Not personally a Laker, but out of the last 8 new-hire IOE's I've done, at least 5 have been from Lakes. From what they've all told me is that the wheels are coming off over there, a huge portion of their FO's are all leaving. The ratio of captains to FO's is something like 80/20, and they are having the junior captains all sitting in the right seat now. Cancellations due to staffing are tremendous, and they are losing all the EAS contracts as they come back for re-bid.

 

Lies and deception are a large part of their business plan. Anything to get applicants.

 

Enrollment in the flight program at ERAU in Prescott is a fraction of what it was back in 2006. There used to be 5 teams of instructors and now only 2 or 3. I'll try to find some accurate numbers...

 

Job Fairs in Mesa (ATP) and SLC over the past couple of weekends hosted by Skywest recruiting....Yes the company is short of pilots who meet the new minimum requirements for new hire training. I think the open interviews at Oshkosh back in August was the first sign of things to come.

 

I despise these "shortage" related threads with a passion, given that they are wholly misleading and serve only to misinform the pilot community of a false sense of future hope. Too many claim that so and so airline is hurting, but when it boils down to it, they have heard nothing else aside from hearsay. Enough is enough to quote Samuel L. Jackson.

 

I think this thread refers to a shortage at the regionals level...

If not already here, it's around the corner...

 

The real reason for the thread is to try to get better (or protect existing) work rules and pay. The best way to counter management pushing concessions on us, in my opinion, is to use our high demand as leverage. I completely agree there isn't a shortage at the majors and won't be for a long time. They aren't the ones being asked to take pay cuts either. The regionals are a different story. We are in high demand and we are being asked to work for less. This is outrageous. Look at great lakes for example. It isn't hearsay that they are trying to operate under part 135 so they can get pilots with lower time to work there. The 5000 dollar signing bonus at Eagle and Republic isn't heresay. I'm trying to find more people who are seeing the shortage themselves to hear their story. Why put down my attempt to do that? I'm trying to do something to protect your work rules...if you do work at a regional.

 

Graduates and students might be a helpful metric. Between some schools shutting down and others not having that many students in the past few years, that won't bode well for the regionals.

 

I would like to hear other peoples opinion on why American Eagle has taken the unprecedented step of establishing their CFI Pipeline Program. Why would Eagle do this, when it will cause them to incur small, but real costs, by extending health insurance and travel benefits to CFI's enrolled. I know the actual costs are nearly nothing, but why go through the motions of this? I'd like to hear others thoughts.

 

GLA seniority list has dropped by approx 60% in the past year.