Doesn’t have to be spread evenly to see reduced hours. Don’t forget trips being taken away for consolidation and ioe. More hires means less available trips to those outside training to allow those still finishing to finish. More people on reserve means you’re fighting more people for those trips on open time or the trade boards. Less lines because they take them for training means less line holders (even if it only affects a couple people). Those senior enough to hold a line were never that affected. It’s the people on reserve that aren’t being called and fight over the scraps.

You guys are missing the point. The hiring at the majors is going to slow. This is a temporary surge to replace the covid losses. It’s already changing.

we. shall. see.

You are missing the point. Every CA can generate - AT MOST - 1000 hrs a year of SIC flying. That’s it. There is no way around that. Every CA must AVERAGE 1000 hrs of SIC generated, just to pay the system back for the SIC they themselves used to become upgrade eligible. Every single CA leaving with less than 1000 hrs of TPIC is a net loss for the system in terms of generating the SIC hours needed even to maintain steady state. But FOs leaving for a major are an even greater problem. An 800 hour guy jumping to Frontier has cost the system 800 SIC hours, the equivalent to losing a CA with 1000 hrs of SIC and only 200 hrs of TPIC.

And the high time FOs are the FOs that you disproportionately lose, and the only replacements you bring in are zero time FOs which if you can’t fly them (because you don’t have the CAs TO fly them) or DON’T fly them (because you are devoting the available flight hours to getting more senior FOs upgrade eligible) are a total waste and economic drag on the system. And the FOs that have 1000 hrs of SIC and either can’t or won’t upgrade, are a total loss to the system in terms of addressing the current restraint.

Historically, you needed MORE CAs than FOs to be steady state because CAs being more senior had more vacation time, used more sick leave, were able to bid lighter schedules with more soft time, etc. Any regional with more FOs than CAs is likely already on a downward spiral. Yes, COVID caused early retirements brought it on faster than it would have otherwise happened but look at the aircraft orders for the majors. Even the LC/ULCCs have expansion plans. And look at the upcoming legacy retirement numbers.

Barring a major recession (which granted, could happen) I believe the regional model is in serious trouble.

https://youtu.be/49V1zgQTEO4

While I do think hiring will slow at the legacy level a disruption like what we’re in right now will not fix itself quickly. Nearly all regional have cut hiring of cfis because they have too many low time fos and with new pay rates they can’t sustain themselves by paying more and more fos to sit around and not fly. You’re seeing more ca leave to majors than there are upgrading which is only making the problem worse. It’s still in a downward trend and even if/when it equalizes because majors slow hiring again it’s going to take multiple years to rectify the hole regionals are currently digging. Even if it’s a temporary problem it’s not one that’ll be fixed in the next year. It may be another year or two of majors siphoning ca and high time fos let alone another 5-10 years to hire and train the replacement ca of all the ones that left.

Seriously. Black and white thinking is rampant in this industry. You have a point but it’s not as extreme as you make it out to be. The regionals don’t need to upgrade EVERYONE. Every upgrade will generate more hours for those FOs. Just a few is enough to keep the ball rolling. A few more than that and we expand. The money hunt is over. Captains are not going to the LCCs. They are holding out for the majors.

I beg to differ. Half my class at an ulcc is made up of former ca. I’ve had a few people relay to me their experiences at legacy interviews too. The gist being that out of all the interviewees none were regional fos and the ones who got a cjo were ulcc and lcc with most of the regional ca being left out to dry. Being typed in the same plane they fly is becoming a pretty big resume booster and without other significant contributions to resumes regional ca aren’t exactly a sure bet to get a cjo.

Money was a pretty poor reason to move over to an ulcc. Short term as a ca you’d be giving up money and sure maybe long term it was beneficial. Which if you look at the current year over increases it’s the same situation. With nearly every airline negotiating the regionals have finished with most majors still in the midst. Once that’s done it’ll again be the same financial decision. But there’s plenty of other reasons to go to an ulcc most of which is qol. Different airlines offer different qol to each individual based on where they live or their needs. In rare cases does a regional actually offer better qol and when it does at least from my perspective leads to lifers.

