BB admits Pilot Shortage Chatauqua Done!
02-10-2014, 09:33 PM
#1
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Nov 2012
Posts: 105
BB admits Pilot Shortage Chatauqua Done!
From: BryanBedford <[email protected]>
Date: February 10, 2014 at 9:39:37 PM CST
Subject: Bryan Bedford letter for 02-10-14
February 10, 2014
Bryan Bedford letter for 02-10-14
Dear Co-workers,
Good evening, I want to take a few minutes of your time to bring you up to speed on an announcement that will hit the wire tomorrow morning. As you probably have read, United Airlines has made a decision to significantly reduce the number of flight departures at their CLE hub. In their press release, they mentioned that their decision to reduce flight service was prompted by news that some of their regional airline partners were experiencing difficulties in hiring suitable pilots to crew their aircraft. That disclosure has caused quite a bit of media attention as to whether or not we (our country) are experiencing a shortage of qualified pilots. I’ll come back to that question later, but the reality is that our airline, more specifically Chautauqua, is having a very difficult time finding new-hire pilots that meet the 1,500 hour rule AND meet our quality and competency requirements.
It is no secret that many of our small jet, fixed-fee agreements are scheduled to expire this year. In fact, we have 41 ERJs which, unless extended, will expire off contract over the course of this year. Since our successful Chautauqua financial restructuring in 2012, we have consistently said we expect to be able to keep these aircraft in productive service for years to come; however, the pilot staffing challenges are changing that outlook.
Starting shortly after the new law became effective in August of last year, we began to see a steady decline in the number of qualified applicants applying at Republic. As a consequence, by the end of last year, we were concerned enough about the trends that we reached out to all our partners to get their read on the situation and to warn them we could have real problems keeping our aircraft properly staffed. The applicant flow problems continue to persist in the new year and it has become all too clear that we can no longer consider extending all our small jet contracts; in fact, we have asked one partner (United) to accelerate the removal of our 12 ERJ aircraft so we can redirect Chautauqua flight crews to EJET training. Effective April 1, we anticipate ending our Chautauqua ERJ flying for United. We also are no longer able to extend our American Connection agreement covering 15 E140 aircraft. Those aircraft will be removed from service between March 1 and August 15. In total, we plan to remove 27 small aircraft, which we had otherwise expected to continue to operate in to the future.
Of course, this is very disappointing news and will naturally cause some of our co-workers to have real concerns over their personal situations. Wayne is on his way to Louisville to discuss the situation with our team down there, but let me say we see tremendous value in our Louisville base and with our people there, and we have no intention to do anything other than keep it running normally and bring work into the facility to replace the work that may be affected by this development.
We also intend to continue to receive new E175 aircraft for American. Those 25 aircraft are scheduled to go into service this year. And while we have not made any final decisions, we do still have four Q400 aircraft that were anticipated to go in to service this year for United, which we would like to satisfy. Of course, it all depends on our ability to find the kind of women and men who can meet our standards.
So do we have a pilot shortage? Well if you define a shortage as not having enough people that meet the requirements of the 1,500-hour rule and not being able to pass muster with our standards, then yes, we have a shortage, and we are not alone. However, I do not think the country has a shortage of truly qualified pilots, at least not yet. There are ample pilots for today’s needs, but these young people, who have graduated with aeronautical aviation degrees no longer qualify for employment. And there are not enough ways for them to get the hourly time the new law requires. It is a real catch 22, and one you will probably be reading a lot more about for the foreseeable future.
Longer term (and that may only be two or three years away) we will certainly have a much bigger problem, even if the hour requirement is reduced from 1,500 hour to say 500 hours. Why? Because the age 65 rule will mandate retirements for nearly 18,000 mainline pilots over the next 10 years. It started last year with about 1,000 retirements. That number grows steady over the next 10 years. Even under the old system, our country simply does not have the ability to train that many replacement pilots. It’s the same problem countries like China and India have been dealing with for years. We are going to have to develop an entirely new way to train future aviators in this country. But that won’t be much help in the here and now.
Finally, it is reasonable to ask how the lack of a new pilot CBA has affected our recruiting situation. It’s a fair question, but a hard one to answer. It seems reasonable enough that not having a new CBA isn’t helping and certainly may be hurting our efforts in recruiting new pilots now, even though it wasn’t a problem before the new law went into effect last year. However, while we very much want to get the negotiation behind us, the reality is a new CBA won’t create a single new qualified pilot in the USA. I do think it will help bring some people to us that otherwise do not want to consider Republic because of the uncertainty here, but that is a hard thing to quantify. Suffice to say we want to close out the negotiations with a fair deal and, when that happens, if it allows us to hire more pilots such that we could staff more aircraft, of course we will discuss adding these small jets back to service with our airline partners.
