Airline Pilot Central Forums - Regional pilot progression and the 737 MAX

At first glance, it’s a strange title. With few exceptions (Horizon maybe) scope limitations stop regional pilots from having anything to do with a 737 except jump seating or deadheading, but it’s a little more involved than that.

United, American, and Southwest have had about a hundred MAX’s parked on the tarmac for a year now. But there are also another 60 or so that were scheduled to be delivered in the last year to those carriers and to Alaska that are sitting on Boeing owned or leased tarmac because they haven’t been (and currently can’t be) delivered.

While the absence of these airframes has been partially compensated for, in one case by buying a (lesser number of) used 737 non-MAX, and extending the life of older aircraft originally scheduled for retirement, most of the capacity represented by these aircraft has been sort of deferred by delaying new markets, as with the slower pace of SWA expansion into Hawaii.

But let’s talk about those 160 or so aircraft sitting on the ground that, except for the MCAS fiasco and tragedies, would now be flying. Because this was actually a black swan event for regional career progression.

Let’s digress a little and talk about the regional pilots and who gets hired out of the regional pilot pool by SWA, AA, UAL, and AS. Yeah, anybody with an ATP MIGHT get hired. And if some bright young FO just getting done with IOE happens to be the fiancé of the granddaughter of some major’s CEO, or even just a guy on the board of directors, that newbie FO might get hired. But he’d be an outlier.

Yeah, we all know exceptions, but the rule is that the guy that gets hired out of the regionals (except for non current military flyers who come here for a touch and go for an ATP and currency) are the captains. And with roughly 20,000 regional pilots, we have roughly 10,000 captains, and that is the prime demographic for (non-military) flow to the majors. Except not all of those captains are really players. There are a lot of reasons for that.

Picture the 60 year old regional captain - and yeah, there are a few of those. Bad luck, worked for multiple regionals that went under, got caught in the lost decade, etc, so he’s now one of the senior captains at some place that isn’t going away any time soon, maybe Republic or Skywest. He’s an LCA or a SLIP, senior as h€||, living in the base he wants to live in, the base that has been his home for the last 20 years, maybe where his kids and grandkids live, working 13 -14 days a month - pretty much able to bid any schedule he chooses. Despite his age, the majors would take him.

But does he really want to uproot his current QOL to become a 61 year old junior FO sitting reserve in a crash pad in base he has to commute to half a continent away? And even if the money pencils out, he’ll be 63 and only two years from retirement before he’ll be making as much for the major as he is right now, and most likely he’ll never sit right seat again. And if there is a big recession, who gets furloughed? So it just isn’t worth it - not to that guy.

And of course, some regional captains are simply never going to the majors. Too many training failures, too many DUIs, too many incidents or accidents (auto or aircraft), too many tattoos or piercings in places that aren’t readily concealed, too many social postings that will horrify the twenty-something that screens social postings for a major. Eventually over time many of these people will percolate to the top of regional seniority because most of their peers already got hired someplace - someplace that will never give them the call. And that’s where they will stay - as regional lifers. May not be fair - that’s a matter of opinion - but it is fact.

Then there are guys/gals who simply can’t put up with a couple years reserve at some major because of social issues. Single parents either legally or by tragedy. Divorced with joint custody or needs relatives nearby for childcare and simply can’t take the kids out of the state. Things like that.

So figure of the 10,000 regional captains, probably 15% aren’t really players for the next step. That leaves about 8,500.

Now of the 160 737 MAX’s that should have been flying for US airlines by now, figure 60 of those were for aircraft that were going to be just replacements and the older airframes have just been extended or have now had their capacity offset by purchasing used non-MAX aircraft. That leaves 100 airframes that were intended for new routes that aren’t flying them. That equates to about 1200 pilots, mainly regional pilots that WOULD have moved up to the majors (albeit not necessarily in THOSE airframes) had the MAX not been grounded.

So what does that come to? 1200 out of the 8500 who are really players is about 14% of the regional captains that were truly desirable and available to the majors who WOULD have moved up without the MAX grounding. 1200 of 10,000 total captains who would have been gone- allowing 1200 of the 10,000 FOs to move up.

So yeah, in a sense every single regional pilot is on average 5% lower on the company seniority list, 10% lower in seat, because of the MAX grounding. That’s what this cost regional pilots, even though it’s an aircraft they do not fly.

Now the good news is those jobs aren’t really gone. Eventually those aircraft are going to fly and they’ll need additional pilots to fly them. But it has been a serious hit to progression, at least in the short term, even for us lowly regional guys and gals.

IN OTHER IRONIC NEWS:

https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea....use-they-cant/