Kirby on pilot shortage
 

United Airlines was forced to cut service to 11 secondary cities across the midwestern USA beginning in January due to the pilot shortage, the company’s chief executive officer says.

“It’s down to pilots,” Scott Kirby tells viewers of the Skift Aviation conference on 17 November. The pilot shortage is now real, we don’t have enough pilots to fly all the airplanes. It’s very simple.”


https://www.flightglobal.com/network...146481.article

The shortage is with experience to upgrade or sticking around to be an LCA. If they paid better than $36 an hour for FOs that could somewhat help solve their problem too. But in the end even with $50 an hour FOs seniority is king and people will move on and not care about bonuses that take forever to get etc.

“Shortage” by keeping pilots at regionals on purpose in order to keep wages low… yawn

There has never been a pilot shortage.

That lie was kept alive by Kit Darby for years to sell his services. For decades, it was just around the corner. There is no shortage, and never was.

yes it’s a compensation shortage… and they’re dropping routes because of it

The big 6 have forecast to hire 9,000 pilots next year. That is an all time record.

That means about 7,000 that will be hired from the regionals.

The regional have about 20,000 pilots. If half are captains, that is 10,000 captains.

It is generally considered about 10% of regional pilots are lifers. That would be 2,000. If the lifers are all captains, 10,000 - 2,000 = 8,000 captains that could be hired.

These numbers are not perfect. Anyway you slice it, though, that is more going out of the regionals than GA training to 1,500 hours and regional new hire training can handle to backfill.

As the ancient proverb says, May you live in interesting times. We have never seen these numbers moving in a year, ever.

Well you also have military guys applying and such. I’m sure a lot of us will still never hear anything no matter what shortage talk comes to.

Exactly how many military pilots do you think will be applying? Also, how many of those will not have immediate military commitments so they are actually available now to fly?

The number of military pilots that are available right now is a pretty small number compared to the number of airline pilots needed.

Typically about 1,000 come out of the military and make the jump to the majors each year.

About 1,000 come out of 91 and 135 each year, Those are already included in the math.

9,000 hires - 1,000 Mil - 1,000 from 91/135 = 7,000 from the regionals.



You realize the hiring is nearly double the all time record numbers to be hired by the majors.

Realize these are all fairly accurate, but not precise, numbers.

The majors are hiring a lot from Spirit and Frontier too so have to factor those in.

Best move is to get out of the regionals asap for better pay and QOL.. get an Airbus type rating along the way and then go to a major. Would rather get stuck at a LCC for a few years than a regional making **** pay and with awful reserve rules and scheduling that violates the contract every day.

who will backfill from the regionals

I’d be surprised to see them hiring exactly at atp mins but can definitely see them taking regional FO’s straight off ioe.

I can see a lot of corporate or 135 ops backfilling out of the regionals as well. Seems as though the pay trend is on the way up on that side as well. Tough to stay at a regional when those gigs are starting at 3 times the pay of a regional. As guys rush to the airlines its opening up a lot of nice corporate spots.

Exactly right. Majors hire from Frontier or Spirit. Then they hire those numbers from the regionals.

Old line is, “Cut 6” off the top of your blanket and sew it on the bottom. It is still too short.”

Oh I don’t disagree at all. Except It’s the same story over there at the LCCs and ULCCs. My spirit app has been under review for almost a year. So I’m just watching my seniority slip away….

I can’t speak for Frontier, but it seems like Spirit and JetBlue are career destinations for most pilots who go there.

This guy bluestreaks !

I completely agree. No idea why people view them as not worthy. Stepping stones seem more like a waste of time the older you get.

because not long ago they were new entrants with poor compensation.

that has changed but it wasn’t wrong then

This is the way

Because heavy growth and attrition is required to have a successful career there. If you get hired by an LCC and they quit growing you will have 0 movement based on pilots turning 65. Every company can’t double in size forever, and if the contract is on par then that shuts down attrition. Someone will have a stagnant career there, just no one knows when that pilot was/will be hired.

I listened to this interview with Kirby. Probably not a surprise, but he mentioned that with the shortage at the regionals, the 50 seat flying is the first to go.

and that's different than anywhere else how?

'muricans retirements look good on paper, dude did a breakdown on the FB group, its still good movement but not as great as it would seem from a purely 15000 pilots minus 6000 retiring simple math perspective. In other words, if you want to be LGA 737 Captain in <1 year you can do it, still looking at 7+ years to widebody FO that flies regularly if that's your thing, talk about stagnant - widebody seniority list is as stagnant as it gets. United has the largest widebody fleet and its no different.

I see your point. But a call from a legacy is not guaranteed either so sometimes it s the only choice. And flow for a new hire is laughable. So a ULCC is still light years better than a regional.

There’s guys at United and Delta getting awarded the 767 in a year or so. Not sure why AA is so much different.

widebody fo that flies regularly is different from widebody FO

And no more Group 3 Aircraft (757/767) at AA either. Also as I understand it a factor in their LCA retention issues.


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To each their own I suppose. I wouldn’t be surprised if people didn’t care if they flew or not once they got that legacy job. You get paid the wide body rate either way and most people aren’t building time for anything else. Yet at the regionals I’m trying to suck up every hour of TPIC I can.

from internal friends that is supposedly an anomaly but yes as pointed out a regularly flying widebody FO and widebody FO two different things... difference being going to the sims every 90 days versus not going to the sims every 90 days. for some its a non issue some people get all uptight around sim instructors, for some they can go 90 days without touching an airplane and go in and execute in the sims no problem, some people may dequal and go into a non pay status, some people don't mind sitting reserve for 7+ years.... YMMV

Small correction: FedEx has the largest widebody fleet. And guys with less than 6 months on the property can hold a line right now, even in the 777.