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The Real Pilot Shortage

Old 05-21-2007, 06:57 PM
  #21  
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Originally Posted by aerospacepilot View Post
Exactly. Skyhigh likes to claim there are thousands of pilots "sidelined" who would come back should pay/benefits/qol increase. What I am saying is 70,000 ATP pilots will be inelegible to fly in the next 12 years. Not that there will be 70,000 retirements from airlines.

For airline retirement numbers, I added up some recent numbers, and there will be at least 20,000 pilots will retire from the “good” airlines over the next 10 years assuming age 60. (AA, UAL, DAL, CAL, US Air, FedEx, UPS, SWA). And that is not counting Northwest, ABX, Astar, Air Tran, Frontier, JetBlue, Alaska, Midwest, Spirit, ATA, and ALL the regional airlines. (Not saying these weren’t “good” airlines, I just don’t have the retirement numbers for them).


Regional airlines will try to keep their entry level pay as low as possible. Even when they need to recruit more pilots, they will not raise pay. It is far better to these regionals to use a temporary fix (such as signing bonuses). Raising first year pay will not just attract new pilots, but it would give a pay bump to pilots who are already at the airline (regionals don't want this). Signing bonuses can be rescinded as soon as the hiring pool gets fuller, or hiring slows down.
These are the steps I see regional airlines taking to get pilots:
1. Lowering minimums
2. Signing bonuses
3. Retention bonuses

Almost all regionals (except Skywest & Horizon) have lowered their minimums already. Expect them to only get lower in the coming future. Signing bonuses are happening at Mesa, Piedmont, and Republic. Expect these to catch on at more airlines in the near future. I think retention bonuses are the next logical step for airlines to keep pilots.


I went on a 3 hour flight landing at several usually busy GA airports today, and there just aren't as many people flying today as there were several years ago.

The problem is that all it takes is 90 to 120 days to generate new commercial pilots. If things even improve a tad bit there will be plenty of pilots to fill the void.

Even now my local aviation college boasts double the applications for this fall. There are fewer hobby pilots but more career minded guys. There is no pilot shortage.

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Old 05-21-2007, 06:58 PM
  #22  
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"Expect them to only get lower in the coming future"

But how low can they go?

I don't see how they can go lower and not have it impact training failures. Heck, I don't see how it hasn't impacted training failure already....
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Old 05-22-2007, 01:31 AM
  #23  
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Any job that has the perceived cachet of a pilot will always enjoy an excellent supply of applicants willing to work for nearly nothing. The exception is when there is an artificial limitation on supply. For piloting the limits historically were things like the equipment and opportunity for training, which the military supplied in very low quantities, and there was regulation of the airline industry by government. Then in the last 30 years civilian flight schools developed to replace the military path, and deregulation opened the doors to airline competition. There is no shortage of pilot applicants and the industry will never be the same as in the glory days when artificial limits existed. I am sorry about this and wish it weren't so, because it means a hard for life for me designing airplane equipment. I am like SkyHigh in that when the bills are paid in ten years I will go and fly for peanuts at an airline as a hobby.

Last edited by Cubdriver; 05-22-2007 at 06:19 PM.
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Old 05-22-2007, 12:02 PM
  #24  
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Default There really is a pilot shortage.

No joke. It is real and it is already happening. Anybody can plug any numbers that they want, but reality is that there is a pilot shortage. Not only seen in lower hiring minimums and singing bonuses, but in the very real reality that my airline and all of my friends' (regional) airlines are canceling flights because they can't staff the seats. We are currently about 40 captains short on my equipment and cancel about 250-300 flights per month. This has been a growing problem that really started to show itself about Oct. of last year when the season's flight university college grads, come summer flight instructors, started to dry up and there was not enough people to come in the door to replace attrition. (May I remind you that few to none of the majors have been hiring to cause that attrition; hiring is nowhere near full swing.) All of my friends in the industry are in agreement and have similar issues at their airline; no pilots and canceling flights.

Yesterday I sat in the jumpseat of a NW757 to get home and they too are beginning to have issues with staffing. According to the pilots attrition has been faster than they can fill from furloughs. True, some of the "qualified pilot's" have chosen not to return to their poorly paid job. However, this is only exacerbating the problem of too few pilots... qualified or not.

What else... Just off the top of my head. UND and other flight school enrollments are down. New start/commercial/ATP issuances are down. Flight schools literally can't find flight instructors. Rental, gas and training costs are prohibitively high to start this as a career.

Hiring minimums mean nothing anymore. (This is only serving to soften the checkride process, not increase failures unfortunately.) I think my sim partner (new hire) in my last equipment transition was hired with less than 400 TT and less than 25 hours of multi time. I watched the bar get lower and lower during training, and the checkride, because the company absolutely can not afford to lose a new hire. It was simply impossible for a failure to happen as that means that they can't upgrade another FO to Captain, nevermind the training costs lost through a failure. What holes there are can be made up through 40 or 50 hours of IOE. I've only witnessed one IOE failure in the last three years. Schedules can not get pushed any harder. We've been doing 14 hour duty days on 9 hour of rest for ages. It is just kind of the way of things... though it is the impetus for more captains to look to Jet Blue, SW, USA3000, UPS, FedEx, Continental, Virgin America for jobs... furthering the pilot shortage at the regionals.

