A shortage at the majors is highly unlikely to ever happen but a shortage of qualified pilots at the regional level is a real possibility and already starting to be felt. Airlines don't offer a $5,000 bonus when pilots are a dime a dozen. People with ATP mins will have their choice and where do you think they will choose to go? A place like Great Lakes or Silver where they will sit making quite a bit less than even the pittance paid by other regionals first year or someplace like Expressjet that pays even more the second year.

Back to the original discussion, if Pinnacle in the future needs to hire, they will have a problem finding people to go there when they are trying to cut pilot pay across the board. Even RAH recognizes that the FO pay is to low to attract qualified applicants and tried to raise first year pay to $31/hr outside of negotiations.

 

It was??? You predicted we would go into bankruptcy.. Everyone knew that. You also kept predicting how many spots away from upgrade you were everytime a vacancy came out.. How'd that accurate crystal ball work out for your PIC time??

 

To be fair, I wasn't thinking bankruptcy before Shy mentioned it. Also, he made it to Virgin America and I'm a little jealous.

 

To be fair, that 5000 bonus is tacked onto your 2yr indentured servitude contract. You compare a lot of RAH stuff in your post. Express, Compass, Horizon, SkyWest arent using gimmicks like bonuses or bumping 1st yr pay to attract applicants and they're the "better regionals" if there's such a thing.

 

The "better" regionals just haven't been hurting as bad for staffing yet. Its not going to hit every company at once because it depends on their need for pilots at that time (growth and attrition) and a lot has to do with how the company is perceived by job seekers.

SkyWest, Expressjet, and Horizon are known for treating their pilots a lot better than certain other companies. Places where regional pilots are happy tend to have a lower attrition rate. Pilots are willing to wait until the job they really want comes along, rather the first out available. I can't tell you how many times I flew with Captains that said they would wait until Southwest or Delta called or they were just thinking of staying put. Now that the quality of life has gotten bad, everyone of them is trying to bail for the first opportunity. Why do you think certain places have such a quick upgrade? So as applicants become more selective in where they go to, they are probably going to be the last ones to have to start raising pay. Give it time and even SkyWest may have to consider raising their pay to attract people.

 

Not only the bankruptcy prediction, but also the prediction that the ATL-900s would be gone and the entire Colgan operation was gone, and I made that prediction post right here on Jan 31.

For your reading enjoyment:

http://www.airlinepilotforums.com/re...cle-rumor.html

this thread was closed after pretty much everyone in that thread refused to acknowledge the truth and instead attacked on the offense.


That one by KAT was my personal favorite. I guess there was at least one virgin at the Bunnyranch after all!

 

I was a member of the PCL MEC and this was NDA'd info to us all "in-the-know" on Dec 8.

Either way I'm happy for Shy. He got out of here when most of us can't. Ill wave to you- I'll be the one in the right seat of a -200.

 

Shy- a personal question....what's your point? What's the point of coming on here and tooting your own horn? Are you that unhappy with life? Don't be a mental midget. Congratulations for moving on and up at a bad time. Enjoy it!

 

You're right, there's no point anymore. Sorry.


Good luck, fly safe.

 

good for you shyguy, making some of the ego clowns on here actually admit they were wrong.