It's quite simple;

If an airline that employees 3,000 pilots with a minimum guarantee of 75 hours raised the hourly wage by $2 would be looking at an increase in the balance sheet of $450,000 on just minimum guarantee pay for pilots, that's $5,400,000 a year. It is more economical to lobbie and utilize the money to cover other expenses, i.e. marketing, remodel or everyones favorite... Executive compensation. This is the way a bean counter reasons.

 

Right, but how many passengers does a 3000 pilot airline fly each year? According to one source, Expressjet (about 2700 pilots currently) carries 40,500 people per day on average, which equates to 14,782,500 each year.

5.4 million / 14.78 million = .303

That same bean counter should realize that raising ticket prices by $0.30 per ticket would allow that $2 raise. Actually even less, since my calculations were for a 2700 pilot group, not 3000.

Therefore, a $2.00 raise in ticket prices would allow for a better than $12/hr raise to all pilots, and would probably solve the labor shortage.

 

But when you have a surplus of pilots it's not required, as a regional you don't control the ticket prizes. You bid for a contract and it's your responsibility to ensure the cost is less that the fee for departure contract payout. Now as we start seeing less applicant things will start changing. It's all about supply and demand and right now we are starting to see a stronger demand for the qualified pilots available.

* I'm there with you that it wouldn't cost the companies a significant amount per ticket to increase the pilots compensation, but with more guys willing to work than jobs amiable they will utilize that money for other things. We will see how things go once we have attrition, and stricter requirements for qualifications and rest requirements!

 

I'm going to have to disagree with you. If you gave 20-30 years to an airline expecting a pension and multiple retirement funds that your airline has their hands in, and now that airline declares bankruptcy and states its intention to dissolve everything you've worked for the past 20-30 years, I think suicide is more likely compared to experiencing stagnation at a regional for 5-10 years. One is now approaching Age 60, & has essentially lost the ability to fund retirement, & only 5 years to make it up. Not likely that one has the option to enter a different field either. Not a rosy picture. JMHO.

 

Does anyone over at ExpressJet happen to have any current contact information (preferably a phone number) for someone associated with Pilot Recruitment? If you do, could you please drop me a PM? It would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.

 

I just scheduled the RJ orientation course at ATP because I thought it would go a long way towards earning an interview at XJT. I've got 1300 and 145, but I was involved in an instructing accident eight years ago. I hoped taking the class might even out that black mark on my record.

If hiring is about to stop, it looks like I just unwisely spent about $2500. I tend to be someone who sets the top of the market though. I tried for a year to earn an interview at Eagle and finally got invited just before Thanksgiving. Ten days later it was cancelled when AMR filed for bankruptcy.

I love to fly, but had I known what the last ten years were going to be like, I never would have bothered. Back to the drawing board, potentially.

 

Sorry to hear about your situation, but right now is the time to act! Seems like Pinnacle will furlough a lot of pilots and Eagle has a good chance to head in that direction, this will flood the market with pilots who are more qualified than you are. Good Luck and keep your head up!

 

I've heard a lot of rumors that hiring is going to stop. I've also heard a lot of rumors that hiring is going to continue through the rest of the year. That should tell you something...

For what it's worth, in April we have 3 ERJ classes and 1 CRJ class. To my knowledge that's the most classes we've had in one month since hiring started on the ERJ side at the beginning of 2011.

The company hasn't officially said anything about hiring past April. They seem to be taking it a month at a time.

For those who are thinking about applying should do it now because there are already lots of Eagle and Pinnacle guys/gals who are trying to get on over here.

 

I guess one reason to believe hiring will continue in some form, although it's not the most convincing one, is XJet just signed and agreement with ATP flight school in February guaranteeing an interview to those who complete one of their RJ courses.

 

That is interesting.

Here is something I can promise. Management is genuinely worried about a pilot shortage in the not to distant future. That doesn't mean there will definitely be one, or it will definitely be severe, but they are concerned enough about it that they are taking steps to try to ensure they have a pipeline moving forward. If you look at it cynically, you could say they are trying to keep supply up to maintain a flow of cheap labor (the other way to get more pilots is to simply pay them more, but it's cheaper to ink deals with colleges and flight institutions). If you look at it practically, they are just trying to set themselves up for a successful future. Whatever your view, it says something to me that they are preparing this far in advance.

The previous poster was right about the classes in April. Rumors are circulating both ways. For a while all we heard was 500-700 pilots this year. Lately there have been rumors of that slowing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - I got burned early on reading too much into the Expressjet forums regarding rumors about hiring, new flying,etc. This company keeps a good pipeline of information open but they typically give you a one month forward looking view on things like hiring. It's probably better than over-promising and under-delivering (can you imagine if in January they said they'd hire 600 pilots this year but then stopped hiring mid-year? People would freak out).

Personally, I don't think hiring will stop completely. It may pause for a few months after the summer, but the ERJ side is losing about 16 pilots per month, equivalent to at least one monthly new hire class. The captain I flew with today told me he's already been hired at Jet Blue, just waiting on his class date to turn in his notice. I know there are a number of captains moving on, so hopefully attrition starts picking up some more as well. They did announce only one upgrade class planned for June-July, after two in the previous period, but that's been known to change. Can't read too much into it.

For now, we are hiring like gangbusters. Hopefully it will continue.