A letter to HR
 

Recently I was contacted out of the blue by an regional airline expressing interest in having me fill out a formal application so that they could bring me to interview. The email was not a generic e-mail and was clearly written specifically for me. So I called them up. The HR lady was very pleasant and she did everything in her power to answer my questions. She said that she found my resume online and that she was really interested in me. I have been on the phone with many a recruiter in the past and this one legitimately sounded like she was Googling for pilots! She wanted me to fill out a formal application to the airline. (Regional Airline).

A week went by and I hadn't gotten back to her s I didnt have interest in the potential job offer. Yesterday I received another e-mail with the following text:

"We are still very interested in you, please complete the attached and return as soon as possible. Hope to hear from you soon!"

The text below is my reply.

(I copied the letter from Word. Looks like the table got kind of screwed up but you still get the picture)

================================================== =================

Dear Ms. #####,

I would like to thank you for expressing interest in having me apply for ####### Airlines. I must admit that I have never had an airline contact me out of blue because they found my qualifications online. I am both honored and flattered at the same time.

When we spoke over the phone you were very kind in answering my questions. You were patient and insightful and went above and beyond to get me the answers I needed in order to make an informed decision. I feel that I should return the favor in kind to make sure that you understand why I must decline your kind offer.

Ever since I have been a child I have aspired to be the “guy up front”. The suit, tie and epaulettes are much more to me than a uniform. They are the aspirations, dedication, sacrifices and hard work of an 8 year old with a dream who grew up doing everything in his power to achieve that goal. I managed to achieve it once before and I was shocked to find out how much one needed to sacrifice in order to live on the wages provided by the airlines. I lived a year and eight months of my life with nothing to my name. Spending everything I had on the cost of a crash pad and food because what I was paid wouldn’t allow me to afford rent at the base I was assigned. To top if off, the airline I worked for made very poor business decisions and ultimately dissolved in to space. Since that time I found sustainable employment in aviation outside the airlines.

The thought of going back to the airlines creeps to my mind every now and then. It is after all the dream I have chased for 22 years. However my last experience with an airline taught me that quality of life and financial stability are much more important than a suit, tie and a turbine aircraft.

I spent the last week or so since we communicated running the numbers and after I show them to you, I hope you will understand my point. The final column on the right is what I would be left with based on your airlines current pay scale assuming 80 hours of credit a month. I am padding the minimum credit hours with an extra 5 hours. The table below is not taking in to account expenses for food and gas during the month or trying to put something aside for savings for those rainy days.


Year of Employment

Monthly gross Salary based on80 hours of credit.

After Est. Taxes

After Mortgage

After Car Payment
(does not apply after year 4)

After Car Insurance

After Health Insurance

After Cellphone

After Misc House Expenses (bills, internet etc)

1

$2,160

$1,772

$422

$172

$65

-$95

-$173

-$433

2

$2,480

$2,014

$664

$250

$143

-$17

-$107

-$367

3

$2,640

$2,165

$815

$565

$458

$298

$208

-$52

4

$2,720

$2,231

$881

$631

$524

$364

$274

$14

5

$2,800

$2,296

$946

$946

$839

$679

$589

$329


So as you can see, even with padding the monthly minimum credit hours by 5 extra hours, it will still take me till year 5 in order to live comfortably based on the wages being offered by ####### Airlines. Based on these rough numbers - before I factor in normal food and gas expenses - by the time I reach year 4 with ####### I would have amassed $10,344 worth of debt.

Our industry is one where experienced and skilled pilots are not worth anything to airline management. Lets face it, money talks. Why should airlines pay for skilled labor when the airlines could hire commercial pilots pilots whose licenses still had wet ink on them. The era of the 300 Hour airline pilot is over. Nowadays with the new regulations you will need pilots who have over 1500 hours. Of course that part is not news to your company. I am sure that the HR departments in many a airline are aware that the number of eligible candidates just got significantly smaller. What I am not sure that they know of is that not ONLY is there a requirement to have an ATP pilot for airline operations, but that the process of obtaining the ATP certificate has drastically changed. The new changes will make it much more difficult to obtain the ATP certificate. It raises the academic level of the course and in doing so, raises its costs tremendously. This will make it un-obtainable from a financial perspective to many pilots. I was lucky that I managed to get mine done before the rule change. If I was doing it now, I couldn’t afford the new ATP courses. This means that out of the smaller pool of pilots that are available now, you will have an even smaller one in the future. Furthermore, the future pilots who DO make it and are eligible for hire based upon the new rules, will have other options available to them that pay better and offer a higher quality of life than the airlines can provide.