For the time being, we should all keep our focus on providing the outstanding levels of service that have become a hallmark of our three great companies. We have faced challenges in the past and as a team, we have prevailed. We will face challenges in the future and, together, again, we will prevail.
God bless,
Bryan
Date: February 10, 2014 at 9:39:37 PM CST
Subject: Bryan Bedford letter for 02-10-14
February 10, 2014
Bryan Bedford letter for 02-10-14
Dear Co-workers,
Good evening, I want to take a few minutes of your time to bring you up to speed on an announcement that will hit the wire tomorrow morning. As you probably have read, United Airlines has made a decision to significantly reduce the number of flight departures at their CLE hub. In their press release, they mentioned that their decision to reduce flight service was prompted by news that some of their regional airline partners were experiencing difficulties in hiring suitable pilots to crew their aircraft. That disclosure has caused quite a bit of media attention as to whether or not we (our country) are experiencing a shortage of qualified pilots. I’ll come back to that question later, but the reality is that our airline, more specifically Chautauqua, is having a very difficult time finding new-hire pilots that meet the 1,500 hour rule AND meet our quality and competency requirements.
It is no secret that many of our small jet, fixed-fee agreements are scheduled to expire this year. In fact, we have 41 ERJs which, unless extended, will expire off contract over the course of this year. Since our successful Chautauqua financial restructuring in 2012, we have consistently said we expect to be able to keep these aircraft in productive service for years to come; however, the pilot staffing challenges are changing that outlook.
Starting shortly after the new law became effective in August of last year, we began to see a steady decline in the number of qualified applicants applying at Republic. As a consequence, by the end of last year, we were concerned enough about the trends that we reached out to all our partners to get their read on the situation and to warn them we could have real problems keeping our aircraft properly staffed. The applicant flow problems continue to persist in the new year and it has become all too clear that we can no longer consider extending all our small jet contracts; in fact, we have asked one partner (United) to accelerate the removal of our 12 ERJ aircraft so we can redirect Chautauqua flight crews to EJET training. Effective April 1, we anticipate ending our Chautauqua ERJ flying for United. We also are no longer able to extend our American Connection agreement covering 15 E140 aircraft. Those aircraft will be removed from service between March 1 and August 15. In total, we plan to remove 27 small aircraft, which we had otherwise expected to continue to operate in to the future.
Of course, this is very disappointing news and will naturally cause some of our co-workers to have real concerns over their personal situations. Wayne is on his way to Louisville to discuss the situation with our team down there, but let me say we see tremendous value in our Louisville base and with our people there, and we have no intention to do anything other than keep it running normally and bring work into the facility to replace the work that may be affected by this development.
We also intend to continue to receive new E175 aircraft for American. Those 25 aircraft are scheduled to go into service this year. And while we have not made any final decisions, we do still have four Q400 aircraft that were anticipated to go in to service this year for United, which we would like to satisfy. Of course, it all depends on our ability to find the kind of women and men who can meet our standards.
So do we have a pilot shortage? Well if you define a shortage as not having enough people that meet the requirements of the 1,500-hour rule and not being able to pass muster with our standards, then yes, we have a shortage, and we are not alone. However, I do not think the country has a shortage of truly qualified pilots, at least not yet. There are ample pilots for today’s needs, but these young people, who have graduated with aeronautical aviation degrees no longer qualify for employment. And there are not enough ways for them to get the hourly time the new law requires. It is a real catch 22, and one you will probably be reading a lot more about for the foreseeable future.
Longer term (and that may only be two or three years away) we will certainly have a much bigger problem, even if the hour requirement is reduced from 1,500 hour to say 500 hours. Why? Because the age 65 rule will mandate retirements for nearly 18,000 mainline pilots over the next 10 years. It started last year with about 1,000 retirements. That number grows steady over the next 10 years. Even under the old system, our country simply does not have the ability to train that many replacement pilots. It’s the same problem countries like China and India have been dealing with for years. We are going to have to develop an entirely new way to train future aviators in this country. But that won’t be much help in the here and now.