Will the pilot shortage ever make it to the Majors? I guess we will find out by the end of summer when NW, United, and American start hiring again. Some of these carriers have not hired in 9 years. Almost everybody is off of furlough, or has gotten at least one call back. Almost all of these carriers have finished out their restructuring and are gearing up for a growth cycle. If you don't think they are growing you should try and commute and see how often you end up sitting up front or not being able to make it one the first flight you try. Say nothing about retirement or the age 60 rule. Maybe with 65 they can try to keep up, but it may not mean much in light of nine years of running an airline with no initial classes. Also, while there have been no new hire classes at the majors many of the regional captains have accrued a good deal of seniority, descent pay, good schedules, bought houses in their domicile and don't even want the job with the majors. Frankly, some of them can't leave because their plantation can't run on first or second year FO pay at the majors. ($80,000/yr is not the same thing as the old NW or DAL capt. making $240,000... but it is not so shabby for a couple of training events and pushing the autopilot button.)

And for all the bad things that can be said about this profession by people that don't do it and work on excuses for themselves as to why they won't or don't. Just know that it is not that bad. You pay your dues and move on. Is the pay low? At first, but over time it is more than survivable. Besides the six month PC or the occasional thunderstorm I have a ridiculously easy job. Maybe so easy as to be sometimes boring... which is never brought up when the people who don't do this job complain about why you should not get into it while they whittle away their lives on chat boards called airlinepilotcentral.com from their cubical during endless tedious hours in the office (or even worse, squeezing some time in on this website during their free time.) But keep saying what you are saying because I know that it will increase my pay if you are not sitting in the right seat next to me, but are instead complaining at home about how you could have been an airline pilot if the pay wasn't so bad and the hours so long. Truth is, there is an airline pilot shortage not a qualified couch potato shortage.
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Old 05-22-2007, 12:28 PM
  #25  
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Default show me the money

You sound like you have been flying professionally for not very long. A starting engineer makes three times the salary those who start at a routine regional earn (or more). He or she goes home at 5pm without fail and sleeps there 7 nights a week. He or she has no flight training to pay off as the regional pilot does or normally would, I guess I should say. He or she has their weekend off without fail and without interruption. If you think their life is boring well, I doubt it will be much more or less boring than the regional FO's especially after shiny jet syndrome wears off. Even if it is, they will be home in 3 hours and can just sweat out the difference.

As for the assertion you make there is no pilot shortage, all I have to say is the money is what talks. When the money says a regional will pay a brand new CRJ or turboprop FO $50,000 a year starting from indoc, and not later when they feel like it, then I will listen to any and all arguments claiming a pilot shortage. Until then the current popular rhetoric there is a pilot shortage is no more than propaganda believed only by those who have not taken economics. What's more it represents the spreading of a pernicious falsehood, a sort of hope-based aviation dope dealing. It encourages persons to go head over heels into a circus that has hard knocks and long hours at the other end. The best it can be is a lottery ticket with odds that change all the time. Good luck; I think you are going to need it in your line.

But all in good conversation, I am not here to make sour faces. I write posts on this board to spice up the day at work. I love pilots, even those who waterlog the HR inboxes at regionals that totally suck in all respects. If you believe what you are saying, then that's cool I guess we are both pretty happy about it.

Last edited by Cubdriver; 05-22-2007 at 01:55 PM.
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Old 05-22-2007, 05:27 PM
  #26  
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Not only is your assumption about my years in professional aviation baseless, it is completely wrong. But it is now easy to see how you come to your delusion on the state of pilot staffing. My experience all comes out to about fifteen years of flying. It really isn't that bad.

As to the endless lines at the door the reality is that there are not many people in that line that you want to work with. The hours don't get you anywhere close to a golden ticket. Point of fact, they don't actually amount to much of anything. It is truly more personality in most cases.

As to the issue of money... Yes, pilots from top to bottom are underpaid. No argument there. However, the industry as a whole is still (in my opinion) working out deregulation. The big fat illogical business plans of a regulated system were never really reworked. These were finally coming to a head in the years before 9/11. 9/11 then turned into an excuse and a scapegoat for an already faltering industry. The legacy airlines were bailed out and propped up. Perhaps there was enough change in the business plan and mismanagement to reorganize in to something survivable. (Somewhat doubtful...) All that said, pilots have suffered dearly as a result and the pay is not where it should be. However, even the lousy five year captain pay is not that bad. There are plenty of pay scales on this website if you care to check it out.