During our discussion you mentioned that you were impressed by the online resume that you found and were particularly interested in me because I already have my ATP, multiple thousands of hours, unique flying experience, a Type Rating on the aircraft flown by your company and previous 121 experience .
I don’t wish to toot my own horn here, but all this equates to a relatively skilled pilot.

A fair livable wage isn't too much to ask. After all, we airline pilots routinely work 14 hour days and yet get compensated for as little as 4 of those 14 hours. We routinely work on minimum rest times and yet we have hundreds of lives in our hands on a day to day basis. We are away from our families for up to 5 days at a time and 20 days in a month. We miss holidays, birthdays, BIRTHS, school plays and we do so because we know and understand that the public needs to fly. This is one of the most demanding jobs out there both physically and mentally.

I do not live an extravagant life style. Its pretty modest. I am not asking for much, however I think that #######, as well as the rest of the regional airline industry should realize that a skilled pilot at the controls is worth a fair livable wage. A fair livable wage is one that allows a pilot to live comfortably and not require a second job on their days off. In my opinion, a fair starting wage would be what ####### calls “Year 5 FO pay”.

A fair livable wage is not too much to ask. On the contrary, it is the bare minimum to ensure that your airline is staffed by skilled, professional, well rested and safe pilots. Unfortunately, looking at the current prospect of going in to over $10K of debt until I would be able to sustain myself with #######, I am forced to decline your offer to apply for an FO position at the otherwise fine ####### Airlines.

I sincerely thank you for your time,

But we have an SSP...

Portion actually read by said recruiter before sending to trash:

"Dear Ms. #####,

I would like to thank you..."

Exactly. Wrong audience. Her job is hiring pilots, not compensation or pilot retention.

Address the email to the VP of Flight Ops, President, CEO or anyone with some actual power. Sending that to a lady who makes $35,000 looking at resumes and scheduling interviews does nothing.

letter to HR
 

Sounds like you have a lot of time on your hands. Maybe you should have taken the job. Seriously, if you don't plan on working for a regional airline, what harm could there be in giving us their name? It would make your story more believable.

Oh come on, don't trash the guy for putting effort into trying to send a message to an airline that they need to improve pay and work rules. We should all be thankful to him and others like him for doing what he did.

+1
Thank you for trying nonetheless....

Bravo. Heck, I would have read it if I was in HR, just out of curiosity. They wasted his time, he wastes their time. Net gain, zero. I'm fine with that.

It was Piedmont wasn't it? Actually they pay pretty good 'relatively speaking' for a Dash operator.

But Bravo son, you get an A+ effort. Of course you know you torched that bridge right?;)

Probably feels more like carpet bombing the bridge from a B17....

This is awesome :)

It's republic airlines. At least it's not Mesa where they offer you employment over emails.

But when she gets grief for not filling classes, she will have something to send upstairs in response.

Too bad more starting pilots can't or won't say the same thing.

8

Now that's a well-written and comprehensive response. Well done.

Thanks!

I'm trying to send a message to more than just the airline. I hope that others who might apply to regionals read this letter and try to run the same calculations in their case and open their eyes to what they can "look forward" to.

I hope this helps reduce the amount of applicants at all regionals, even by a little bit. Regardless of equipment, starting salaries at all regionals are below acceptable standards and sitting on your hands and crying "SJS" or throwing out sarcastic comments like Mr. Busdrvr or Pancake do nothing to make a change. When we constanly see pilots bending over and lubing up to have the consessions shoved, when it seems that ALL of the other pilots cry like babies about it but then more than you thought voted YES to the consessions you got ask yourself why our work conditions never change. Not because of management, its our own fault.

Sure i torched a bridge. But a bridge to what? A job that promises turmoil, instability and financial famine? When your bridges foundations are so rotten, so unstable it is your responsibility to build a new one. What shocks me is the amount of pilots who still happily cross the bridge knowing the condition its in. So the the next time you are offered a bridge to cross, ask yourself, is that bridge really stable enough, or is that autothrottle treating you so well that you can just keep ignoring it all?

I vote for this to be a "sticky" thread or whatever it's called where its always on the top. Not in the Hiring thread but in the Regional thread. This is very good information for someone floating along looking to get in the industry. It may make them think for a bit before making an informed decision.

Well written. I could get on with a regional real quick, but unless I sell my house and move to a cheap cost of living area WITH a reserve unit there, and my wife goes back to work..

Yeah. Poverty. I'd get by, but I wonder if the ATP to be a regional FO is going to actually drive wages up even slightly, or if there are enough 1500 hour guys (or the reduced minima) with SJS.

This letter might just make its way to the top.
Kinda like a lottery. You won't win unless you play.
Well written. Good job.

