by forcing capacity discipline, elimination of less or non-profitable operations, and ending price wars. So there are the "right" number of pilots for this industry now, as long as it is economically healthy, which it is. For the past decade+, the industry has been unhealthy because of an endless supply of ever cheaper workers, allowing a downward spiral of quality and prices, where nobody could hold their prices long enough to make a profit.

Scottum,
As much as I would like to rejoice in a true "shortage" I'm not sure that is the best for pilots as well going forward. If it results in regionals increasing pay and luring young blood into the profession, then that would be good.... if it means an ever decreasing ability for the majors to feed what they want to operate as a mainline system, that may not turn out so well.
Great posts though.
JMHO

This is not totally accurate. The capacity discipline being currently practiced is only in part due to a lack of pilots, and is only true at the regionals, not at the majors. The current DAL and UAL CBA's severely curtail the ability of purchasing more RJs unless mainline grows first. Other factors include the price of oil (RJ's, especially the 50 seaters, were designed to fly with oil priced at $12-15 a barrel), the cost of insurance, which skyrocketed after 9/11, and the cost of leasing (pre-9/11 and the bankruptcies, a DAL 767 lease payment was $500,000 a month; in the aftermath, it went down to $150,000. MD-80's could be had for under $100,000. The cost of a 50 seat RJ never got below about $60,000).

The new rules, however, do change the equation for everyone. Too much is being made of the new 1500 hour rule by itself. Remember, back in the day, we all had to work as CFI's to get our time up to 1500 hours to get a regional job. That will happen again, and that's the easy part--you won't have to buy the hours past 250 if you don't want to. What has changed are the other requirements to get the job (Level D sim training, etc.), and the overall cost of learning how to fly. None of us can dispute the disincentive to pursue a professional career with such uncertain odds of success (defined as making it to a major).

Another oft-forgotten issue is the fact that captain candidates need to log 1,000 hours of right seat time at a 121 carrier now before upgrading. That will decimate smaller carriers down the road, and probably end the Essential Air Service (EAS) program. It will also likely make it extremely difficult to start a new airline.

The shortage is most definitely here. One need only spend a few minutes talking to regional airline managers and recruiters to realize that. The majors themselves will not hurt for pilots for several years, but by then the damage will be done: most of their feed for long-haul domestic and international flights comes from Class D airports that are primarily served by regional carriers...that, as has been pointed out, are already reducing service. Some smaller towns will indeed lose service, and that is capitalism working at its finest. If the demand is not there, the service won't be either.

There are a number of options for addressing this, but as yet, nobody has been willing to take the necessary steps. Whoever does it first will win.

Where did you get this data?

The only data I have is from APC concerning retirements at the legacies. My calculations for a 10 year period 2013-2022 show 34% mandatory retirements at both Delta and United, and about 40% at US/American.

I work at United, and half of our pilots will retire in the next 10 years.

The majors are all hiring as fast as they can, working their existing pilots as hard as they possibly can, they are unable to grow beyond their pilot manning levels. Maybe they choose not to grow, even though their existing flying is wildly profitable, but airline executives have never before shown individual restraint out of concern for industry health or profits.

There are no CBAs that limit mainline growth, even pilots seem to have forgotten that mainlines can fly small jets. Some mainline pilots will fly them cheaper than the regionals now. The majors are milking the last of the money out of the regionals, before regional costs spike in a tightening labor market.

For mainline executives, the best thing about watching their low-cost competitors shrink, will be all the seasoned airline employees on the street looking for work. That and empty gates and slots, idle equipment and airport space, and a drop in jet-fuel demand. Mainline costs will go down, even if they have to offer signing bonuses to pilots. This gift will just keep on giving.

The majors have few pilots under 50, very few. Nearly all will retire within 15 years, most during the next 5 to 15 years. That is the ten-years we haven't gotten to, that I refer to. By then the majors will have hired a lot of regional pilots, but the ones they are currently hiring aren't young. We may see a lull in hiring within the next few years, another spike in the heart of pilots in training, already fearful of the next round of stagnation.

