Number one in the top 10 lies told by regional airline management is raising regional pilot pay will not help fill their new hire classes.

Endeavor to Delta (which I think is ill conceived and will prove a failure) proves raising new hire pay would, beyond any doubt fill their new hire classes. Endeavor now has hundreds of applicants.

In my opinion, new hire pilots at regionals should start at an absolute minimum of $80 an hour.

Every day the regionals fall further apart. Now is our time to permanently fix this problem. Band together. Stay strong and restore our profession.

 

Never gonna happen when people are willing to take jobs at the bottom feeders.

I don't see there being an end to 1500-hour instructors willing to chase the "quick upgrade", especially when all it takes is filling out an app and you're in.

 

Monkey see monkey do

 

Know what you're getting into or don't do it!

 

I could see a "pass through costs" being set up by the majors.
70-80 seats rj pilots are put on salary across the board.
FOs get $65000
Captains $125000
It doesn't matter how much or little you fly, junior guys get run about 100 hours a month and seniority buys the 70-80 hour lines.

So pilot compensation is pulled out of the rfp but all the other overhead variables apply. That is the only way a major could insure that while paying more for a contract, the contractor will actually use the money to attract applicants.
A c+ scale is cheaper than an A scale, plus frequency is still intact.

Just a possibility.

 

I thought the appeal of outsourcing from the majors was the cheaper cost of pilot labor. When you factor in the costs of redundant departments required by having a second operator certificate operate your flights (MX, dispatch, scheduling, etc.) you have to cut costs in other areas. Mgmt loves to use us as a scapegoat for their cost overruns, and if that excuse goes away, then the redundant costs have no more offset, negating the utility of outsourced "regional" flying. If that plan went forward, they might as well just absorb all their outsourced flying.

I think we'd all love to see it, of course!

 

Just to add fuel to the fire,......

* On a 1 hour flight in a 50 seat aircraft, (assuming an airplane full of revenue passengers), a first year First Officer (i.e. XJT) is paid 43 cents per seat. If it's a 67 seat airplane, every passenger contributes a mere 34 cents to the co-pilot for that same 1 hour flight.
* Same scenareo and a 5 year co-pilot; 82 cents of every passengers fare goes to the co-pilot on a CRJ 200. It falls to 64 cents per seat on the CRJ 700.
* At the top of the XJT CRJ 700 F/O payscale, (18 years) each passenger seat contributes a whopping 70 cents per hour to the co-pilot.
* 5 year Captain makes $1.36 per seat in the 200 but falls to $1.06 in the CRJ 700.

A regional airline could *DOUBLE* pilot pay by adding about $2.00 to the price of every ticket. And here's the dirty little secret that management won't admit: at the same time.........they could *DOUBLE* or *TRIPLE* their number of pilot applicants!

But hey,....that might cut into management bonuses, so let's not think along those lines. We'd rather see the airline fold than dig into our bonus structures.

$2.00!

 

If the pilot pool truly dries up airlines won't hesitate to throw lots of money at applicants. I don't think we are at the point where they are worried yet. If 1500hr CFI's dry up, the only source of new pilots will be stealing them from other regionals. Only way that will happen is either significantly raising starting pay or 20k+ bonuses.

 

I'm curious to know how you determined this.

 

You need to figure paying the crew-members not on the aircraft as well and the associated taxes, contributions, etc. You're really looking at something closer to $20.00 before you can talk about *DOUBLING* pilot pay at the regional level.