Regional Airlines Shrinking?
 

I'm curious to hear what you guys think about this topic(I saw a thread before but I can't find it, if you were I can get the thread please let me know)
From someone that started flight training mid last year perspective, I feel more 1500hr CFIs are going to ULCC/LCCs because the shine jet syndrome and flying a bus or 73 right of the bet, and I think the regional might not exist in 10ish years or so. what do you guys think about that?

If something dramatic happens it could be in 10 months.

Big 4 hiring plans for the year roughly equivalent to remaining regional pilot population.

Something will emerge from the ashes but it’s gonna be an interesting year.

It is very interesting and scary at the time, because I was talking to students in my flight school and we are all kind of nervous that once we finish training and build our hours we won't find jobs lol

I think it’s the best possible thing for our profession. You don’t have to go back in history very far to reach a point where all jet aircraft, and any aircraft over about 37 seats were flown by mainline carriers. Only about two decades.

That “regional jet” niche was filled back then with similar gauge aircraft such as the DC9-10 or DC9-30, F28 or F100, Bac 111, 737-200. Commuter airlines functioned as feeders, bringing 19-37 passengers into the hubs from small cities that couldn’t support mainline service. But if you took 19 from Altoona and 19 from Clarksburg, and 19 from Williamsport and brought them all into the hub there were plenty to fill an MD80 to Orlando.

Pilots flying those small mainline jets had a mainline seniority number with mainline compensation, benefits, retirement, and quality of life. It was a far better career path for pilots compared with outsourcing all of this narrowbody flying to carriers with substandard (at least prior to the last year or so) compensation and benefits.

When ALPA let the scope genie out of the bottle I never imagined we would be able to get it back in there. Hopefully this is that opportunity and HOPEFULLY we have learned from the mistakes of the past and never again sell scope in exchange for contractual trinkets and magic beans.

Majors hiring at all time record rates. And you all are nervous you will not find a job?

The environment will change. They may be few regionals left. Where will the majors hire from?

Before the days of regionals existing the majors hired directly. I know you and others may not believe it, but they did. I remember it well. Part of the purpose of the jump seat was for someone to observe and get instructions from the Captain. In addition to ground school, the majors today have an advantage of simulators. They can be intensified.

Back in the days of the Connie, there were no simulators for the general new pilots. I know, impossible to believe. Even the Apollo spacecraft that landed on the moon was engineering without electronic computers. Slide rules and people were calculators. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wfrDhgUMGI

Even Pan Am did 707 training in the real plane out of Sacramento at night with planes coming in and out of mx.

The only people skipping the regionals and going to an LCC are doing that through either collegiate pathway programs or some other cadet program. Most people will still have to go through a regional.

I have read about some people buying their own ATP rating and getting hired by an LLC or Acmi, some will even consider you with just the ATP written. The collegiate programs do let you skip this step. The issue is most people would rather have a regional pay for their ATP.

I've still largely heard of people going straight from 1500 to the LCCs being a little more experienced than your traditional 1500 hour CFI. Most have turbine time or something like that. I don't think we've quote reached the point where there's a steady career track of Cessna 172 to A320

Don’t forget military time, which is worth quite a lot. I have two friends that walked straight into the majors from the military.

Oh for sure. It's just frustrating when you hear somebody look at people like them and then turn around to a panicked CFI who can't get hired anywhere and go "SeE? You can SkiP tHE rEgiOnALs"

Completely agree. It's possible, but you need something a little "extra" in your resume.

There are and will be plenty of jobs. It’s just a question of who will be hiring

Yes, the regionals are shrinking,….
 

…. But you need to UNDERSTAND the issue.

https://i.ibb.co/6YPq3Vb/D8-C07-C5-E...F55-E3-BE3.jpg

They have a shortage of regional CAPTAINS that cannot be offset by pumping in new wet ATPs at the bottom of the seniority list. Hiring at the majors is so high that Regional CAs are (on average) being hired away before they complete 1000 hours as a 121 CA. Since it took the airline 1000 hours of some other CAs flying time to get those CAs they are losing upgradeable to begin with, that causes a net loss of CAs. Normally you need an excess of CAs over FOs to offset the fact that CAs (as a group) get more vacation time and use more sick time (and know how to get soft time better) than the FOs.

BUT YIOU CANNOT FLY A SINGLE TRIP WITHOUT A CA IN THAT SEAT, SO THIS IS A LIMITING CONSTRAINT. And it takes 1000 hours of 121 time (or applicable 135 time) to become ELIGIBLE to upgrade to 121 CA at any level, regional or major.

Making the situation worse is that the second tier majors (think Frontier, Spirit, Alaska, Jet Blue, Allegiant, etc) are losing so many people to the legacies that regional FOs who do have some 121 experience are being hired away before they even become upgrade eligible which means that there are fewer and fewer replacements for the regional CAs being hired away to the legacies. And while you CAN replace those guys with wet ATPs, those were those guys will never Be regional CAs now, making the shortage more acute and lowering the average 121 time in the regional FO pool still further.