I called ERAU, Flight Safety, and ATP. They don't track where their graduates go to work but the combined estimate was that they're producing about 1000 pilots per year that would stay in the U.S. Majors are hiring 2500+ this year and the trend is for even greater hiring.

same for us over at DAL

The average age of the DAL pilot group is 53, thats fact. The list will be turning over in the next few years. You're posts are pretty much dead on.

One thing people arent considering is that the regionals wont ever be able to be what they once were. The new hiring standards have made it that way. This will ultimately shift that flying back to mainline, DAL is already doing it with the 717's, airbus's and md88/90's. There likely wont be any big pushes for bigger planes at the regionals like there once was, the regionals just cant staff them looking into the near future.

off apc.

delta 12017 pilots current on delta net, retire next ten 4027= 33% not half
united 12500 pilots retire next ten 4245 = 33 % not half
based of required retire, even with some early that only effects the last couple years and not by that much

historically it was a 30 yr career. hire at 32 retire at 60. now the hire age is a little higher but so is the retire at 65.... so we retire 1/3 in 1/3 of an average career. nothing out of the norm here..... apple apple

I agree with your logic above but remember those are the mandatory retirement numbers - a lot of guys never make it to 65.

We could easily add a 5% attrition rate to your numbers above. Still not 50% but probably closer to 40% than 33%.

Also I think it is safe to assume that the number of guys who don't make it to 65 will be larger than the number who did not make it to 60. Hell, 5 more years for things to go wrong. :eek:

Scoop

yes but if we early out guys 2-3 years early that only effects the last 2-3 years in the 10yr window. go forward a couple years and those guys are part of the mandatory anyway. not much effect imo....just saying. sliding a few guys early only slides the window and wont change the total for the next 30....so in effect very short term diff. nothing in the long run

the good part is steady hiring. shortage no. steady yes. nothing like what we have had for the last decade. so in perspective it is awesome compared to what we are use to for the last ten years.

US Bureau of Labor Statistics says the number of domestic airline pilot jobs will actually decrease somewhat through 2022. The pilot shortage proponents do not like their analysis for some reason though, which is curious.

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all numbers we are talking about here are replacing pilots not adding to the total. 800 out of 104000 total throughout indusrty is insignificant and only shows no total growth. Delta and United need to replace about 8200 pilots in the next ten....assuming no change in current structure, its a wag but there is nothing else but a wag

Right now we are seeing fairly high numbers of pilots staying to 65. The new retirement systems don't reward staying like they used to, the incentive to stay is that pilots can't afford to start drawing down their 401k funds, and can't afford the expensive medical plans in retirement. At my airline you lose retirement benefit value by staying past 60, but many still can't afford to leave.

Many years ago, a lot of airline pilots went to corporate flying at 60 and worked another five years. Corporations needed the pilots. If corporations start hurting for pilots, they could easily make it worth making the jump at 60 or even 55. A decent retirement plan alone could make it worth the jump, especially for those pilots who will never make the top seniority with the high pay at their airline. A lot of the current new-hires are pretty senior, and will be in that position. Corporate flying can be challenging, but technology is making it easier, and the bigger jets they are trending to are pretty sweet. As the airlines get more productivity out of their pilots, and cut hotel costs, the airline pilot lifestyle is going to keep getting more challenging by comparison.

There is also no talk about the LCC. Spirit, Jet Blue, Virgin. From what I noticed, they will grow. I'm sure a handful of these guys moving to the legacy. At my company, we are losing 30-50 pilots a month. Some to Delta, and the rest to other airlines. We haven't seen the big retirement yet. We are getting to the point that the company is positive space us on our commute so we don't call in honest or call in sick. I have never seen that at this company, all of this while Delta is parking 50 seater as fast as they can.