Finally, it is reasonable to ask how the lack of a new pilot CBA has affected our recruiting situation. It’s a fair question, but a hard one to answer. It seems reasonable enough that not having a new CBA isn’t helping and certainly may be hurting our efforts in recruiting new pilots now, even though it wasn’t a problem before the new law went into effect last year. However, while we very much want to get the negotiation behind us, the reality is a new CBA won’t create a single new qualified pilot in the USA. I do think it will help bring some people to us that otherwise do not want to consider Republic because of the uncertainty here, but that is a hard thing to quantify. Suffice to say we want to close out the negotiations with a fair deal and, when that happens, if it allows us to hire more pilots such that we could staff more aircraft, of course we will discuss adding these small jets back to service with our airline partners.
For the time being, we should all keep our focus on providing the outstanding levels of service that have become a hallmark of our three great companies. We have faced challenges in the past and as a team, we have prevailed. We will face challenges in the future and, together, again, we will prevail.
God bless,
Bryan
02-10-2014, 09:44 PM
#2
Line Holder
Joined APC: Apr 2007
Posts: 71
The following piece of this puzzle was intentionally omitted from the statement above, so here it is...
"...is having a very difficult time finding new-hire pilots that meet the 1,500 hour rule AND meet our quality and competency requirements AND will work for the absurdly low pay rates we are offering."
"...is having a very difficult time finding new-hire pilots that meet the 1,500 hour rule AND meet our quality and competency requirements AND will work for the absurdly low pay rates we are offering."
02-10-2014, 10:24 PM
#3
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2012
Posts: 480
"However, I do not think the country has a shortage of truly qualified pilots, at least not yet. There are ample pilots for today’s needs, but these young people, who have graduated with aeronautical aviation degrees no longer qualify for employment. "
I'm not sure what that means. Should there have been another comma after 'degrees'? Is he saying that people with aviation degrees no longer qualify for employment? Is he saying that there are many degreed pilots around that don't meet his standards for employment?
I'm not sure what that means. Should there have been another comma after 'degrees'? Is he saying that people with aviation degrees no longer qualify for employment? Is he saying that there are many degreed pilots around that don't meet his standards for employment?
02-10-2014, 10:34 PM
#5
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2012
Posts: 480
Originally Posted by hyperlite134
I think he meant people that just graduated don't qualify because lack of hours
Everything in this email is garbage. I refuse to believe he's that ignorant, I'm positive that this is just posturing and part of the game they have to play. If there were no real business reason, he wouldn't openly admit a weakness just to be 'fair' to employees and show them respect. If he had an ounce of respect for pilots he would PAY THEM appropriately, but he doesn't.
These emails are no different than the concessions they ask for. We are being played. If I knew how, I'd run an airline.
Republic turned down thousands of pilots this year. THOUSANDS who all went qualified with ATPs or ATP minimums.
02-11-2014, 12:03 AM
#6
Line Holder
Joined APC: Jan 2009
Posts: 55
I’ll come back to that question later, but the reality is that our airline, more specifically Chautauqua, is having a very difficult time finding new-hire pilots that meet the 1,500 hour rule AND meet our quality and competency requirements.
02-11-2014, 02:03 AM
#8
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2011
Posts: 204
What about the planes flying around for delta? When does that one expire and how many airplanes is it? *Edit* I guess since the only mention of the airline being done is in the thread title (and not the memo) then the delta ones will continue to be flown?
02-11-2014, 02:41 AM
#9
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2011
Position: ERJ 170
Posts: 729
Chautauqua has 41 aircraft worth of CPAs expiring this year.
Most pilots here view his failure of an email as a reminder how in 2003 he said if we didn't vote in a contract the United flying would be going away...Lo and behold Shuttle America then got 170s for United, massive growth, without a new contract in place.
A lot of RAH pilots believe it's better to let this place burn than help the Reverend Bedford out. You reap what you sow.
God Bless.
Most pilots here view his failure of an email as a reminder how in 2003 he said if we didn't vote in a contract the United flying would be going away...Lo and behold Shuttle America then got 170s for United, massive growth, without a new contract in place.
A lot of RAH pilots believe it's better to let this place burn than help the Reverend Bedford out. You reap what you sow.
God Bless.
02-11-2014, 03:13 AM
#10
ILL BEE DAT
Joined APC: Aug 2006
Position: Rollin' Down tha 405
Posts: 2,550
Concessionary contracts don't help anyone out. Pilots are cheap no matter how much you make, might as well make enough to survive...the company will be fine.
(Not arguing, just had coffee so disregard)
(Not arguing, just had coffee so disregard)
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