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/

Rabble rabble “my seniority”! rabble rabble “ima file uh greevumps”! Rabble rabble.

While speculative, I think you're definitely on to something. Even at rough estimates, it's about to get REALLY interesting for pilot hiring in the year ahead...

American: 1,200+ pilots
Delta: 1,300+ pilots
United: 1,200+ pilots
Southwest: 500+ pilots
JetBlue: 500+ pilots
FedEx: 600+ pilots
UPS: 300+ pilots
Spirit: 600+ pilots
Frontier: 300+ pilots
Allegiant: 100+ pilots
Epstein: didn't kill himself.

Just hiring in 2020 is looking like well north of 6,000 pilots are going to be hired next year alone.

You left out Moxy which ought to be another 300-400.

But on the other hand the military will take about 1000 of the total slots too.

Wow! Are we having a bad day Mr. Grumpy Pants? :(

:D

Either way, attrition was up.

Ya think? Thread drift...

Well put. Consistent with the Boeing forecast of pilot hiring over the next two decades. If I recall, US airline hiring is only about 1 in 6 in the world.

Oh, and it is 6,001 vacancies counting Epstein. Oh, never mind.

2020 is the first real year that retirements are in full swing. And it doesn’t slow down for a handful of years after. About to get interesting...

Over 24,000 retirements between 2020-2028. Grab the popcorn

I don’t know why people spend the time to crunch these numbers when there are too many variables that would make significant changes. The moral of the story is get your apps filled out and network and maybe good things will come to you!

Don’t forget Alaska which I think is around 350, which should just about cover attrition (not retirements)

There is a recession fast approaching

How fast is fast because alarmist have been saying that for the past 4 years now.

On a average a US recession lasts 18 months. If it does come soon it will finish way before the retirements do.

You can well bet the MAX fix is quick fast and in a hurry on its way. That, coupled with the planned retirements is gonna be a shocker to some of these bottom feeder dogsh!t carriers.

I’m still laughing.

And

I fly international cargo, which is usually a good first indication. Block hours are way down, sitting a lot more. Combination of tariffs, Hong Kong protests, and just a general global cooling of manufacturing demand. I hope I am wrong.

See, my point is this. And this has become easy to spot since internet message boards became common place in the late 90s. Alarmist will scream "a recession is coming" every year, heck even every month. They will be wrong month after month, even year after year. Then one day it comes, as it always does because the economy is cyclical, and they will say "see I told you so" in their smug little alarmist face.

Same thing has been going on in these massage boards. You can go back in look, for the past 5 years this recession was supposed to be just around the corner. Just weeks or months away. There were signs out there. A lull in the housing market, interest rates were changing, Sears was going out of business. blah blah blah blah.

But you know what, I am going to say it too. The Recession is coming. Sometime within the next month to 10 years. And I will be right too. *smug face*

I do believe that recessions are all human manipulated to trigger. People are poised to profit either way. I am selfishly waiting for a housing bubble to burst to acquire rental properties, and those with power and influence are preparing for it before they pull the trigger on it.

Look for the Dow to go north of 30,000 about the last quarter of next year
And see what that will do to the retirement numbers.

Does that suit you Tom?

Yep. See how easy it was to make an economic forecast without engaging in partisan politics? Well done.

You know, back when the Dow was sitting at 12-14 thousand, a 2000 point rise would have been...:eek:

Today, at 28,000, a one year gain of 2000 is only about 7%, which is slightly LESS than the long term average.

Ah, the simple pleasures of passive investing in index funds and reinvesting dividends... :D

My portfolio is like

WOOO WoOOOO!!!!!!!

Of course there is, and every bear market is followed by a bull market. The economy always has been, and always will be cyclical. Unless we have another extreme impact to the industry, like what happened after deregulation or 9/11, global aviation and demand for pilots will chug along. Those already at well paying jobs will make more, and those wanting to gain employment will have ample opportunities.

Bringing this thread back to life:

Boeing has so many undelivered MAX’s they are being forced to park them in their employee parking lots.

https://i.ibb.co/6s3vVZz/C98635-CF-9...-E41-F1584.jpg

At the same time, airlines are pushing back the date they are anticipating recertification:

https://i.ibb.co/dmtw5mP/AB2-E84-D4-...654-C5-F90.jpg

Between the aircraft that were already delivered to US airlines and were parked and the many additional aircraft that WOULD HAVE been delivered by now, we have probably 150 - 200 JUST SITTING THERE that, were they flying would employ another 2000-3000 pilots. Ok, some of those are replacements for 717s and MDs that will be retiring, but even so.

This is going to cause a huge impact on major hiring and training once the aircraft is recertifications. And coming on top of the anticipated age related retirements, I would expect rather massive movement at (and to) the majors when the MAX eventually does get airborne again.

ALPAs daily digest email, said Trump heard they are shutting down Max production all together.

A conspiracy theory could be, full Max shutdown to be announced alongside new narrow body.

Tinfoil hat material. Economically impossible.

It would take years to get a new NB designed, tested, and approved, much less in full production. Probably 5-6 years if they went full manhattan project, and even then current politics will prevent the FAA from being railroaded into any sort of "expedited" approval.

