Regionals and possible pay cuts
 

First I will preface this and say I’m not a pilot at a regional nor have I even started flight training. However, I like to have discussion and know what I’m getting into. So with that said, is it possible that after the virus stuff goes away that pilots could see payouts in the future? I have for what it’s worth a relatively stable job that usually has an increase in pay every October 1. Has there ever been a situation to where a regional airline has cut pay on its next contract? Say Envoy FO is currently making 50/hr and when this passes over they could possibly be back down to making 30/hr. Is this unheard of in the aviation industry or very much a real possibility?

I would strongly suggest another career path then come back to flying once you establish yourself.

Make lots of money in your other career.. buy your own plane..

There are over 1000 pilots with 121 experience out of jobs in the past 2 weeks. Pay raises aren’t coming anytime soon. Nor are bonuses. Like others have said,bank some money in your current career and fly for fun.


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What happens is that pilots at a new startup regional or a regional that's lost most of its flying accept a very low wage in exchange for the promise of getting lots of new flying which leads to rapid growth, upgrades, and that magic 1000 121 PIC time...and then in theory a move up to the majors. Pilots at other regionals must then decide to either accept concessionary contracts which allow their managements to bid very low for new flying contracts due to not having to pay their crews more than peanuts, or watch their contracts expire and lose their jobs. They call it the whipsaw.

Whether and how much wages at the regionals might go up or down depends on how many pilots are willing to effectively volunteer their time in the hopes of quickly getting a job at mainline for the big bucks. Wages could certainly fluctuate significantly, depending on how quickly the economy and demand recovers, at both the regional and mainline level.

Honestly this. There’s too much of an uncertainty in this career. Yes nice views, “flying” a jet but the end of the day it’s still a job, long hours, van rides, random hotels. Just buy your own plane or share it and fly on your own time.

Don't start

I don't care for the job and tend to get bored on the road, so I don't recommend professional flying to many people. However, the notion that airlines are more cynical and fragile compared to every industry is not true. Last I checked, the majority of airline pilots have jobs until at least Oct. 1 and likely will not be furloughed due to this crisis, despite the doom and gloom predictions on APC. That's not to say some companies aren't feeling the pain; a couple have already shut their doors and won't be back. Pilots on the street, it sucks.

I have friends working in other fields that are most certainly feeling the pain right now. I'm talking benefits cut, suspending 401(k) match, 50% pay cuts, and massive layoffs. If you are so concerned about possible pay cuts, I too would suggest looking at another field with potentially less volatility. Just remember that should go this route, not to get too complacent or comfortable, and keep your options open.

Tough time to be coming into this field that is for sure. Paycuts can and have happened although I think it would take a BK to make that occur in this day and age. Most of us are safe until at least October, although I dont agree that there won't be furloughs after that. I mean, places are just flat out shutting down and denying passengers, so this is going to last awhile.

Best of luck to you.

This could be a fine time to start training.
2008 was a great time to start a 4 year course.
2001 was also great time to start a 4 year course.

Yes pay cuts could happen, the traditional pay cut is through inflation. The near 💯 % wage raise for first officers in the last decade could be targeted though.

If you love flying and have the money? Start your training. Buy a plane when you’re sure you love it. Keep chipping away at your ratings, time and money permitting. Enjoy it, do it for fun. Having your own plane is great, and if it’s a reasonable airplane like a 172 (and you fly often) it’ll save you some money in many parts of the country.

Down the line, if the airlines are doing well and you still really want to do it? Consider making the jump.

That all said, I wouldn’t put eggs in the airline pilot basket until all this looks like it’s sorting itself out. I was ready to go to a regional when this hit, and got caught with my pants down. My plan is to press forward with an alternate career while this runs its course, flying when I can. When things look better, I’ll consider the airlines.

Looks like you’ve got options right now. Options are good, keep them open.

At the regionals (whipsaw). We've seen three regionals shut down, might be a couple more before this is done. In a couple years I expect to see some new regionals start up... non-union, $25/hour to start.

The major pilots aren't budging, they'll burn it down first IMO.

Ultimately, it all depends on customer demand. If customer demand promptly rebounds to previous levels, this whole coronavirus thing will have exacerbated the pilot shortage by early retiring some pilots while interfering with training and career progression of those who do not yet have the experience and numbers to get an ATP or be competitive for a major.