Which is WHY the regionals are shrinking.

Lord knows the regionals have done what they could, boosting CA salary considerably, forcing mandatory upgrades of eligible FOs who would have preferred to ride the top of the FO seniority list until they got their base of choice with seniority as a CA, paying CA pay for high time FOs, and paying big bonuses and longevity pay to new hire FOs approaching upgrade eligibility from previous 121 flying and direct entry captains, but the cupboard is getting pretty bare for the latter group.

The regionals woukd LOVE to hire you if they had the CAs to fly you, they’ve got millions of dollars of aircraft parked, but the system has a constraint that won’t let them.

So sure, put out applications to all of them. But put out apps to anywhere else that will get you meaningful multi engine turbine hours, including the ULCCS and meaningful 135 flying (think JSX) . Go with whoever gets you the first class date.

When the legacies start offering longevity for years of service, then you know it has gotten really desperate.

Absolutely spot on. Well written.

You are nervous about finding a job in the greatest pilot market ever? Dang, you should just quit flight training

Can someone post the updated numbers / percentages of jets per regional that is currently parked? Tia

I don’t think anyone tracks that robustly in real-time. Especially because how active the non-parked airframes are is significant

Yeah. A number of personnel limited airlines just decrease average hours of utilization in lieu of completely parking the aircraft. Hangar queens - that is, aircraft that just sit and don’t fly - have their own set of problems. So most airlines use a combination of parking aircraft at places like Kingman Az and Roswell NM, and just flying each of the aircraft that are not parked less hours a day.



EMB-145s parked at Kingman
https://i.ibb.co/hHXPrWH/221-F00-AA-...CDE8-D83-E.jpg

Take it easy on them. In this industry if you’re not worried, you’re not paying attention.

Cannot agree more. The industry is feast or famine and if you're not feasting right now, you're probably going to be especially hungry when the next downturn comes. We are one major or a couple minor bankruptcies away from the abrupt end of the gravy train

And that will never happen at a unionized legacy. If they attempted this they would alienate all the pilots they have on property.

Unless it is expressly prohibited by a CBA I wouldn’t put it past them. And I don’t think they’d be too worried about alienating pilots either. If guys at the LCCs knew they could start a legacy with years of longevity I’d be a true mass exodus. It would probably sink their competition. So a little bit of alienation wouldn’t offend them.

And btw. When was the last time these management types cared about alienation? How alienated you think they feel at UA and AA right now? They love fractured groups. Hell, that’s the big reason at AA they have APA and not ALPA, because they are so fractured.

Legacies are not desperate, legacies are causing other airlines to be desperate.

They cannot unilaterally decide to selectively pay some union members a bonus, but not others. Unless they get a side letter from the MEC, that kind of thing does happen but in this climate the MEC would get lynched unless lack of new hires was creating catastrophic disruption.

That's a given, CBA specifies compensation and you can't change that unilaterally either way. They can't even offer premium pay to get people to pick up trips unless it's in accordance with CBA parameters.

What they can do however is pay anything they like to people who are not yet employees... they can fund college degrees, flight school, pay off loans, etc, etc. As long as it all happens before they start indoc. Unless somebody has CBA language prohibiting that, but I haven't heard anything along those lines.

They are only desperate to staff their regionals.

Eventually they will start hiring more regional FO.

If that regional survives. Not all of them do. Ask me how I know…

Been doing it at regionals. Offering longevity. Like I said. Unless it’s expressly prohibited….

Is that why your reagional did not survive?

Sort of. Lost half its flying and couldn’t survive on just what was left. Doesn’t exactly matter WHY you lose flying, be it losing your contract, bad management, or losing your CAs, if you drop below a certain level you lose economies of scale and what’s left can’t support the overhead.

Regional unions either agreed in advance, out of enlightened self-interest, or just let it slide since the staffing problem is an existential problem for them.

Most major unions would not be so accommodating, they would view that as money which needs to be distributed to the pilot group as a whole. As I said before, and MEC could agree via side-letter but that might be at their peril.

And no, they cannot just do it with no recourse, the union could grieve that.

Why is GoJet still alive? Will they survive?

Because United is keeping them alive…

The are Hulas' favored child, when he desperately needed union busters the OG were ready and willing, and stepped up to the plate. Apparently he still remembers that (yes I know that few of those folks probably remain on property).

The mesa pilots had better luck, they managed to force the re-integration of Freedom A back into mesa, otherwise they'd probably be in a similar boat, with F-A the favored entity.

The regionals where this has been going on have either negotiated an LOA, or filed a frozen grievance over it to prevent it from becoming accepted past practice.
Compensation outside the CBA is not allowed and they all have reacted to it, each in their own way.

It would be a long shot, but if that was the only way to poach pilots to stay afloat they would try it. It wouldn’t affect seniority for bidding but allow pilots to coming over preserve their years of service for pay and retirement.

Not without a union LOA - unless it was a pre-hire bonus

Boooo! That’s cheating. Shame on UA for feeding the rats.