Many airlines would suffer near-catastrophic issues due to loss of scheduled growth/replacement planes.

BA would likely go BK with zero NB income for several years. 73 is huge source of income for them.

Now what you might see is the NMA quickly morph into a new NB design, with BA offering customers with future max delivery slots options to convert those into the new NB, possibly even taking trade-ins on slightly used max's. They need to somehow keep their current max backlog buying planes until the new model is up and running.

But there are reasons not to do that, there are a variety of new technologies in the works which should be available a few years down the road and should greatly increase fuel efficiency (reducing cost and carbon). If you blow billions on a clean-sheet design right now, then you'll need many years of production to recoup the R&D investment. But the competition may well be in a position to offer radically improved planes in about a decade. Right now is potentially (likely?) very bad timing to invest in a clean-sheet NB design with mostly legacy technology.

Simple solution, order Airbuses, maybe even look at the used market for some 757's that haven't been converted to freighters yet.

75's are pretty much all accounted for (at least any that you'd have a hope of restoring to 121 standards), they are popular in their niche.

Backlog for new orders is at least six years, in part thanks to Max.

Exactly. United is aggressively going after used planes and have picked up other airlines Max orders. Love them, or hate them, but United and Southwest are going to have a ton of them running around. Hindsight is always 20/20, but at the time that the decision was made to go with the Max, it made sense. Not the best plane from a pilot’s perspective, but it is efficient, and will make the airlines plenty of money. It can’t take as much cargo, it doesn’t have the range, and it doesn’t have equal short field performance, but the max will still do the vast majority of what the 757 actually does do. It will fly SFO to places like EWR, MCO, and BOS, all day long on 2,000 less pounds of fuel per hour. Any new NB plane out of Boeing is years away and not an option.

Simple? Get on the 10+ year waiting list if you want airbuses. Not like they can just instantly fill orders.

Too bad considering that the 757 was the original Max. Throw on more efficient wings and engines. Lost opportunity, instead they went with a design that is as old as a 727.

They went with the max to save $15-20B on clean-sheet R&D. They would have gotten away with their Rube Goldberg update too, if they had managed it a little better.... look at their pre-crash order book. I hope the max 10 main gear has better engineering and oversight than mcas.

Their motive for saving the R&D was either short-term greed, or longer-term planning for the looming need to incorporate revolutionary new technology into future airliners to save fuel (and thereby carbon). The tech wasn't ready yet, probably need another ten years.

The tech will ALWAYS be better ten years out. You have to pull the trigger sometime. The 737 first flew in 1967. That’s 52 years ago.

To put that in perspective, 52 years before the 737 flew the most advanced fighter plane on earth was the Fokker Eindecker sporting a single Spandau 30 caliber machine gun. It’s 100 hp engine had a top speed in level flight of 76 KT.

Boeing screwed the pooch. If they survive it will only be because they are too big to fail - not on merit.

The 737 should of been put out to pasture after the 300,400,500. My uncle was an engineer at Boeing, he helped design the 757,767 cockpit. He was also on a team to design a clean sheet replacement for the 737 back then, and came to the same conclusion that it would of cost too much. So now you're stuck with an outdated design that had to do stupid workarounds due to the landing gear being too short which is due to the original wing box design of the 100/200. Yes, it is that stupid!

This is a REALLY bad time to pull the trigger...

a) The tech in question is specific for fuel efficiency/carbon reduction; both the US and EU governments are directly driving the R&D. It looks to be about ten years out, maybe less. Net fuel burn reduction might approach 60-80%, and further reduction could be accomplished with bio or synth fuel (certified today at 50% blend).

b) It's very likely that said tech (or something with equivalent environmental impact) will be mandatory due to climate change, either legislated by governments or de facto by popular demand of the flying public.

So in this case both the tech and the mandate will arrive at about the same time. Probably not wise to clean-slate a new plane which will be obsolete just as production reaches full swing. The new tech may require radical fuselage/engine designs, and would mostly not be suitable for retrofit on legacy designs.

Airbus was fortunate that the A320, designed in the 80's, was originally designed for higher-bypass turbofans than the 73, and thus has longer landing gear. Easier for them to fit even higher bypass fans under the wing.

Airbus got lucky on that, but not so much on other projects where they blew their R&D budget on the wrong plane at the wrong time. The A380, A330NEO, and A350 are inter-related due to mis-allocation of R&D.

You forget the A400M, which will also never recoup their R&D costs, but I disagree on this being the wrong time. Boeing waits ten years they may be stuck in lag to Airbus eternally.

https://i.ibb.co/k5CbRmW/ED441-C93-4...4065-EBDBB.jpg

Note who built this prototype:


https://i.ibb.co/0KFzzdP/A3-BDB039-2...FCA85-B828.jpg

I gave them a pass on the A400 since that was politically driven in Euro-land to become less reliant on foriegn defense products, and R&D timing was totally dependent on the customer, ie you either design a new plane or we'll buy one from Lockheed. It delivered on that, just not at the promised cost. I was actually surprised that several customer governments broke it off so hard in AB's butt, and made them eat the cost over-runs.