rickair7777

The lost decade was worse, at least based on what we know right now. COVID is a single discrete event, and while it's deeper and uglier at face value it has a likely discrete end-point (vaccine). We will also not be fighting trillion-dollar wars over covid for the next 20 years (hopefully).

The lost decade was a combination 9/11, SARS, 2008 downturn + sky-high oil prices, and to top it all off age 65. Also what a lot of people don't realize is that on 9/11/2001 the industry still carried a lot of pre-deregulation fat... that all got trimmed during the lost decade.

If it hadn't been for age 65 it would have been the lost half-decade. It's unlikely they'll raise the age again, especially now, and even if they do it would only be 67 (there's international precedent for that).

Baring any other black-swans, and still considering (now accelerated) retirements I suspect things will be back on track sooner than many folks might think. Five years of little or no hiring is a pretty typical of industry cycles, even though it may be a big wakeup call for the younger crowd (Congrats, you've had your cherry popped by the industry )

Even if the big three are down longer-term, there will still be some opportunity in cargo and LCC, and those are still good livings by most standards. Also this is going to scare off a bunch of new entrants, so there will be opportunity for those who stick it out (I've seen that movie before too).

DashAviator

Rickair brings up a good point. The period from 2009-2011 was dismal for passenger airlines, but freight did pretty well. Companies parked their employees and sent boxes instead. I expect this trend to accelerate as more people work from home.

Many Part 121 freight FLYING jobs are pretty competitive, but there are other ways to work in this sector if you are motivated. A lot of pilots would turn their noses up at the thought of driving a delivery truck or working the ramp, but it might be a good way to get in the door at a company you really want to work for. I fall solidly into the "working stiff" category, so I'd take a job like that in a heartbeat.

Excargodog

For the Big Three it’s sort of a perfect storm of ugliness. Their big money makers - international and business flying - are hurt the worst and likely to recover the slowest (and for business flying, incompletely). And all the aircraft optimized for those niches must either be parked (driving up overhead costs with non productive assets) or reconfigured (if possible) to support regular domestic flying. At the same time they have had to bribe the personnel flying that equipment to retire or train them (at non trivial cost of both lost productivity and training personnel resources) to fly equipment more suited to regular domestic flying and thereby generating huge costs for the retirees and huge costs for the training churn (which much of the latter will need to be undone if/when international and business flying returns as will the equipment reconfigurations).

The overall slowdown and shrinking of all flying is going to shrink scope which is going to shrink all the regionals with the potential exception of Horizon. In many areas the Big Three have been using their own flying and that if their regional affiliates to essentially block competition by tying up limited gate availability. That won’t be possible in the immediate future, allowing the LCC/ULCC folks to get their foot in the door at even the fortress hubs and once there they will be difficult to dislodge.

And, speaking of competition, there will be competition - competition that does not share either the legacy costs of some of the Big Three or the expenses of multiple fleet types (and some of those antiquated and inefficient). Competition like Breeze using ultra efficient aircraft that can make long skinny routes economical crewed by all newbies with nobody yet up to year three on the payscale. And again, the LCC/ULCCs flying single type equipment with relatively junior crews are getting more efficient aircraft, NEOs and MAXs, that are going to carve into the not only domestic market share but the Hawaii traffic and much of the near international (Caribbean, Central and South America) and maybe even into some of the European flying that was the exclusive niche of the Big Three.

every airline’s CASM is going to be driven up by the reduced flying and furloughs, if only because they’ll be losing junior (payscale relatively cheap) pilots and retaining senior (payscale relatively expensive) pilots, but the Big Three will be affected by this to a considerably greater extent (and for a considerably longer period) than the LCC/ULCCs and it is no longer impossible to believe that any of the Big Three, especially AA with its massive debt load - is too big to fail. And like pattern bargaining in wage negotiations, one of the Big Three going into bankruptcy puts a lot of pressure on the others to try to get relieved of their debts and expensive contracts by taking that route too.

But for the LCC/ULCCs and newbies like Breeze (who figured to lose money the first few years in any event) it won’t be a lost decade. Maybe another year and a half at worst, IMHO.

kaputt

What was it that kept the regional airline industry hiring moving back in that 2003-2007 time frame when most of the major carriers still had thousands of pilots furloughed?

