Originally Posted by CaptainNameless (Post 1595199)

The majors are rolling in BILLIONS $$$ IN PROFITS. There is plenty of money available if they want to use it. If not, fine. Then there will be no new pilots. Done. If they really want pilots to staff the regionals, they will need to pay a lot more in the future because the majors (by the very creation and expansion of the regionals) killed the dream of actually getting a job at the majors someday... THEY DID THIS. THIS IS THEIR MESS. Reallocation of payroll is no solution, you're speaking as if that is a fixed number. Tell the majors to either bring a lot more money in to get pilots on property, or give them something other than lip-service and false dreams and promises of a mainline job... someday... when they get around to being able to give you one, after all their buddies and CP friends and kids and interns have been accommodated.

Kill the dream and guess what? Well, we're seeing what! No more dumb, hopeful, someday-I'm-gonna-fly-a-widebody-to-Europe kids showing up to learn to fly anymore. Well, they killed the dream, it's DEAD, and this is what it looks like. No new pilots is what it looks like. They made the regionals a stagnant, hard to escape career mud-pit. They can live with the consequences.

I hope they don't touch regional FO pay by a penny. I hope every regional is dead or part of mainline just for pilot supply in 10 years or less. That's the new dream.

Graf, you have to be management. Only management would think to solve the problem your way.

Originally Posted by Paid2fly (Post 1595324)

Thank you for saving me time by explaining that.

You get it, and most non management actual pilot flight crews do. We have taken it in the shorts long enough, and now it has finally come to a point where the worst regionals are canceling flights, and even grounding entire fleets of aircraft due to lack of staffing. If the major airlines that need/want the feed would like to continue getting it, they will need to come to the plate with MORE money. They are making BILLIONS in profits, and don't need to line their pockets by getting us to keep working for poverty wage! Period, end of the story!!!

Originally Posted by CaptainNameless (Post 1595841)

Once again, most difficult problem the majors are facing is how do they staff the regionals when they have killed the dream.

The situation today is that we have thousands of 6, 8, 10, 12, 15 year pilots at the regional level.... that alone is the worst kind of advertising imaginable to get people to want to be airline pilots. When you kill a dream it's a much deeper problem than just fixing starting pay, which is why I think your solution is not a real solution at all. In years past the lies about a job at a major-- the real jobs-- got you to volunteer yourself into the regional gulags. Now, it's like selling poison that everyone knows is poison. It's a bridge to nowhere. Hey kids... spend $100k on your training and in 8 or 10 or 15 years, maybe we'll have a real career for you. The only solution is to make it a real bridge. Mainline seniority numbers, real employment, not promises of someday. Start hiring into the RJs as a mainline position with a true career path, and the staffing problem solves itself overnight. Bring back the B scale at mainline for all large RJs in order to scuttle the C scale at the regionals. Problem solved.

Originally Posted by HermannGraf (Post 1595907)

What they are paid, the FOs pay scales at all Regionals is just wrong.

Originally Posted by HermannGraf (Post 1595907)

Now, the Regionals if they want to exist in a matter of a few years they better make it a place that a pilot can start and not starve while being an FO. If it happens they get stuck while being an FO or some just want to stay there for different reasons and are looking at many years before upgrade they should be able to live without having to be on food stamps and make it a job worth going to.

... the FOs pay scales at all Regionals is just wrong.

Originally Posted by CaptainNameless (Post 1596022)

Well, you're getting closer. But still not quite comprehending 100%. No new people getting into aviation are going to accept "not starving" as an acceptable stage in the career because it has become the state of the career, not just a stage on the way to something better, and what has happened is that this is indeed the highest level for a regional pilot these days, the lies of good career progression and the pot of gold are dead.

No one will bother to "not starve" for any number of years any more because they can't see anything beyond the time spent "not starving." That is not even close to repairing the problem of the death of career hopes. They gutted the idea of a career at a major. No one is going to go to flight school hoping to not starve until the dream is reached, when every obvious indication is telling you, you will not get there.

If only it were a few bucks to FOs that could fix this. The entire career has been wrecked... get it? Not the first few years.... the entire career path has been made into a wasteland.

Originally Posted by Flying Ninja (Post 1595914)

I'll also add that once the majors are done doing their mass hiring, provided the regionals still exists, will mean that movement in the ranks will once again slow to a trickle.

Thus, if an FO gets on the back side of the hiring boom, they'll be sitting FO for 8, 10, 12, 15 years. I sure hope those 4-year FO cap and those guaranteed upgrade lies disappear for their sakes.