Friend of mine who interviewed at Pinnacle and was hired as a "street captain" (100 hrs right seat) about two years ago told me that during the sit down interview he met an old buddy who was on the interview committee, guy told him that some ex Aloha and UA and ATA guys had just gotten done speaking with him and that none of them had a chance, they didn't care to answer any of the interviewers questions and were only interested in how long it would be before they get in the left seat, having assumed they were already hired with the "qualifications" on their resume.

 

Has anyone ever heard of the law of supply and demand? Sometimes I wonder after reading some of the comments. Airlines were hiring hand over fist in 2007 because they had positions to fill. Because demand (passenger desire to travel was high), the airlines increased supply (more flights). To cover those extra flights, they had to hire more pilots. Now, demand is far lower and supply has been cut to meet the new level of demand.

As for the comment about the 2000 AA pilots on the street, that's not a real number. How many of those guys are now at other carriers? How many have moved on to other jobs outside of flying? I highly doubt 2000 pilots sat on their rear ends for six or seven years just waiting for a recall notice from AA.

 

The best thing that could happen to this profession is getting rid of the longevity pay scale and make it so pilots could switch jobs with no penalty or paycut. Portability with each job would allow a pilot to leave a company for whatever reason (base closure, company cutting pay, benefits, etc) which would force the company to take a closer look at what it takes to retain pilots.

Forcing a minimum pay (whether it is the union or government) only forces the company to stay at the capacity level that can support that minimum pay(limited to no growth, only shrinkage).

Its a scary thing to think about, but if we operated closer to the rest of the real world in terms of getting compensated based on the free market and our performance then maybe it would be a good thing?

 

No, it IS because there were jobs that experienced pilots would not take. There are PLENTY of experienced pilots on the streets. They had to drop standards to 250 & 50 to keep fresh meet in the right seats. They could not lower the minimums any lower than that, and they still couldn't get people fast enough. Was it because that many people were retiring? No, it was because that many people worked for a year or so, and realized how much they were getting screwed and left. The vacancies were all due to turnover rates for the most part.

That still doesn't change the fact that there were/are plenty of qualified airline pilots that have decided to make use of their College education in their other field of study since the money is better, the hours are better, and the QOL is better. If the money and QOL were still here, they would be too.

 

and people wonder why I don't let my family fly on regionals.....

 

They are by no means anything even close to being the ONLY experienced pilots that are on the street my friend; the fact that you don't seem to know that tells much of how much time you have in this industry. It also explains your shortsighted comments.

 

Because the ATA "owns" the FAA and a 200 hour pilot will work for practically nothing. Management abrogates their responsibility by shuffling these guys through training and then making them the Captain's problem.

 

Yeah I wouldn't let my family fly with a pilot who (at the time) had about 15000 hours, 8000 of which were in the right seat of a Dash 8 and has flown on about every continent on the planet. He was just stuck at a regional where he couldn't upgrade after 12 years of seniority so he decided to move on since he wouldn't be forced to take a pay cut if he became a street captain.

Check your opinions, assumptions and jealousy at the gate before boarding please.

 

I respect most of your posts but the low blows really aren't necessary.

 

I NEVER said there were not good Captains/Pilots at regionals, I just said that they are the places where you DO find the ones you would NOT want to fly with. And since the experience level of the crew isn't on the ticket, even though there are always a few high caliber folks around, the safest thing to do is to stay off regionals. If that upsets your little idea of the world, I'm sorry; but truth sometimes hurts.