What makes you think the next generation is not getting ready now? This whole pilot shortage thing is like believing in Santa Claus- just because you can cook up some happy fairy tale does not mean it ever existed or ever will, or that by repeating it enough times you can make it materialize. There is strong analysis around telling us there is no shortage now and there will not be one for the next 20 years.

 

The current pilot pipeline will dry eventually, there just aren't enough pilot starts.

The FAA will fold to pressure from the majors and create the MPL license like it exists in other places. Those pilots will be paid $15k a year!

 

There's this link:Pilot Shortage Update « Robert Chapin

I'd take it with a grain of salt but it's more than just stomping your feet and plugging your ears like most people do here.

 

Yeah, management is by their own admission is vigorously fighting for this if they can't repeal the ATP law. This is a shame because there is nothing in the ATP law saying an airline can't do a number of things to attract pilots.....like buy or contract out to a flight school to fly a Cessna 150 and or a Piper Apache with an auto fuel STC to create their own pilot pipe line. As if the majors couldn't afford that investment in their future.

But nope, they just don't wanna change.

 

Seems like an honest opinion but that guy appears more worried about his student supply than anything else. I had some trouble getting his charts to open on my browser but I can see the supply of ATPs is and will continue to remain steady with time, which is something I already knew.

The thing about myths is, they are very hard to put aside when they pay so much in terms of immediate pleasure. The pilot shortage myth is just like crack cocaine- once you start doing it you see only ways to get more dope. You filter out anything that tells you it is a mirage and your viewpoint is contaminated. But if you want to see the real situation you will begin to gather the real facts. One of them is that airlines attract too any applicants. That in turn drives down pilot wages. It's always been like that and for the foreseeable future it will remain so. Flying airliners is an unusually competitive profession. Wages will not go up very much, and pilots will remain in oversupply.

 

Why is it that the charts/literature/etc. that say there is no shortage are correct when the charts that say there is a shortage are not?

There are plenty of industry "experts" on both sides of the coin.

Who's to say which is correct.

I do think it's safe to say that we are setup to see an unprecedented amount of attrition at legacy and major airlines due to retirement numbers never before seen.

There is most certainly a shortage in other parts of the world.

Will DAL/UAL/AAG ever run out of resumes? Probably not. However, if one's goal is to fly for a legacy, the next decade or so will probably see the best chance to do so since the 1960's.

That being said, regionals ARE running out of resumes. I don't think it's an impossibility at places like spirit, allegiant, JetBlue etc. either down the road.

Everyone's definition of a shortage will vary.

 

This is why when opinions on a subject vary we must select our sources very carefully. A guy with a web page on the internet? Almost never a reliable source for anything but personal opinion. A spokesperson for a company? Usually motivated to a particular conclusion. A third party analyst such as FAA or GAO? Much better -the bias is usually removed and the clarity is better. A peer-reviewed scholarly journal? Almost completely out of controversial waters by design, but still not 100% free from controversy. A university textbook? Pretty much the gold standard for most kinds of knowledge and completely trustworthy in most cases. Unfortunately they tend to lag behind current events a lot of the time.

Agree.

I think you're wrong here based on what I have seen. There are a variety of of sources telling us there is no present shortage at the regional level. There may be a bt of a shortage of people willing to work for typical low wages, but that's not really a shortage that's just low wages. You make a good point that defining the term shortage begs the question of, what conditions justify the use of the term.

Common dictionary definition. ": a state in which there is not enough of something that is needed."

But what if you did not try very hard to find the thing you need? Obviously if no serious attempt to gather what you need was made, it's a funny thing to say there was a shortage. And that's my next point- no serious attempt has been made by the regional airline industry to solve its staffing problems. I would argue that serious in this usage means willing to offer competitive market rates of pay in comparison to similar jobs to be had in other fields. That's a pretty simple definition of "serious" in this context. And when they do that, if they do that, the pilots are there for the getting, a fact which is easily substantiated by hard data.

 

The thing to ask ourselves is, what would correct the shortage in the regionals? We know the answer is money. It is hard to get enough of it to train and regional airlines don't want to pay more, so what will they offer instead? Flow? Majors are pretty much against that as of now. Ab-initio training? If airlines had their own flight schools, and paid CFIs nothing but room and board, how many would jump at that? If regionals paid 10 dollars an hour, but offered had a major seniority number, how many do you think would bite?

Of course, the easy answer is MPL.

 

My opinion is that the staffing at regionals is being artificially kept afloat by pilots making lateral moves, and guys that haven't flown in a few years from regionals/fractionals/ACMI furloughs that are looking to qualify for legacy interviews.

The above types seem to be making up 50ish% of classes at this point. Once those guys get their time and move on to better jobs the regionals may be in a pinch.

This is all fact-less of course, and just comes from talking to recent hires and reading general information on the interwebz.

 

You might ask ALPA that very question. They have also come out and said the pilot shortage is a myth.

Pay and Benefits Shortage