That's because the CEO's and shareholders raped the regional side of the industry as there wasn't anything to get from mainline. And they could get away with it because there were plenty of pilots that would go alomg with it. Problem now is they made it so unattractive to get into this industry anymore. Hopefully we've hit rock bottom and things will start getting better

 

I don't think we've hit the bottom yet. There's still more pilots available than there is flying to contract. As long as the majors can shuffle flying to other regionals, we are not at the bottom. The bottom comes when the majors can't find pilots at the regional level to fly. I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon.

One caveat to this argument is whether or not the pilots at the majors relax on Scope. If that happens we will never hit rock bottom.

 

It's ALREADY beginning to happen. It may not be synchronous for all of the Regionals just yet, but it will be soon enough.

 

Soon enough for whom?

 

It will never end. The rats will just run to the next company willing to gut a contract in favor of a quick upgradezzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!1!

 

I hope you are correct, but I don't think this profession will ever be any semblance of what it once was. I think the major airlines will milk the regional model for as long as they can. There are currently 21,500 regional pilots (APC numbers). So let's say (not counting attrition, retirement, etc.) the Big 3 each hired 500 pilots per year. It would take 14 years for the most junior pilot to put his butt in the right seat. My brother, 14 years is a lot of misery if your expecting to be lifted up by a Legacy. I understand this model is rudimentary. My point is that there are a lot of pilots waiting in line from the regionals. There are a lot of pilots leaving the military due to sequestration and forced retirement. There are a lot of pilots flying at other places that are not regionals. Im not trying to pee on anybody's Cheerios, I just think the pilot shortage is propaganda. I'm just not buying it. I fly with guys who have been here in excess of 10 years. They are great guys / gals. They've hit the wickets (check airman, chief pilot, volunteer, etc.) and crickets.

I hope you're right. I think most of us down here in Regional Land hope you're right, but I just don't know. The truth is I enjoy flying for OO. I like the people. I like the airplane. I like the places we go. Hell I'm on reserve and I'm happy. But, the one thing that burns my hairy beanbag is trying to reconcile the pay. That's it. The money.

I was in a food line the other day at LAX. Behind me was a Delta Captain. Nice guy. We started chatting. The Captain I'm flying with asks him if he's getting a lot of green sheets. This guy tells us that he got called out a few days ago to repo an aircraft for maintenance on his day off. The 1 hour trip he accepted paid double (Min guarantee is 5 hours). Once he got the airplane where it needed to go he was informed by the maintenance guy it wouldn't be ready for 6 hours. The Delta Captain was supposed to start his vacation. He said he called the company and they'd pay him for his vacation day, plus pay him double to take the plane back when the maintenance was finished. 20 hours of pay for 2 hours of work. Im sure you're familiar with the lowest hourly rate for a Delta Captain. He ends his story with, "I was at Skywest for 20 years and had a blast." I don't begrudge the Delta Captain one bit, good on him; but if I'm the CEO of Delta and I can continue to squeeze the regionals so I don't have to pay $4000.00 to a guy to repo an airplane, I would figure out a way to slow the hiring down to a trickle. I'd probably hire pilots from my competition: Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit, Virgin, etc. before I touched my cheap labor at the regionals because its just good business.

 

IMO, Big three will hire way more than 500 each per year. I think the number is going to be 150 per month next year at all three. The mainline operations are more profitable than the regional carriers. Even with the higher wages, they still are the money makers. I don't think they care about paying to repo that plane if it's going to make them 100k the next week carrying people around internationally.

 

I really hope you're right and I'm smoking crack. I'll buy you a beer if that happens. I just don't see it though. Hiring that many pilots would represent growth. These guys are getting new planes, but they are buying new planes to replace old ones. The new orders do not represent growth. The other issue is capacity and I'm not talking aircraft capacity. The air transportation system itself is operating near capacity meaning even if the airlines were getting new planes for new flying there is not enough capacity. ADS-B might improve that but that's another 7-10 years away to equip the fleets. There are too many things working against the fallacy of a shortage.

 

Wow, trying to compare a pilot job to regular jobs....

 

Above and beyond is just another F&H Glass plant.

No profit sharing, ha...