Strangely, the ones that seem most likely to be hurt by this are the legacies because I think international flying will be the last thing to come back. I can actually see SWA, F9, and NK prospering in the period immediately after recovery.

That's a foregone conclusion. Domestic will come back sooner. I don't know if the domestic carriers will prosper any time soon but they may be able to acquire some market share as the bigs re-trench and try to not bleed out while paying for their parked widebodies.

Not sure about HA, they might pick up on at least the HI/mainland flying as people opt for safer and cheaper HI vacations instead of further overseas. But they have a lot of Asian exposure too.

Many are overlooking....
 

I can't tell you the number of people I know who are mad as hell that they had their vacations canceled. They are absolutely bursting at the seams to reschedule and take these trips. With that much pent up demand, it makes little sense as to why there won't be a massive rebound come sometime in the 2nd half of this year, possibly as early as the summer.

Lots and lots of people I know, and who are friends of friends feel this way.

That totally depends on how fast the training is. ATP (the flight school)? No way. A 4 -year degree and then maybe an additional year flight instructing, it may come back down to ATP mins by then.

As to paycuts at the regionals, again.........noooo oneeee whom I've ever spoken to there is in any kind of mood to take any sort of paycut. They ALREADY make very little, especially FO's and now that one needs 1500 hrs to get there, they have a MUCH different mindset than someone in the 2000's who was able to get to the regionals with less than 500 hrs. They've already paid their dues with low pay from 250-1500 CFI'ing and are in no mood to do that again. They will simply find another career if it comes to that.

The airlines will DUMP summer prices. Hotels and air fare to popular destinations will be damn near free just to get people in the door. Vegas will practically pay people to visit this summer. And once the cruise lines get up and running again you'll be able to get a 7 day cruise for probably $10/day.

At least for a month or two, maybe a bit longer.

The travel industry will work as a loss leader just to get people used to travelling again.

So even people who are near broke or maybe even unemployed will still be able to take small mini-vacations this summer (especially if on a credit card).

And then once people start to see that they aren't going to die because they boarded an aircraft, stayed in a hotel, or took a cruise, things will start to return to a more normalized economic flow.

agreed. I’m hearing more and more folks saying they can’t wait to travel.

Sadly wanting to travel and being able to travel are very different things. In order to justify the same amount of pilots after the Wuhan virus. There has to be 100% of Jan 2020 demand and revenue on the backside of this.

The travel industry will absolutely drop prices to get people traveling again. It’s important to remember though that these tickets being sold are still at a loss and do little to stop the hemorrhaging of money. The airlines have to be able to fill planes with passengers for ticket prices that at a minimum break even.

With unemployment rates expected to hit 30% that is a good starting point to see where air travel will stabilize. I think best case scenario the majority of airlines will be at best 30% smaller this time next year. When hiring does return, just like it always does, it will take years just to hire and train all the furloughed pilots. This is going to be a long recovery.

If you want to be optimistic just hope it doesn’t take as long as the lost decade. Payouts are going to be on the table for absolutely everyone just like they always are.

It’s great to hope for the best but airlines are like an abusive spouse. No matter how many times they beat you when mad, it does no one any good to pretend this time will be different and they have changed.

I truly hope the best for everyone.

Not that simple. Looking at the US only it depends on what kind of flying you do, and how much....

Domestic vs. International: domestic is coming back sooner.

Business vs. Leisure: Domestic flying which is primarily leisure oriented may not come back as quickly. Despite all of the hype about everybody permanently retreating into a virtual zoom world, that's not how business is really done, especially for the Gen X and boomers who actually run businesses and organizations today (millenials might change it all up when/if they're in charge). Leisure travel will follow the economy, but business travel won't be able to wait. Obviously going to be at least some economic churn as the dust settles, IMO that will actually drive some additional business travel as people scramble to re-organize and make new relationships. That's assuming we don't retreat into a bad recession.

Depending on the airline and their business model, I think you'll see anywhere from 0-40% furloughs, some regionals may even grow as they pick over the corpses of their masters.

I think pretty much all majors will furlough, probably 10% at a minimum.

I work for a financial company in the North East with around 800 employees and am very close to the CEO through aviation. He is already saying that there won't be any travel for us until at least the end of 2020...Even if we re-open our offices in May or June, he will not take any chances getting all of us back in the office at once - we will be working Team A and Team B concept until at least 1.5-2 months of solid data indicating major and consistent declines in total cases...The technology use in the past few weeks has been crazy, we have never closed a major multi-million dollar loan virtually before until last week. Technology works. Now this guy running the show is in his mid-60s, not a millennial. Just saying.

