When Will Things Turn Around
 

How much longer do you see the lack of jobs to continue? I'm a furloughed guy working at a small 135 cargo company and I can't wait to get back in the game... :(

At least you got that...

Very true indeed.

next year for some

Log on to the websites of Boeing, Airbus, GE, Rolls Royce Plc, and IATA. They all have long term market forecasts and these guys know a thing or two about the industry.

Cargo is very encouraging! :)

Good luck


AL

Let's just hope for sooner rather than later...

quite sometime. probably at least a few years. the recession first has to cycle through the world. and then we'll get out of it, the economy will stay relatively flat for years afterwards. people just won't spend money like they did in the past years, also gas prices will rise sharply again when the first hint of recovery takes place. but overall i think we will only see hiring when the furloughs have been recalled and normal attrition takes over.

You're probably not going to find much sympathy right now when you put it like that. Kinda like a guy complaining that he hasn't upgraded yet.

I'd gladly send you a resume for you to walk into your boss so I can take your place. So would thousands of other guys.

OK, with that being said. Assuming the economy picks up in the next 1-2 years, that means aviation will lag behind, so maybe 3-4 years? If it happens around the same time as age 65, there will be a good amount of hiring going on in about 4 years.

Enjoy flying freight while you can because once you leave you will miss it...I miss being a freight dog all the time.

Ayep...That is far more exciting than 121 RJ driving.

Air cargo will grow at a rate of around 6% per year. The number of freighters in service worldwide will double by 2027!

Al

While I understand the message you're trying to put out, it's too bad that's one of the main problems with our industry: Thousands of guys willing to take the other's spot. :( (not pointing fingers at you)

Well, thats not the problem with our industry, thats the problem with the economy right now. The problem with our industry is guys willing to take the other's spot for less.

Now, if I would have said that I'd be more than willing to tell his employer that i'd do it for less money, then i'd be the problem.

Not quite. It's the demand for such low paying jobs that's the problem, even if no one is undercutting the other's 20K job. If there's still demand for a 20K job (i.e. you willing to take the other guy's 20K job), there will never be progress. I think it's pretty simple. Even when the economy was going well, you would still hear comments from guys not in the airlines yet telling other airline guys complaining about being on reserve too long or any other sort of complain, "I'd readily trade spots with you."

The stock market inecies are all leading indicators of where the economy is headed. They have since turned back around and usually paint an economic future about six months ahead of unemployment.



Unemployment will continue to rise as consumer spending has still yet to completely turn around. Once unemployment numbers flatten out you'll see consumer confidence increase and finally consumer spending will increase.



Once all these take place companies will begin to spend more money and we'll get our ever important business travelers back.



Until then, its going to get a little worse before it gets better as we finish bottoming out.

Currently working at a flight school, the number of american students we have is maybe 5% of our total students. The pilot shortage is coming, hang on the next 7 years are going to be a pretty wild ride. Regionals are not going to be able to find qualified individuals for their right seats. As is the case with many of my students coming from undeveloped and developing countries, the airline and or the government pays their way to fly and the become one of those dreaded 200 hour wonder kids.

I'm no financial wizard but, you're incorrect. The stock market is too reactionary to be an indicator of what is ahead. It is more of an indicator of what has happened. The bond market is a much better indicator of what is ahead.

Might this mean, more jobs in the majors and less in the regionals as the regionals will not have the pilots to hire?

Majors don't have to hire regional captains. 250 hour comm license will do, and just let the regionals stagnate. Voila, regional hiring problem solved.

Most regional hiring will resume early summer 2010. As for major hiring, it's still too early to tell. For now it appears that regional pilot jobs will increase in the next 12-18 months while major pilot jobs will decrease.

With that said, many majors will probably not hire until after 2010, even with current retirement numbers. The next big boom of major airline retirements begins around 2013 through 2020. While we all hope to see a fair amount of major hiring then, many of the major jobs could be outsourced to regional flying, which is where we are heading fast. You can point the finger at anyone you want for this.

:rolleyes: This might be your wet dream but it ain't gonna happen.
Majors hire future Captains which means they want someone who has already proven they can do that job. Hence the normal PIC mins. UAL has already proven how bad an idea it is to hire min hour pilots when they got forced into it by lawsuits back in the '80s.