The pay will only continue to go down in my opinion. Seems that management doesn't see a correlation between pay and the amount of applicants. Here at PSA we can't seem to staff the planes already here. Management solution? Concessions! Now eagle and xjt want concessions too, all while not filling new hire classes. Doesn't make sense but it's what's happening. Signing bonuses, sure. Pay raise, never.

Nice letter, sooner or later something needs to change.

That is good though, if they choose to downsize or take their ball and go home, at least you see management's goals and intent out in the open. The entire regional model (and some of mainline) is unsustainable and the only way it works is that pilots will work for less money than their worth. If they were paid a decent wage the cost would rise significantly to the regionals and mainline, ticket prices would be higher and flying would be more of a "privilege" that not everyone can afford. There would of course be less planes, less airlines and less pilots. The real question is whether people just keep swinging it out at bloated regionals that have far exceeded their original scope or whether they walk away. Maybe there is some kind of accounting and business magic they could pull off to "have your cake and eat it too", but it's going to take the latter to make that kind of change, otherwise there's no incentive. If they shut down or downsize earlier, at least you can get started that much sooner on a better career or career path, better than almost reaching retiremen tand having the company wipe it out or go away completely.

She has nothing to do with what you wrote! Why take it out on her? You said it yourself she was very nice and informative on the phone.

And no offense, but your message falls on deaf ears because there are pilots who still show up to work. So, the pay must be good enough to attract employment. Recently, pilots at regionals have voted in concessions at Pinnacle and PSA. They did it secure a fleet plan and to exist a couple years from now. This trend will continue. It a downward spiral. The only fix would be to speak with your feet and leave regionals in droves, but pilots will only leave when they have another job lined up. The regional model is wrong, underpaid, but they get the pilots they want because we all hope to one day fly for a LCC/Legacy where the wages are livable.

This statement is down-right haunting - I felt a twinge in my spine and a sinking feeling in my stomach when the words hit my eyes. I'm not kidding.

..........+1

yeah, maybe that was too sharp. I am sorry if I hurt some feelings there. please understand that I don't mean my pilot brethren any harm but I am so flummoxed by those who go to a company, knowing its broken, knowing the poor salary only to tell me (and this is a true story) "as long as I get the 175, I don't care."

that's just not right!

Naw, it needed to be said, and to be heard.

And this sentiment... "as long as I get the 175, I don't care." ...will last about as long as their first real bid period, I don't care where they go.

Interesting thread, a lot of insightful posts, but I was just wondering if the original email could just be a phishing scheme?

Anyone have a friend that works for a news channel or agency? Send this to them and get them to do a story on "why we face a pilot shortage" Making this known to the flying public would help us when the airlines cry about how new ATP regs have dried up their pool of applicants. This is a great example of a qualified pilot that can't afford to work for an airline. How many more like this are there??? How can they attract new pilots to an industry that can't keep the ones they already have.

I wonder what your ferry pilots would say about their compensation package they receive from you?

There are too many guys who will do anything to fly that jet so they can strut around the airports in their new starched uniforms wearing their Aviators in side the building. It's kind of like a little girl when she gets to be a ballerina for the first time. Or, you have the ones who will grand stand about not taking concessions and then votes to take them so he can claw his way over the guys who didn't to the left seat and a slightly larger paycheck. And I seriously doubt that there are enough (enough) pilots with the integrity to take the stand that could help us all out in the long run. I want to encourage the Eagle guys to take a stand, but then I'd hate to have to see one of the others jump at the 'crap' sandwich they denied. I was there when GoJet was used against TSA and then when PSA pulled this crap I was shocked. Now, I just expect it.

Well, maybe I suppose, but it came from the internet!

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...HiVL8GOhA2SWtA

Oh the Internet. Sorry that's different :)

Generally I work alone. When I have used other pilots I let them set their own rate. I don't let them charge less than $250 a day. All I got from them was essentially a finders fee.

I really don't think that they will raise wages until the thirst for pilots becomes an all out dehydration. They will hold out as long as possible, that's corporate USA for you.

ALTsel, good on you and good on you for sending this to them.

I disagree with those who say it's a wasted effort sending this to recruiters. As someone said, when the recruiters get grief for not filling classes, the more ammo like this they have to pass upstairs to the senior management, the better.

Gang, this is what it'll take to change things. As long as regionals can find fools willing to fly EMB-175 for the poverty level wages, nothing will change.

A very well written letter.

This site needs a "like" button.

very nice

but to be honest... I would have sent my resume and work for them, I just love flying too much... yea I'm part of the problem... :/

Wait...who are we talking about???

Yes, the smaller airliners need to be on the same certificate as the larger parent airline.

A letter to HR
 

Well written, ALTsel, this needs to be sticky'd.