That's all dependent on the status of the virus and vaccine.

There will be some permanent shift to virtual work, but it's not going to be anything catastrophic. My wife has a project that just blew up because of a zoom conference, emails, and apparent lack of noverbal cues. It's going to have to be adjudicated between the secretary of transportation and the secretary of defense... this is the biggest snafu in her organization's history, she's convinced it never would have happened if she could have sat down at the table with these people. Seams are starting to open up in other areas too. Her employer is treating this as limp-home mode, not the "new normal".

This and ExcargoDog's point. The relief gets everyone to October. Fall rolls in and people will want to get out and live life. Then what's next? Thanksgiving and the rest of the Holiday season. People will fly and demand will come back. Conventions, concerts and meetings have been pushed to next year so after the Holidays, whammy back into Spring and we'll be back to humming along.

At my flightschool they freezed all of the 6th day pay (which was pretty high by the way). Guess what! A lot of instructors asked to work 6th days for free just to get the hours. I bet that when this craziness is over, they won't bring this 6th day pay back. I am afraid the same is going to happen with regionals, 135, cargo ect...

Afraid of what? That they'll take away paid overtime?

No. Afraid that people will agree for everything to get 1000 hours TPIC. Even to work for 15$/hour...

exactly people just spent a major holiday without extended family and friends. Families will be itching to be together over thanksgiving and Christmas. People will travel.

I sure hope the guys at the majors will do this. When I see management take 100% pay cuts then I'll think we're in trouble

Isn’t unemployment skyrocketing because people are being furloughed from their jobs due to the whole country being shutdown? So the second the country is back open, they go back to work. This whole 20-30% unemployment being portrayed by the media will go back to pre C-19 numbers, plus 3-5% for the few businesses that don’t survive. Domestic will be back rapidly, and international will take longer due to individual countries opening up on different timeframes.

If you are not up for a continual wild ride on a roller coaster you might be better suited for accounting ... Just don't cook any books.

Who will be the captains at these new wonder regionals?

Usually it’s FOs with 1000 121 time at stagnant regionals whose pilot groups refuse to take a pay cut. There’s little movement and no new flying at their current airline and they can be an immediate captain at the top of the seniority list at brand new cut rate regional X (but for less pay) or spend another 5 years as an FO at their current regional, then a captain on reserve forever. It’s just capitalism and allows for lower airfare for customers, but it means we don’t get paid much.

Not necessarily. It takes only an hour or so to lay someone off, maybe less, depending on the paperwork. It takes a lot longer to advertise an open position, interview potential candidates, then select and hire one. Several days in the case of unskilled labor with people who are unemployed and available immediately, and several months or more in the case of filling skilled labor roles. Things always unwind faster than they can be wound back up.

Unless you just bring back the people you laid off, that should be practical in the short-term.

That's a lot more common in the airline world than it is otherwise. And, as you've pointed out elsewhere, some firms have this odd policy of not bringing anyone back whom they have previously laid off.

But yeah, where doing so works definitely shortens the process.

Which is fantastic, for all of the now-unemployed people who still have jobs to go back to after this is over. Businesses will be shuttering left and right.

Some yes. With a little luck that will bottom out soon, as opposed to s sustained economic death spiral. We'll see.

I would like to see the stats on the unemployment figures right now, I’m guessing the majority of them are from industries like retail/restaurant that have been forced to close by the government. Now presuming we allow them to re-open, will the majority of these people get back to work right away? I think yes. The economy was going so strong prior to this, the businesses were not suffering before and didn’t have a need to lay anyone off. There are plenty of industries doing quite well, and actually expanding. This is not your typical recession scenario. Like some have said, people are ready to travel if given the chance. People will not stay prisoners in their homes forever, regardless of “suggested guidance.” From what I’ve seen it’s vastly different opinion depending on your geographic location. There is also a direct correlation on your outlook and how much news you’ve been watching. They preach nothing but doom and gloom, and if you take it all as fact, you’re likely depressed, angry, and fear the world is ending. If you turn it off, life still goes on and optimism and hope return. Best of luck to us all.

It's not pretty.