The majors don't have to hire someone with 1000 PIC turbine time like they have in the past. They could lower their mins to 1000 turbine SIC and probably have a pretty good pool of pilots. Obviously they lack experience and PIC skills but it would be a lot higher standard than what other countries FO's entry level experience at the majors and they seem to be doing OK. I don't predict that they will lower their standards drastically like a commercial license with wet ink as previously suggested but they could lower it a little and still have plenty of applicants. It will be the regionals that will struggle to keep up with the turnover.

The simple fact is the airline industry is struggling for many reasons other than recession. Not many were doing well before. The cost of fuel directly affects profit and the price is not always an indication of a bad/good economy. I know this is like beating a dead horse, but the age 65 retirement affected hiring a lot. So we have about 4 more years before the old guys hang their hats and the majors will need to replace them. Before the age was bumped back 5 years, we were on the verge of a pilot shortage. It was obvious at the regional level when 250 hour wonders were flying big shiny jets.

As far as the answer to the original post. Depending on which 121 carrier you were furloughed from would indicate when you will go back. I think Express Jet is going to take a LONG time to rebound because they shut down their branded flying and would have to get a lot of flying or have a lot of pilots leave before they recall their furloughed pilots. Mesa has a high turnover so when the majors start hiring, they will rebound fast if they don't lose too much flying.

This lacking PIC skills argument, to me, doesn't hold water because you will be an FO at the Major for quite some time if you were lucky enough to be hired right now. Who better than an experienced FO to move onto such a position, as opposed to a CA who is jaded, angry, and stagnant- and will more than likely carry that attitude to another level when hired as an FO to a major ?

Nah, I'd say not quite. I used to make the supply and demand argument, but I stopped since I've become an airline pilot.

Due to the RLA and mgmt's ability to open the pool of applicants, wages only go down. I'll agree with you that a surplus drives wages down, but a shortage does not drive wages up. Need more pilots, lower the mins! Don't wanna negotiate higher wages? Wait for a downturn!

Hiring Fads
 

In the past Delta Airlines would not hire someone with previous part 121 captain time. They believed that once someone learned their bad habits from another company it would be difficult to retrain them.

Airlines set minimums on what the current trends are. I highly doubt if it has any bearing on who the best pilots are however it makes sense to hire pilots who have already been institutionalized as 121 pilots.

However now there seems to be an interest in hiring pilots with a diversified background. Perhaps we will see a change in hiring practices in effort to find more "Sullys" and fewer corporate automatons who hired strait into a regional with 300 hours.

Skyhigh

Why would they lower their mins? They don't need to. Maybe they don't want a pool of just "pretty good pilots". Even when everyone was hiring, they were still hiring pilots with at least 1000 PIC turbine. It's not like it was that hard to find plenty of pilots at least that qualified. Many also required the ability to get an ATP if not an unwritten requirement to actually have one. It should stay that way if not become an actual requirement. ATP only.

The fact that other countries do something else is irrelevant and doesn't make it okay.

Yes, the people you're advocating hiring WOULD lack experience and PIC time. So, why would they be worth hiring? Just because they'll be an FO for a while doesn't mean PIC experience is not a factor. PIC experience is important. Some pilots were never meant to be in the left seat of an airliner and that's just the way it is. It shouldn't be up to an airline to determine that after they hire someone. They start doing that and perhaps they figure it out the hard way........... like when they stall a perfectly good airplane and kill everyone on board. :rolleyes: Even with the PIC requirement, it's not like that's fool proof either. Look at my company. Bottom line is, lower hiring mins to avoid a PIC requirement is not a good idea.

I'm not saying lowering the mins it is a good idea, I think it is very likely if there is a pilot shortage. Everyone wants to think salaries will go up if there is a shortage. My point is that it won't, the airlines will find a way to get pilots cheap.

Not all majors require 1000 PIC. I don't think Delta does/did. I am also pretty sure Continental doesn't either.

ATP is a nice requirement but I don't think it improves safety. The Colgan crash had 2 ATP pilots or at least the FO met the requirements to have one. She was even hired close to ATP mins and had twice the hours the average pilot had when hired at Colgan during that time period.

