Originally Posted by CaptainTeezy

I completely agree...The only way an FO is even really worth 40K is if they have an ATP, 135 experience/military flight experience/significant CFI time, and probably 1,000 hours multi piston or single engine turbine.

Originally Posted by NoStep

I keep hearing that prospective budding airline pilots build hours flying 135 (most require 1,200hrs+and are not hiring), flight instructing, crop-dusting, etc...please tell me where these jobs are so I can again be gainfully employed. Anyone?

Originally Posted by FlyJSH

Can you file a flight plan?
Are you willing to move to Del Rio, TX; Truth or Consequences, NM; Missoula, MT; Pasco, WA; or some other one horse town?
Are you willing to load cargo or carry the boss' bags?
Are you willing to fuel the plane?
Are you willing to fly a piston twin? ... how about a single?

If you answered yes, there are jobs to be had. If not, you are making it pretty hard.

Originally Posted by rickair7777

I had a lady approach me at a gate area, she was proud that her son is headed off to ERAU this fall even though it was costing a fortune (she obviously could not afford it easily). I had to bite my tongue hard not to give her a very blunt assessment of the scam she was involved in. If I had had the time, I would have tried to sit down with her and explain some things.

Originally Posted by snippercr

As a barely employed CFI not even considering the regionals for several years, if they started requiring ATP to fly FO (which when I got into aviation, I thought they did... my mistake then), at least to me and my fellow instructors at my school it's just another checkride.
We think of it this way: most airlines, regardless of TT, will probably start asking for at least 100 hours of multi. Where are you going to get those 100 hours of multi? Part 135? Well they will not hire you into their twins without 1200 hours at least or a couple hundred multi. Instructing? Probably, but the line of instructors to teach ONE multi student (gets you maybe 10-15 hours dual given) is several places long. We are expecting to have 1500 to 2000 hours dual given before we even get a multi student.
This mirrors what is going on at many other schools. Multi hours are so coveted that you have to wait a few years before you can give dual in a seminole and by then you already have your ATP mins.

Just giving the request CFI's perspective.

Originally Posted by planediveguy

In reality I expect the Airline Management to come up with some sort of plan in order to avoid this altogheter. And yes, Ab Initio will be a reality, as well as contract flying... it is up to the unions to fight and make sure we are not undersold when that happens...

Originally Posted by AirWillie

I don't think the gov has any authority to make airlines pay more, the only way airlines will pay more is if no one shows up at the door. The whole point, of scraping by with entry level flying is to get to a pro job. Who wouldn't bypass all that? You can't blame these mythical 250 hour pilots. There will never be a shortage all airlines have to do is lower the mins. That's why they need to pass this ATP bill, it will be very bad the next couple of years for people affected but in the long run it will be better. It's not like they're missing out on much the first and second year under current regional work rules, except for that shinny jet..

Originally Posted by mshunter

Yeah, and they've been doing a really good job of that lately. I'm pro union, just not airline union. Lets face it, they suck. Look at the mess they have managed to do nothing about that airline pilots are in right now.




This is the one and only way, IMHO that things will improve. Safety will not go up, thats why there is a captain on board. Most FO's are really just gear pullers. But when the schools can't turn out a pilot who has 250hrs to get hired at a regional, then what are the regionals going to do for pilots? How many guys who know what they are worth, because they have already put the time in to get the magic 1500 would be willing to go to a regional when there are 135 jobs that will pay them better, and have them home almost every night.

Something has got to give. I say to all those who are in the industry-------brothers unite. Organize a mass walkout of EVERY airline and demand better wages. The RLA would have nothing to do but be a useless piece of paper if EVERYONE was together. What would they do, fire the entire workforce? Then who would fly?

Originally Posted by seafeye

Taken from Flying Mag:

Web Exclusive: A Crisis in Flight Training
A Crisis in Flight Training
I just spent a day at Delta Connection Academy (DCA) listening to industry experts discuss the state of airline flying and the industry training programs that feed the profession.