I've seen this with my own neighbor. CFI, hired by PSA at 1500 hours. As he was approaching 1000 hours SIC in the CRJ he got an interview with Delta and received a CJO. He went ahead and upgraded while waiting for indoc. Finished IOE and got a handful of PIC hours before putting in his notice and starting Delta indoc .

The problem there is that you’re going up against math with wishful thinking.

There is, by regulation, a hard cap on how much flying can be done. The number of captains is dictating where the cap is set. You talk about keeping the ball rolling, but what you describe is an airline forced to continually shrink. That is, by definition, not sustainable.

A few more obviously doesn’t equate to expansion, it equates to reducing the rate of the shrinkage. You need some more to get back to even. Expansion? That takes even MORE

Yeah, Pangolin. THIS ^^^^

it’s not some personal vendetta against regionals, it’s strictly theory of constraints. Every CA you lose is 1000 less hours the FOs can fly the next year. Every FO that you lose takes his/her SIC hours with them and will not contribute AT ALL to future CA upgrades at the regional. Regionals are bleeding experience and increasingly coming up against the hard limit of 1000 hours to upgrade. Add more zero 121 time FOs in at the bottom and the situation only gets worse, not better, since the limited SIC hours available must now be used to IOE and consolidate these guys/gals that will then sit on reserve and not fly because the more senior people are lineholders.

Right now a lot of regionals are like leaky boats whose bilge pumps can’t keep up with the leak. Eventually those boats sink if nothing else changes (like a serious recession).There is no gray area about it.

Pangolin is right, a major has 1000 (max) retiring per year and they are able to train 2000. The airlines are absolutely replacing the covid early outs and catching up with retirements. The hiring will not be this crazy 2 years from now. Legacy Airline jobs will be harder to come by. Let's hope we get these contracts hammered out before that happens and we lose any shred of leverage currently held.

i disagree. Look at the order books for new narrow bodies at the majors. Then look at those at the regionals.

https://i.ibb.co/NNgmXx1/E504-F7-FA-...AB285-F4-D.jpg

Most current hiring at legacies only covers their incentivized early retirements for COVID.

The majors will need to replace their FUTURE retirees and staff those new aircraft while the ULCCs (including all the new kids on the block) and LCCs continue their own expansions. And the regionals have already nearly exhausted the DEC supply.

All those orders are not all growth. A lot are to replace aging fleets. Think about all the 757 and 767 delta and United are going to retire in the next 5ish years. They also have older 320 and 737 they are probably looking to replace by the time these narrow bodies roll in.

Read their information for investors. Yeah, they have some old aircraft, but not nearly as many as they did before they trimmed their fleets during COVID. BUT MUCH IS FOR EXPANSION.

For the ULCCs and new majors like Breeze, it’s entirely expansion. Do some research.

United 200 aircraft order last year is not to expand by 200 aircraft more than half is to replace aging aircraft. By the time those planes come in in 5-10 years they will have plenty to retire.

Every fo you upgrade to ca IS more fo flying allowing more FOs to upgrade. Every fo isn’t starting at zero. It’s going to take some time to recover but it’s not a negative death spiral.

No. Every FO you upgrade to CA is more fo flying hours ONCE THEY HAVE PAID OO BACK FOR THE HOURS IT TOOK THEM TO UPGRADE. If they upgrade after 1000 SIC hours at OO they won’t pay the SIC math model back until they have flown 1000 hours with an OO SIC at their side. If they stay in excess of that, their contribution can grow FO flying. if they leave before that, they are a net loss to the system.


. Nope. But the vast majority do. And the vast majority of FOs who depart OO prior to upgrade never come back to become CAs for OO to be able to benefit in terms of upgrade eligibility to payback the experience invested in them.

If you have more FOs than CAs, it’s a pretty good indicator a death spiral is already underway. Not a guarantee, but a pretty good indicator.

Another FO that upgrades is now just a Captain with his apps out…. Its a never ending cycle. The question is where do you get on and off the “lazy river” at the water park…

An interesting thought experiment is "Imagine the regional industry is stable then transitions to unsustainable pilot losses. What would that look like?"

Another thought experiment "If the regional model of February 2019 is not sustainable, is there a smaller model that is?" IE, how many ASM/year can be sold sustainably paying current labor rates and how many airframes does that translate to." If you assume the US can support, say two hundred 76-seat jets, what does that look like?