My student loans are not so large as to be out of line with anyone else with an advanced degree. Nor is the time spent paying dues. Admittedly, I could have done the MBA thing and made more money right out of school. However, I wasn't interested in doing something that I didn't really want to do and took the chance, for better or worse, to fly. I had watched my dad pine from the right seat of our Piper about not becoming an airline pilot, he is a chemical engineer. He makes a bit more than me, but not so very much. I think it helped that I didn't have any romantic notions about making a quarter million dollars a year and working 15 days a month. (Anyway, those days might be gone as they were part of a bloated regulated industry.) I worked out most of those misconceptions by watching my dad struggle with his ideas of what an airline pilot was.

The result is that people like yourself, and to no fault, chose to do other things with their life. I did alright with some financial choices and I guess have the luxury of a job that is somewhat juvenile and doesn't pay well.

As to quality of life... My wife and I enjoy the weekend trips together. I bid weekends by choice so that I am home while she is working and we have the weekends to travel. She makes a lot more money than me, but it doesn't hurt my ego to spend it. We don't have kids, which I have to admit would be difficult with our schedules. But, that's not just my schedule. Most couples have to make some difficult decisions, both financial and time wise, when they both work. I can trip trade or drop most any time that I want off, so that is rarely if ever an issue.

True to your impression this is not always the case during the first couple of years while you are paying your dues, commuting to sit reserve is anything but ideal. A great many flight school kids leave during their first couple of years because their conception of the job doesn't fit with the reality of the work and lifestyle. I venture to say, and it has been pointed out here, that this is the case with a lot of college grads that have never worked more than a summer job and had mom and dad writing checks for them.

I'm watching the pilot shortage happen, so it is really hard to understand why someone outside of the industry would have the authority to say that it isn't. Rest assured that HR is very concerned. They are talking about having to raise pay, offer signing bonuses, and are working on schemes to pay student loans to retain pilots long enough to get them to captain planes before moving on. People are actually losing their jobs around here due to the lack of staffing. Sounds crazy from what we have seen over the last many years, but it is happening. We might not see pay increases immediately as ALPA contracts were written during a period were pilots were taking concessions to keep their companies in business. But, in time the wages will come in line with the demand, more as a lagging indicator.

It will be interesting to see what will happen with wages in the regionals as many of the majors have positioned themselves with several regional carriers. This allows them to play one regional against the other and drives down wages during labor negotiations. A wise thing to do, from the majors perspective, if you saw a pilot shortage on the horizon.
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Old 05-22-2007, 06:14 PM
  #27  
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Hey that's cool I am sure you see a lot more from inside than I do from the outside. My friends who fly for regionals tell me things and that's about the extent of what I know about the industry. I read published data from the FAA, from regionals, from this forum, talk to friends, and read news articles posted on here and on aviation websites. That's about the extent of it. When I say I do not beleive there is a pilot shortage I should qualify it that I do believe there is a serious problem with short term staffing. Of that I have no doubt. It is the larger economic context where we have yet to see any market adjustment to the alleged shortage, and until we do it does not qualify as a real shortage. That's the metric.

I hope as much as anyone that it does respond. When it does I will leave the sundry hardships of working in the corporate scene and apply to a regional of choice, and enter the profession with joy that one can fly for a living. Thanks for sharing your views.

Last edited by Cubdriver; 05-22-2007 at 06:20 PM.
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Old 05-22-2007, 06:15 PM
  #28  
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Radar and Cubdriver: really enjoy your discussion.
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Old 05-22-2007, 08:27 PM
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It occurs to me that if there is a pilot shortage, which I obviously believe that there is, it may mean little or nothing to our future pay if we can't get ALPA the power that it needs to negotiate higher wages.

When the shortage becomes reality ALPA will have some bargaining power to change wages, but this could be overshadowed by playing one regional against another to drive wages down. Kind of like how NWA used the threat of going out of business to force NWA pilots to take huge concessions.

In both cases (that of the regional and the major) the fear of losing your flying is the pilots' greatest fear. In the worst case scenario it means losing your seniority number and starting over. No vacations, bad schedules, sitting reserve, a possible commute, learning new planes... in some cases the crushed ego of being an FO again.

How is it that plumbers, electricians, chefs, and bus drivers have come to make more money than pilots? They have unions that figured out that you need to be able to change employers and not start over everywhere you go. You start as an apprentice making a barely livable wage, work your way up to a journeyman, and eventually become a master. Without a similar system in place it may not mean much of anything to the bottom line if all the company has to do is fold and we all have to start over.

There are obviously some obstacles in the way of making this happen, though they are not in the vein of this thread. However, if it doesn't happen I'm not convinced that a pilot shortage will amount to much of anything in the way of sustainable higher pilot wages.

Last edited by Radar; 05-22-2007 at 08:29 PM. Reason: ?
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Old 05-22-2007, 08:42 PM
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I'd like to drop in something and hope to not start anything. It seems like total hours always goes back to experience. Which I'd like to argue at not being totally true. I could name a few pilots who have far more hours than I do, but wouldn't call them better than me, they frighten me actually. One of them was even flying for a local airline. A person could just buy or rent a cessna 150 to build a huge total time by flying around the local area, but would that make him better than someone who has less time but flies in the IFR system more and takes flying serious? I would give experience to the knowledge and how well a one flies the airplane. Like I said, just a thought.
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