This is pretty much what I said except for the part about majors because pay at majors has come down even worse than regional pay. If you think major airline pilots are well paid that's part of the problem. And the fact that "regional" are just outsourced jobs from the majors anyway.

Stop thinking of regional flying as a career stepping stone and see it for what it is....outsourced airline jobs with union contracts used to force below market wages. Who owns those "regional" jets anyway?

Are you kidding me!? That's complete nonsense. They have been spiraling downward as a direct result of not being subject to free market.

 

Ive been a professional pilot for thirty years and I'm unfamiliar with any regulations that require unions and seniority lists as a requirement to manage an airline.

Regulation has absolutely nothing to do with it. In fact powerful regulations mean unions are even less necessary.

 

No....but you would be free to move laterally and compete for the job for which you are in demand at better pay without the shackles of a seniority list....this would force your current employer to either hire someone to replace you or raise your pay to prevent you from leaving.

Employers would compete on all levels to attract and retain pilots with benefits, days off, hotel quality and anything else to keep their investments from jumping ship.

Regional airlines as we know them would cease to exist almost overnight and would either evolve into a normal airline with competitive jobs and pay or dissolve away.

Your airline would no longer have the threat of your job hanging over you because you would have choices.

Of course this system would not benefit free loader lazy pilots who barely pass their checkrides, call in sick all the time and lack any real personality because they wouldn't be able to hide their shortcomings.

Of course unions and contracts can still exist without seniority lists and vice versa (despite the myth that many pilots believe they are mutual requirements) but since pilots' unions are the main pusher of the seniority system it probably wouldn't work without getting rid of them.

The real problem is helping pilots see past this narrow view of reality.

 

I think the One List concept would accomplish what you're talking about better, but that won't happen either. In the "free market" scenario, why would American want to pay a United 747 Captain $280/hour to come over when they could get a regional guy for a fifth of the price?

 

And then who's going to fly that regional jet? What I find from these discussions is that few pilots have any understanding of how a free market works.

What you'd likely find happen in a free market is that you could earn a higher salary flying a regional jet than you could flying a heavy jet. Much like lower end hospitals often pay their doctors better than the top of the line world class hospitals (research Mayo clinic).

Pure supply and demand would come into play. Your next response would be that regional jets would no longer be profitable....and maybe you'd be right. Certainly it would change the way US airlines operate regional jets.

For evidence of this look at Asia where there are no unions or seniority lists. Pilots of regional jets typically earn higher pay than those in the Airbus and Boeing. Often a first officer from a Boeing or Airbus will transition into an Embraer with an increase in pay. The rule applies to foreign pilots as well. The airline will usually put the most promising young FOs into the smaller jet to earn experience quickly where the ones that get "stuck" flying the heavies spend far longer sitting in the right seat.

The argument that it would bring salaries down is ludicrous considering that airline salaries have consistently declined since deregulation and the top paying airline pilot jobs in the US are the lowest levels in history (forget about short term gains and look at the long term picture). Someone starting out in the airlines today at age 30 will likely average less then $100K per year throughout the entire course of their career.

The saying goes...if it ain't broke....well it is broke and should be fixed so as pilots we need to quit thinking about doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

 

,......... does anyone see what's NOT included in these recommendations? Here's a hint,...... it's higher pay! Duh.
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Industry Considers Solutions To Future Pilot Shortage

Aviation Week (2/3, Croft) reports that “by 2022, mandatory retirements will gut the pilot ranks at the biggest US airlines, creating a need for more new pilots than currently exist in the entire regional airline system.” This information, combined with industry growth, “is putting pressure on aeronautical universities and flight-training schools to produce more pilots to replace empty seats in the regional airlines, whose pilots generally move on to the majors.” At a pilot supply summit in mid-January, “educators, carriers, and training organizations agreed to work together to explore how to solve” the problem, coming up with ideas that include “gaining more credit for coursework...deploying public-awareness campaigns...creating a dedicated ticket tax to augment training fess, creating new loan mechanisms, and having the regional airlines or the majors provide financial support to students...for a commitment to work for them afterward.”

 

Cool story bro. But we're still not gonna let you seniority jump us one number. If you want to be a DEC so bad go to China.

 

Many sectors will never pay more than they need to because aviation is an industry that loses money most of the time. Its better to go out of business than to pay salaries you cannot afford in the Long run!

 

The whole regional airline complaint about low wages is interesting, but have regional pay scales ever been good? Some posts make it sound like the Mesas and the Great Lakes and PFTs of the world are a drag on the aggregate regional pilot salaries. Are these low wages at the regionals a new phenomenon or has it been like this for many decades? Are the low paying regionals and PFTs really creating a problem for everyone else, or has it always been this way? Just curious if there is any historical knowledge out there from some of the graybeards.

 

Regional pilot wages have gone up on several occasions, however the CPAs that the regionals operate under causes almost guaranteed bankruptcy. This in turn causes the contracts to be abograted because the "mainline" controls the revenue that the regional receives. There is no supply and demand mechanism at work to raise the wages because that is how the system is designed. Look at Comair and Pinnicle as two prime examples. However, this has caused a macro economic shift in the supply curve of pilots willing to do the job. If it were not for 9/11 and the great recession, this would have happened a long time ago. But the reductions in flying by the majors caused an over supply of pilots leading to overly suppressed wages of pilots. That is my two cents. Hope it helps answer your question.