I guess I mis understood what you were getting at, and yes I know some professional mainline guys, but unfortunatly their are some out there that think the evil regional pilots are to blame for all the worlds ills. I guess I took the statment about scumbag regionals, to mean you were calling the pilots that not necessarily the airlines themselves. If I mis read it my bad....

on a lighter note, im starting to see the arguments that many are making about pay, qol and the like have some validity, and im learning more and more about this industry the longer the issues are going on, mabye someone should publish a book "Airline Flying cliffs notes", and I dont mean how to fly the plane, but rather all the other issues that most of us were unaware of when we got here....

 

What is happening right now up on capital hill is exactly what we all want. All this guy is doing is bringing more disclosure to the traveling public, which is exactly what will improve the regional industry. Think about it; the traveling public currently buys a ticket with a well-known name printed on it, and a price. Right now it doesn't matter if there is small text on the ticket indicating the name of the regional operator; people don't know what a regional carrier is and the vast majority don't think about what type of aircraft they will be flying on; They want the lowest price possible. What I am getting at here is that the information available and known to us pilots and to a lesser degree, by those in Washington, is not known by the consumer and demand has not been proportionately affected. It is not household knowledge that the last 5 multiple-fatality aircraft disasters in this country were operated by regional carriers. People don't know of the lower experience, excessively lower pay, and brutal working conditions of regional pilots. They don't know that their pilots could be flying with less than four hours of sleep and are at risk of job loss by refusing to fly under those conditions! If this was known, if consumers knew they were flying on one of these risker regionals where the results may vary, price would not be the only factor considered.
Regional planes have been falling out of the sky and its all economics!!! The regionals are the perfect cost cutting device; labor costs are rock bottom. So the regionals continue to expand, forcing experienced pilots (expensive) out of the system, forcing carriers to lower minimums, hire irresponsibly all the while cutting training costs and outsourcing maintenance. It's called the "race to the bottom." Meanwhile, pilots continue to come to the regionals accepting the unacceptable pay in hopes of a higher paying job in the future, while these higher paying jobs continue to vanish as mainline carriers unload all their expensive flying and expensive pilots to the regionals. These "market forces" will continue to discourage experience from staying and coming into the cockpit. And meanwhile, people unknowingly continue to buy these low priced tickets and fly these regionals which continues to fuel the downward spiral. Informing the consumer of the increasing risks is exactly what will reduce demand and discourage these practices!
Regional planes have been killing hundreds since 2002, and it is serious. There is undeniably an issue here. You can't wait for the airplane crashes to kick out the bad economic players. You have to prevent the bad economic players from playing the game up to that point by setting rules that for a start, ensure that the people on the field get water.

 

You are absolutely right. Look at some of those ads in any flying magazine- Age 20: starts pilot training. Age 22: first officer. Age 23: Captain. The ad shows a happy looking girl wearing her captains hat. These flight schools have created a mentality which is fueling the problem. But it's not their fault. Industry economics have created a system which has made ads like this 100% true. A reality has been created which encourages flight schools to pump out pilots because there is actually a market for them. That market shouldn't have ever existed.

 

I feel I need to bring up another point. I agree with your previous post, and most of us didnt fully understand what part managment, or a poorly negotiated CBA can play in lowering things, when we entered the industry. Most of us thought this was normal, till we were around awhile. Market or economics created a beast of a hiring boom, people were swept up with lower mins. That does not mean everyone on that wave is incapable of being a sucessful, competant 121 pilot. I happen to know the young lady you are reffering to, and I will say she is a very competent pilot. I remember when she was an instrument student back in 2005, and you couldnt find a more dedicated , hard working student. I remember her spending hours after time with her flight instructor was up, studying, and flying procedures on the sim. I honestly remembing thinking if all students were that dedicated, flight instuctors would have an easy job. I will also say that shortly after she became a captain, she was tested by fire in a real serious emergancy, and you havnt heard this story because she did what a captain is supposed to do, along with her crew, they handled it, and got the plane safely on the ground, resulting in a non event. I know some things do need to change in this industry, but dont assume all lo time pilots, are not serious about what they do, or are incompetent. There are those of us at all regionals, who entered with lo time who strive every day to be the best we can be regardless of the size plane we fly, or frankly how we are treated. I still love being a pilot. Working for an airline, not so much. Hopefuly we can see some positive things change, just dont believe that TT as a number determines the pilots professionalism, or the outcome of an emergancy.

 

That is an interesting story and quite a coincidence that you know her! I completely agree with you on this. I apologize if I came across in a demeaning way here, my intentions are to blame the economics of the industry as a whole. There are so many competent, hard working people coming to the airlines today that it kills me to see the industry not providing the careers they deserve. With this said, unfortunately, there is still a growing problem at the regional level and the last several accidents are showing the effects. We all know an accident is a result of a chain of events, occuring at the wrong place and at the wrong time. The opportunity for the accident chain to form is increased with low experience, fatigue, dissatisfaction with career, financial stresses and bare minimum 121 training standards. The trend at least needs to be in the other direction.

 

sadly, they are now a contract carrier themselves...

 

Yeah, there's a lot that's not in the Constitution. Yet it is a power of the government. The debate has been going on for 233 years. What's your point?

Onfinal

 

Heyas,

Had this bill required any flight carrying an airline's code be operated under it's certificate, then I'd say we were getting somewhere...

Unfortunately not, it seems.

Nu

 

I am not a big poster on these forums, but how did this turn into a low time vs. high time pilot debate again. Yes the regionals hire lowertime people generally. But I don't know of any that are hiring anyone now, except maby G7 and they kinda have the pick of the litter box now. I recently read an article from UNITED MAINLINE from the 1960's requiring 350 hours to be competative, NO instrument rating required. 350 hours guys, for a mainline job. I believe that the quality of training is what needs to be scrutinized, as well as profesionality of the individuals hired. In theory if the training department does its job properly, all of the "qualified" pilots are equal upon completion of training and IOE. 1000000 hours of flying traffic patters in a piper j3 becomes irrelivent. I know some low time pilots that are very very good, and the WORST pilot that I ever flew with was quite senior.

 

No doubt there are a lot of variables involved