News for today. Regional Airline Association asking congress for help!

RAA Asks Congress & FAA to Return Emphasis on Quality Versus Quantity Hours; Details Small Community Air Service Threat


Republic Airways Chairman, President and CEO Bryan Bedford explained how the FAA’s new 1500 hour First Officer Qualification (FOQ) rule has sparked a pilot shortage: “We cautioned lawmakers and regulators, throughout the lawmaking and regulatory process that including a largely inflexible and arbitrary flight-hour experience requirement as part of the final mandate would not only fail to improve safety, it would hasten the growing pilot shortage and imperil air service at communities across the country.”

RAA urged Congress and the FAA to work together to fix the pilot supply challenges emerging from the 1500 hour rule.

“I cannot think of a single greater challenge to air service to small and rural communities than the very real and significant pilot shortage facing US regional airlines and ultimately the flying public,” said Bedford.

“By emphasizing quality-of-training over an arbitrary flight time experience, instead of the reverse, we can pursue our goal of protecting the world’s safest aviation system, while preserving access to that system for communities large and small. At the same time, we will stimulate job creation throughout the entire aviation marketplace,” Bedford concluded.

Here is the article:

RAA Asks Congress & FAA to Return Emphasis on Quality Versus Quantity Hours; Details Small Community Air Service Threat

Everyone should write your Congressman and express your beliefs. I say more pay for what we do!
Last edited by CaptainRJ; Today at 08:50 PM. Reason: editing

 

Ugh. I'm not surprised by this, but it's still disappointing.

 

From my other post:

They are trying to steam roll congress with minimal flack from pilots themselves and their unions. You all know what their grand plan is, don't you? They will push for lower hours AND/OR push to allow foreign pilots in. Wait till Aug hits, then you will see them parking more planes to foster panic so that the public will then start screaming to the congress/senators while the owners sit back and laugh. It will get pushed through, one way or another. Plus you know they are greasing the politicians through their PAC's. Yep, hell of a system we got.

Let's face it, they (owners) are better organized and count on lazy pilot unions and pilots too tired from long days and commutes to lift a finger to fight them. Want proof? Go to the Regional Airline Assoc website, and look for the lobbying info. Then go to your union webpage, and look for their lobbying info.

All the union has to do is post the names of the congressmen with emails/fax/mail and a simple form letter, post it to their pilots, and hit send. How hard is that?

In fact, where the hell are the lobbyist that the unions are bribing? They should know about this stuff and be keeping union leaders "in the know", who should have already sent mail to the pilots regarding this.

Makes you wonder if the unions are doing all they can with the dues they collect, or if they are not paid off by management to do just enough to look like they care.

 

We all this would happen. I'm not surprised, are you? We all pay union fees to Teamsters and ALPA, if they don't show effective management now and fight back, the law will repeal or hours will be lowered by the end of year. And we are pretty much paying for nothing.

 

From the outside looking in,I think part of the problem is that regional pilots are too afraid to really take a stand and speak up, go to the meetings the MEC's and higher ups go to and knock on these guy's front doors.

Okay so you've voted down the concessions, great, but my honest opinion is that you can't stop there.

Yes this whole 1500hr rule and shortage of pilots is very political, but it's quite simple. Company wants to make a profit, and makes the cuts where they can make the cut.

I think what people really need to do is bring it up to Congress that the MEC's the Chairmen are purposely turning a blind eye to the fact that PAY is in direct correlation to the reasoning why there is a pilot shortage as well as the 1500hr rule (Which sounds great in theory, but doesn't help the situation)

We have this 1500hr rule as a safety precaution right? But who remembers way back in ab-initio training the IMSAFE Checklist? I'm sure for the most of us all do.

Illness- Can be brought on by Stress
Medication - Will be taken to mitigate the illness
Stress - Can be brought on by the fact of pilot's worrying about how they will pay their bills, support their family, paying rent to keep a roof over their head
Alchohol- Well gee what do a lot of people turn to, to relieve stress
Fatigue- Because after a 6 leg day tons of delays and commuting to base(Yes i know its your choice) you want to be in room with 6 other dudes sleeping in a crashpad
Eating - I'm sure people can't be eating all that great or for the most part healthy at payrates ranging from 15k-27k a year.


Things like this should be brought up. None of what I wrote qualifies a safe pilot. Nobody wants to be broke, stressing over money. Nobody wants to be broke period. Nobody wants a pilot that's main sole task is flying the aircraft and taking passengers from point a to point b safely with their mind on the stresses of life because they aren't getting treated fairly or paid adequately. These issues need to be addressed to Congress. We are defending yes, but we must BUILD A DEFENSE. That's how an argument is won. My .02

 

Amen brother... But the pilots HAVE TO start holding the feet of the union leaders to the fire, after all if no one complains then they will ONLY do minimal work. They should have all the paperwork regarding congressional contact already in the pilots hands. If the damn union can't make this happen, then maybe it's time to find someone who will. What Benny Hill said about congress can be applied to union leaders, "Make congress work, vote them out of office".

 

The ATP "Airline Career Pilot Program" ad being at the bottom of this page is hilarious!!! The loan I took out for that program several years ago went to collection!

 

Union leaders at every regional should be emailing the pilot ranks the I'm safe checklist daily, before very friggin flight this should be reviewed and followed.

IM SAFE

 

Way to stick it to the man...

 

Well in a perfect world.....They would turn a blind eye to that too...But gee that would be great if they actually had to use the checklist prior to flight.

Cancellations galore!