A bit of history is in order here. After deregulation, airlines did not know how to operate in an unregulated market, and so most of them screwed it up in fabulous fashion: goofy city pairs, poor network management, new fleets, the airline-within-the-airline fiascos. That was the order of the day through the 1980s and early 1990s. The result was predictable: many failed.

In the late 80s and early 90s, there was a gradual turnover of management as the older generation retired. The new generation began the imposition of containing capacity and doing a better job of controlling inventory (Bob Crandall at American was at the forefront of this, which is something he learned working for Hallmark selling greeting cards). Others followed, and eventually it was perfected, esp. in the post-9/11 world. None of the airline managers in that era were hold-overs any more. All had come from other backgrounds, and had a much better understanding of the value and cost of a seat. In fact, there is no commodity more useless than an empty seat on a plane that is pushing back from the gate--it can never be sold again.

In the last 10-15 years, airlines have shown phenomenal discipline in controlling inventory, and thus costs. It is that discipline that has allowed the industry to thrive, along with overhauls in the overall model, including some of the fluff in legacy labor contracts (not just the pilots).

The legacies may have pilots working more hours, but they still don't come close to the average line of a regional pilot, where line values start at 82-84 hours per month, while the min line value at a major may be 70-75, even when taking into account seasonal spikes in the summer. Throw in differences in vacation and sick accrual, along with the ability adjust schedules, and regional pilots still work harder.

Bare in mind as well that while the majors are "wildly profitable," all of them are dealing with sizeable debt loads that need to be addressed. Delta (I believe) has a total debt burden of $8-10 billion, and United's is around $14 billion. Those are big numbers, and both carriers are aggressively working to pare them down. If you think they're making money now, wait until those debt loads are reduced. Remember, the only airlines that are making money strictly on their operations are Southwest and jetBlue. Everyone else is only making money because of ancillary fees.

As for growth, the reality is that there isn't much room for organic growth for network carriers. They already go where people want to go, and as far as the areas that they don't go, someone in their alliance does. There comes a point where it is cheaper to book someone on an alliance partner vs. opening a station on your own. The growth now is in total revenue, and that's where all the fees come into play.

The smaller cities in the US are about to learn that (cheap) air service is not a right, it's a privilege, and you will only have it if the demand is there.

The pilot shortage is indeed here, but it will be some time before the real pain is felt. I do believe that something will happen to change the market for pilots, whether it's more pay or some other incentive, but it will happen.

It's awfully hard to walk away from an extra $1.5-2.0 million over 5 years (salary and overtime plus 401(k) contributions), especially with current contracts. My own unscientific survey indicates that the cost of medical insurance is the biggest reason guys are staying. If they airlines allowed them to stay in the plan until 65, or even 67, folks would be much more likely to jump ship early.

Proof of a shortage.....look no further then the most recent CBAs at DAL, UAL, USAir MOU, AA bankruptcy contract. I think everyone agrees that a legacy carrier will not be released to strike so then why would the airlines give in when they had some of the best contracts ever? 1) mergers. 2) they need to recruit. After a decade of making it a crappy job and pilots telling little kids who enter the cockpit "do good in school kid otherwise you might have to do this some day" and "I wouldn't tell my kid to this" and " how am suppose to afford my boat,airplane, 3 house, 4 ex wives, and 12 bastard children on this joke wage" management finally got what they wanted. An industry that nobody wants to spend the time, money, and effort to do this for 10 days home ,after you factor in crappy unproductive non commutable trips. Well they now need people back in the game and at the end of the day there is only one motivator

MONEY!

As long as you believe you will end making 300k flying 10 days month laying over in Hong Kong with happy ending (or whatever the ladies like to do on there layovers) the young kid looking skyward at 18 trying to figure out what do with life will definitely come back to this job, even if they have to fly to a crap whole town like TYLER TEXAS (my home) at $20/hr to get to Hong Kong.


This is how you know they need you right now. They offering money, benefits (16% DC plans) better work rules, and of course higher hourly wages. Argue all you want but supply and demand drive the wage market. We are in demand. Enjoy the next 15 years. After that enjoy the ride back down.