Anecdotal. I believe that in general, more experience = safer

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kersplatt (Post 617703)

I'm not saying lowering the mins it is a good idea, I think it is very likely if there is a pilot shortage. Everyone wants to think salaries will go up if there is a shortage. My point is that it won't, the airlines will find a way to get pilots cheap.

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You really think there's going to be a shortage of 1000 hour PIC candidates for major airline jobs if/when they start hiring again? When has that ever happened? What an airline sets for its hiring mins and who it actually hires are not necessarily related. I'll bet if you looked at the new hires at Delta and Continental (if they don't have a PIC min), you'd see that many still had lots of PIC turbine time even if it wasn't required.

If you're saying regional carrier may lower their mins because all their Captains leave, I suppose that's possible. Aren't they already down at the 250 level for many? (I don't know - asking.) I'd say hiring mins will be under the microscope for a while thanks to BUF/Colgan, so lowering may not happen. I'd agree that mins are likely to go up before salaries go up.

ATP itself doesn't necessarily improve safety but it sets a min experience level for entry into the airline biz. Hopefully the hours gained in order to get an ATP were worthwhile and actually provided some valuable experience that does more than just look good on paper. An intangible is that obviously all experience is subjective and some flying hours do not equal others. Compare a 200 hour wonder with his peer hired 1 year earlier into the same RJ. If he flew his butt off, let’s say he's almost got 1000 more hours now in the right seat of an RJ than the new hire wonder. Big deal. Is he that much more experienced? He just spent a year flying from A to B with the autopilot on probably 80% of the time. Not that impressive in my book. That's why we have interviews and a subjective evaluation of a pilot's experience, but the minimums have to be set somewhere.

+1 Same here.

Why do you think regionals will start hiring in 2010? I've been figuring it won't start for another 3 1/2 years....about 6 months before the retirements start up again. Just stagnation for the most part until then. And then the whole cycle will start up again with the hiring.

The best indicator is to look to the past and study past recessions. Bond markets are still a retroactive index to a large degree. Typically a bond sells at a price reflective of the current market rate (inversely related). In fact, the stock market seems a better indicator in many ways as those savvy investors are willing to buy up stock when they believe the returns will start coming.

My belief is that we've already bottomed out and are on the way up. Consumer confidence is up, the housing market is slowly working itself out, etc.

I also believe that a pilot shortage is on the way. However, this is easily avoided by airline maneuvering - airline sponsored training programs where you are locked into a contract, multi-crew, lowered minimums, more and more automation to hold pilots' hands in the cockpit, etc. Ingenuity knows no boundaries. The airplanes will be staffed regardless. Furthermore, when there is a huge boom in hiring and pilot training, the mad dash to the RJ will mean inherently less qualified individuals because schools will try to capitalize on the 6 month zero-to-hero programs, etc - which will translate to even less pay because the entry level jobs will equate to "internships", especially in the case of an airline sponsored program.

Think Gulfstream.....

EDIT: The more I think about this airline sponsored idea, the more this seems to be a viable solution from the airline's viewpoint. Think about it:

Training is VERY expensive. Some bloke with the dream to be a pilot shows up and can receive training at a drastically reduced cost (you still pay though). The backside of the deal is that after being hired (assuming you can pass the rides, etc) you are stuck in an employment contract for X years - at horrible pay. The airline will recoup their costs through decreased payrolls. The students will think they've hit gold because they were trained for less and get a guaranteed "job" at the end. The bar will be set lower and when the next crash happens, management can cite "industry standard wages" all over again.

Furthermore, if you breach the contract, you owe the airline your firstborn child and more. In addition to the seniority system's grasp on you, you are anchored down even more by the contract, which results in less training costs for the airline due to lower turnover, etc. Its a perfect WIN-LOSE situation!

Oh my!! :eek:

Have to disagree with you. The stock market is an indicator of future economic conditions. Market traders do not care about what has happened, they care about what might happen. The market is and has always been forward looking. Any basic college finance textbook will say that.

This is what the Chinese airlines are doing right now. I have a student who is in contract with China Eastern. When he gets to Captain on the 340 he is expecting ~85,000 a year.