Genuinely asking, as I was in middle/high school at the time. However as an aspiring pilot I remember regionals were constantly hiring (some even at 250 hours!), but I also remember the major airlines were doing pretty poorly.

Not suggesting that will happen again this time around, just genuinely curious from those that were in the industry then what it was that kept regional hiring going when the rest of the industry was still not in great shape.

brocklee9000

It’s hard to maintain ant wishful thinking these days, but I’m really hoping the LCC hypotheses might come true. Back in the day, all I wanted was a legacy job to retire from. It didn’t take long being out on the line, flying for each and riding their jump seats, talking to more of their pilots, that I did a big pivot. Back when we could still afford to be picky, I ended up setting my sights on Southwest, Spirit, and Frontier. More or less in that order. I wouldn’t have turned down a legacy offer if that ever came to pass, but I was 110% happy to become a lifer at a LCC or ULCC. Fingers crossed everyone stays afloat in the meantime, but pretty much the only optimism I’m maintaining these days is that the low cost market really grows from this and starts hiring.

Bahamasflyer

Really good question and I too am curious, as I was an outsider as well during that timeframe.

SonicFlyer

1- Things will get better as soon as the election is over in November. The vast majority of the hysteria of the virus now is politically driven.

2- Which also means that it could increase tensions with China. I am starting to hear conservatives parrot the idea that this was an intentional and planned response by the Chinese government to Trump's tariffs. Whether or not that is true doesn't matter... but if people believe it, and tensions escalate, then armed skirmishes, proxy wars, or even another cold war may result.

DashAviator

Hiring at my regional during the 2003-2007 time frame could only be described as "anemic". We furloughed about 40 or 50 people during 2002, but they were recalled almost immediately. I think the longest anyone was out was around 5 months.

During the mid-2000's, we had around 650 people on our seniority list. Between 2003 and 2007 we hired about 40 pilots a year. This was mostly to replace people who quit, took other jobs, lost their medical permanently, or retired. If I recall correctly, we had a dozen or so people bail for Compass or Skywest during this time period. A few pilots quit for good and went on to non-aviation jobs.

In short, we were hiring in 2003-2007, but it was just a trickle. The last "big" hiring year was 2000. We wouldn't have another big hiring year until around 2012. By big, I mean "around a hundred people".

tallpilot

9-11 accelerated fleet retirement plans. All of the tri-jets got parked. It also accelerated the transition from turboprops to regional jets. Jets-for-jobs programs were started to entice pilots to give up scope. The bankruptcies were used to negate contract provisions and merger mania caused even more relaxation of scope in the amalgamated contracts.

Airline managers were more concerned with maintaining market share than going broke (like they are now) so regional jets replaced small narrowbodies on routes with lower load factors. As the decade developed the stretch CRJs and E-17x models arrived and further propelled growth.

All of this combined to see the regional airlines growing at the expense of their parent network carriers. Some established regionals didn't grow very much. Republic exploded, purchasing Mid-Atlantic from U.S. Airways and Shuttle America. Freedom, Go-jet and other alter-ego carriers were started to help keep wages down. Compass and a couple other new airlines came on the scene with rapid growth.

Lessons were learned and this downturn should see the opposite happen. Regionals will see more shrinkage and reorganization if not outright shutdown. Unless pilots panic again...we shall see.

saxman66

What the last guy said and I'll add this was the time the majors were in bankruptcy. They realized 50 seat jets could fly the same routes as the 727's and DC-9 for a fraction of the cost and new pilots would work for pennies as well. Not to mention the public didn't really like turboprops either. Since they were in bankruptcy, they could force giving up scope so they could make it happen. I'll admit, some efficiencies needed to be made. DC-10's and 767's would fly shorthaul routes all over the place. 727's and DC-9's would into the smallest of cities. But the 50 seat jets went too far. I remember flying the CRJ-200 on routes like ORD-JFK or CVG-SAT and BOS-JAX. Some regionals exploded in growth during that time when they were awarded lots of shiny new jets with eager pilots to fly them for $19 an hour. I haven't heard the term "shiny jet syndrome" in quite a while.