I would say no matter your experience, if you get the type rating you get the type rating and that’s the end of it.

It's not that simple :rolleyes:

The regionals would *really* like it to be, but plenty of folks with a type rating flunk 121 IOE.

What about natural selection in the C Suite?

Oh yeah, I forgot, they're worthy and we aren't.

Great posts.

The answer is demand destruction, at least that is what our overlords from the Chicago School would dictate, and what appears to be evolving from the dark and hallowed halls of the managerial banks. Who wins is a meaningful question, because while airline travel is a luxury is some countries, it is almost essential in the U.S.

Great thread and thanks for posting it. And with regard to the regional model, F*ck innovation and the model that paid me $17 bucks an hour to fly a jet out of America's capital city.

Video - "Death of the US regional airlines?"
 

Here is a surprisingly comprehensive video on this subject, made by a (European) airline pilot for his YouTube channel.

Title: "Is this the death of the US regional airlines?"
https://youtu.be/oYM8dG-ZGRo

Very well done!

Could the FAA reduce the 1,000 hours of SIC 121 time required for upgrade, to 750 hours? Would this have any meaningful benefit?

I’d think hard and long about that. For many people 1000hrs just isn’t enough experience to really take on that pic responsibility. The faa minimum imo is already pretty low and many airlines required more than that only to now drop those required to the faa minimum. CA upgrades have no where near the same pass rate that initial has.

By adding special circumstances to have ATP at lower than 1500 hrs, we ve already lowered the threshold for upgrade down the line. I see no benefit to lower it further.

I'd rather have them lower the ATP rule requirements (which I am very against) then that. I will continue to write my lawmakers as a professional pilot and a constituent every time these rules are challenged. They have been a blessing for pilot QOL and pay along with the increased and undeniable safety (sorry, statistics don't lie) that have come from it.

Could they? Sure. Not without risk, but anything is possible. Would they? Unlikely.

Would it help the regionals if they did? Equally unlikely. Those uncomfortable with immediate upgrade would have even greater reason to find themselves a ULCC where they could hang out for a few years before going to their career destination.

The Major Airlines that want to save the regionals will end up just creating ab-initio. Some have already started this process like United and their Aviate Academy. The one missing link is who is paying for training.

It’s not hard to see a future where United (or insert airline) pays for all or most of your training. Maybe students have to show up with a PPL, but United pays for the rest. You then instruct at their Academy until hitting the ATP mins, then go to the regional of their choice where you are contracted for 5-7 years before you can move up to the big boys.

That would solve their staffing problems, but the cost of paying for initial training is a huge hurdle that hasn’t really been necessary in this country yet. It will be interesting to see what plays out.

That MIGHT solve the strategic problem but it won’t solve the tactical one - which is too many pilots leaving the regionals before they have upgraded and flown enough to pay back the 121 SIC hours they got from the regional.

Right now they are looking at mandatory upgrades on FOs who don’t WANT to upgrade (unless you give them the additional stripe as a ‘participation’ trophy) and paying huge bonuses and salaries for DECs. And they are running out of potential DECs.

Barring a recession and/or a change in the 1000 hr upgrade rule they are in trouble.

I got a better idea. Let the airlines pay, on a continual long term basis, what the market requires to hire that experience. Problem solved.

The airlines, and their previous compensation packages, resulted in the current hiring environment (along with new people clamoring to get in through short cuts). We don't need to change safety regulations to fix the problem the airlines created.

Well the ab-initio pipeline would most certainly require the pilot to upgrade to Captain as part of their contract.

And what he’s saying is they need captains to tactically fill the gap until the strategic ab initio plan grows new ones from seed. The system still falls apart otherwise.

Barring a major recession; UA and DL could hire all of the AA regional pilots in the next five years while AA could hire all the UA or DL regional feed. This doesn’t even include the LCCs with their own hiring needs for growth and attrition.

Or the ACMIs.

Would such a contract be enforceable?

Kind of a silly question. Are forced upgrades enforceable if it’s in the pilot contract?

this has often been discussed on APC before. Some are, some apparently aren’t, depending on the contract and the state you are employed in.

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/a...-contract.html

https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/a...ract-help.html

And, a confused bit of case law…

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-n...aining-lawsuit

So maybe not all that silly…