The big questions raised at the round-table conference centered around what DCA, which sponsored the event, said was a coming shortage of pilots. Many furloughed pilots have been out of the cockpit for more than five years, and many of those pilots say that they don’t plan on coming back to an airline job. On top of that, training providers across the industry say that business is off. Several said during the conference that nobody believes there will be enough new pilots to fill the seats on regional airliners even in a couple of years.

The coming shortage--of pilots and students--is based on a number of factors, some of which are frightening to the training providers because there’s very little they can do about them.


Perhaps the biggest factor is the drying up of financing to prospective students. Many students who want to fly—and DCA says that it’s getting as many applications as ever—simply can’t get loans. DCA’s Jason Dauderman says that the company’s loan application acceptance rate is down to about 30 percent, and the amount of the loans that lenders approve has decreased, as well.

Part of why it’s harder for students to get loans is because of the sub-prime mortgage crisis that caused a worldwide recession. The same thing happened with student loans, as you might know, as the sub-prime market spread into the student loan market, with lenders okaying loans to inumerable students who had poor credit, poor academic records, and little prospects of paying off the loans. As a result, Sallie Mae, the private lending company, is writing off a billion dollars of bad student loans. Long story short, the crisis in student loans prompted many lenders to leave the student loan market altogether.


While the biggest reason that many lenders have fled the aviation student loan market is related to the financial crisis, the recession has made it harder than ever for students to pay off their loans, which are typically between $100,000 and $200,000 per student, if the entire two-to-four-year education is financed. And there's little chance of those costs coming down. Flight instruction, as Dauderman pointed out, is an expensive proposition. We as pilots understand that all too well.


And when lenders look at the risk, they see some big question marks. Will the student actually be able to earn their ratings? Some do wash out. And if they're successful, will they be able to land a job and be able to pay off their loans? And if they do wind up in the right seat of an airliner, will they be able to pay off those loans on the $18,000 annual salary they might earn for starters? Of course not.


And if Congress has its way, we might be looking at the need for first officers to have an ATP, a requirement that will add tens of thousands of dollars to these students' debt, making it more difficult for students to get loans and for school to attract young people to their programs. For the record, no one at the conference thought the right-seat ATP provision would improve safety.


Perhaps the most troubling question raised at the event was whether airline flying was a profession that any young person should pursue. One attendee, a bright young many who got his ratings at DCA and now flies left seat in an AirBus for JetBlue said that he loves his job and still backs the profession. But he admitted on numerous occasions that there were big factors--chiefly economic ones--that should give any prospective student pause.


Would I advise my kids to become airline pilots? As much as I love flying, in this day and age, it would be hard advice to give unless conditions changed substantially.


One thing has to happen. The airlines need to start paying starting pilots more money, a lot more money. A starting salary of $30,000 would go a long way toward making the transition to professional life if not attractive, then at least survivable, though barely. Starting teachers in almost every state make more. And there’s no doubt that the airlines should start subsidizing training a great deal more than they already do. Today their subsidies consist largely of partnerships with training academies to give jobs to their graduating students, a good marketing approach but one that does nothing to help students cut their indebtedness. Why not have the airlines foot part of the training bill? It would be to everyone’s advantage, especially theirs. After all, they're the ones who need the pilots.

And it's not all the regional airlines' fault. The major airlines share much of the blame. After all, they're the ones who on a daily basis squeeze their regional partners to cut costs--especially labor costs--to the bone, and then some.
And schools need to start pre-qualifying students, helping to ensure that those who can get loans have what it takes to get their ratings. That's a tough thing to do when times are hard. To be sure, some schools view a "qualified" student as one who can get a loan, as opposed to one who has the right stuff to fly an airliner. That kind of cynical view isn't fair to anybody.

Right now schools are doing a lot of selling from the point of view that pilots will need to make a sacrifice to get into the profession. (That's also talking point number one for the Regional Airline Association.) The truth is, that's the absolute truth. And it just might pay off for those pilots in the long run. I for one sure hope so,

But as it stands today, the sacrifice is just too much, far too much, to ask.

October 05, 2009 | Permalink