Captain Quint

Interesting article. Even more interesting numbers about cape air.
Pilot Shortage Hitting Home at Racca Member Airlines | Air Transport: Aviation International News

Any salaries going up?
I didn't know one has to have level c sim time now to get an atp.
Maybe things are going to be looking up for a while.

Cheers!

Lt. Cmdr. Matt T. Sherman: When a girl is under 21, she's protected by law. When she's over 65, she's protected by nature. Anywhere in between, she's fair game. Look out.

Toonces

I think you might be a little behind the power curve.

All signs point to a pilot shortage, but only time will tell. Ask again in 2-3 years. I've seen evidence of rising salaries, recruitment problems, and lowered hiring minimums.


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MR JT8D

No pilot shortage. Only a shortage of pay, benefits, and days off. If they reverse the ATP rule, the floodgates will bust open wide.......... Everyone will be happy again exploiting cheap labor.

scottm

How many commercial pilots with under 1500/1000 hours in their *ahem* "logbooks", do you think would be made available? Pretty much every flight instructor at every major flight school would have an airline job with one phone call.

This happened in India a few years ago, their flight schools lost all their instructors. They still haven't figured out what to do. They were going to use military instructors to train volunteer civil-servants to become pilot instructors, but I haven't heard much about it.

I'm suspicious the 1000-hour rule is really about keeping cheap instructors at schools, so our pilot puppy-mill pipeline doesn't collapse.

Flightcap

^^^^This. The day after ATP rules are reversed all flight instructors with more than 300 hours will be hired. The day after that we will be right back in the same place but with even fewer new pilots being made.

Unusual Att

I think too many people fail to understand the new ATP rule isn't a rule at all...it's a law. There is a pretty big difference bewteen the Safe Skies Act and your average run of the mill FAR. To reverse, repeal or amend the Safe Skies Act will literally take an act of Congress. That doesn't mean such a thing isn't possible but what it does mean is that the majority of the Senate and the House have to put their names on an amendment/repeal bill that I assure you will be blamed the first time an RJ crashes post legislation. That's a big political gamble for very little payoff for these politicians.

Bringing back the "wet commercial" into a 121 cockpit is highly unlikely in my opinion. The only large organization with any financial teeth on any level even lobbying for it is the RAA. The legacies aren't touching it as they don't want to be associated with any bill that would "reduce safety". The only sector of US aviation that really will be hurt is the Regionals insofar as maintaining their current business models. If they change, treat and pay pilot's what they are worth, adapt to smaller margins then they will live on. If they don't then they die and that's the way capitalism works. The legacies, the LCC's and the discount fare carriers are all filling classes no problem.

I certainly may be wrong. Though I just have a feeling no Congressman/woman or Senator with any real seriousness is going to put their political careers in jeopardy to save the bank accounts of the "Bryan Bedfords" of the world.

A lot of things will have to happen to take the teeth out of the SSA and I just don't see it occurring.

F224

Excellent analysis, the Congress will have to be persuaded to change it back to a "less safe" system. It's not gonna happen, and you don't have to trust me. I sit on a couple of Congressional advisory boards and raise lot's (in the seven figures) of money for candidates and office holders. Those guys have no interest in getting in the way of the market.

Take a close look at the new Delta TA. It's designed to make money for Delta, not it's sub contractors. The RAA has outlived it's usefulness, the job market for pilot's has been internationalized and Richard Anderson is the first guy to figure that out.

Kritchlow

Excellent post. I forgot it was a law vs an FAR. All great points.

JohnBurke

There is no pilot shortage. There has never been a pilot shortage. It's a myth, and it's the same cry and whine that new pilots have had for years. There's no shortage.

Thedude

The pilot shortage is just around the corner......that is what I have been hearing for 25+ yrs but I have yet to see it.

Que Kit Darby