You are proceeding from the assumption that the majors will only hire pilots from regional airlines and the military. It has been established over and over that there are tens of thousands of other pilots outside these pools that are qualified to work as airline pilots but don't choose to. Even the majors start your first year pay pretty low and many experienced pilots working in other careers or other areas of aviation aren't able to absorb such a pay cut so they don't consider the career. You are buying into the false publicity that has been pushed at great expense by the airlines in order to pressure Congress to roll back the regulations.

You personally? Have you done an intense statistical analysis of the numbers and published a study? Just because you haven't witnessed something personally doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There are experts who have researched this. There are facts and numbers. If you assume the only people telling the truth are the Regional Airlines then....well I don't know what to say about that. I mean...I don't normally put great faith in ALPA anymore but I'd take them over the RAA. It's just that these days talking to ALPA you may as well be talking to the CEO of a major airline. Congress published an in depth study (as we all know) which you can read for free anytime. Maybe you don't put much faith in what Congress said either but in this case they are standing up to a powerful lobby along side Sully and other victims of the Buffalo crash. I personally wish Congress would stand up against narrow corporate interests in favor of the people more often.

Again, you are assuming that all pilots believe what you believe. Why would an experienced pilot who has a job somewhere else making good money go work for an airline at $20K per year just to get in on that seniority bandwagon? Especially if they are an experienced and high time captain in their forties or later?

Not everybody buys into the seniority system nonsense.

Just because they aren't willing to start their career all over at $20K per year doesn't mean they don't exist.

This is complete nonsense. Do you really think the majors are in competition with the regionals? With so few majors left they aren't even in competition with each other anymore in most markets.

The majors created the regionals as a B scale for their own routes. The majors even supply most of the large jets to the regionals. The majors hire primarily regional pilots to encourage this B scale flow system to the majors and expect most pilots to spend about ten years average at the regionals before "moving up" from left seat to the right seat. Without the regionals the majors will be forced to fly those routes again like they used to.

The majors will have far less trouble luring pilots that the regionals because despite the low first year pay it usually goes up significantly the second year and I expect to even see that first year go up in the next few years across the board.

This is of course their plan which is why pilots need to educate the public and each other on the truth and resist the urge to fall for the lies and publicity spin the airlines are pushing. This is a massive and costly PR and lobbying campaign pushed by the airlines which includes a nationwide press campaign (all those stupid articles about the pilot shortage appearing all over the country), propaganda being pushed on pilots by the airlines, the unions, fellow pilots (unfortunately). They even come into these and other aviation forums and message boards to try to disrupt these conversations.

Probably eventually inevitable but I don't see it as an immediate threat to the profession.

 

I have actually read GAO-14-232. It uses data from 2012 and earlier, and is filled with questionable assumptions. The number one bad assumption is that pilot supply has ever had any connection to pilot demand, which it has not. Until around 2000, pilot supply was based on what the U.S. military was doing with pilots, as the vast majority of airline pilot supply came from the military, especially the Air Force. Supply and demand curves at the Air Force have historically been opposite each other, they have a terrible record of shortages and gluts. Civilian pilot supply has never followed any demand cycles. The long training time and the long time between demand cycles made that impossible. So looking at falling wages and concluding there is too much supply, is incorrect.

I don't see in GAO-14-232 where there are tens of thousands of American pilots overseas, waiting to come back to fly in the U.S.. I do see where it mentions around 8,000 pilots with FAA ATP certificates, and around 16,000 pilots with FAA commercial tickets, have a residence overseas. Did you know that Embry-Riddle and Flight Safety International train far more foreign pilots than American pilots? And those foreign pilots get FAA certificates? Those foreign pilots go fly for the foreign airlines that sponsored them, and have addresses overseas. They aren't waiting for pilot jobs in the U.S., so that premise is false. There may be American pilots overseas who would come back, I've talked to some, but I've seen nothing to indicate many thousands of them.

Several sources in this report look at how many students are moving through U.S. flight schools, without regard to how many are actually U.S. citizens. Some of the large flight academies in the U.S. have been sold to foreign airlines, who operate them solely to train their own pilots. Their students have U.S. addresses, so they are U.S. residents, and they get FAA certificates, but they are not going to end up in U.S. airline cockpits. Most of the FAA certificates being given out today are going to foreign students, not Americans.

One of the big sources cited in this study is Audries Aircraft Analysis. When that study came out I contacted the author with questions about citizenship, on the supply end, and about non-airline demand for pilots, which is actually huge and ignored by every study out there. This is a very tough subject to get real numbers for, and Brant did a better job than most, but still left out some huge numbers.

Nobody has any data on Americans with ATPs waiting to return to the profession. It is possible, but seems unlikely, and there are no numbers.

For the past 15+ years, the major airlines and the financial press have been clearly stating that the low-cost carriers are responsible for keeping ticket prices low. If that isn't clear to you, or you somehow missed it all, I can't come up with anything more convincing. Even today there are new airlines trying to start up and undercut the others. There seems to be no limit to people rushing in to lose money in an attempt to start a cheaper airline, while existing LCCs state they can't find pilots. A shortage of some critical resource, that won't significantly go up in price at the majors, and is available to the majors when it isn't available to the LCCs, is a miracle. Or excellent strategy and planning.

DARPA. ALIAS. Read about it. I've worked in industrial automation for 30 years, and I'm stunned at the automation that is coming out of research labs and into production. The technology exists, DARPA is just looking at how to integrate it into EXISTING cockpits and culture. They aren't talking ten years from now. It will happen slowly, and I think I'll be safe as a captain at a major. But a large drop in demand for pilots will effect every pilot in the industry, and most of us will still be here. Pilots who are new today, will be in trouble. This industry loves to shed pilots.

 

First off I'm impressed with your dedication and research but unless you're just playing devil's advocate I'm going to assume you have a personal tie to this agenda. Are you management?

The flight schools in the US that train foreign pilots issue those pilots an FAA commercial certificate. They then return to their home country where they obtain a local certificate on the basis of their FAA certificate. Those foreign pilots do not obtain an ATP. This is why the distinction of those pilots who have an ATP living overseas is important. The majority of those pilots with ATPs that are living overseas are either working for a foreign airline as an American Expat or are working in a different career but are qualified to work as a pilot. As I said before, a pilot working overseas is not required to maintain an FAA medical so those pilots would be excluded from the list of current ATPs with a medical. If they are holding a foreign equivalent medical it can be assumed they are able to hold a FAA medical.

Again, just because you personally can't observe something doesn't mean it's not true. There are in fact many thousands of US pilots working overseas and my opinion (since you presented your opinion) is that most of them would be willing to work in the US if the pay was competitve. Currently a pilot who is current PIC in a regional jet can make about 12 times more money starting work for an overseas carrier than for a US carrier and that's not even considering the massive tax credits. Even the best paid ten year captains at a US regional airline can make about twice as much money in their first year at a foreign airline while in the US if they switch jobs, even to a major, they are looking at a massive pay cut earning as little as 1/5th their current pay.

Therefore, if your opinion is that they aren't interested in returning to work in the US it's pretty easy to conclude that it's because the pay sucks. The fact that there are qualified people who choose not to work for you doesn't mean you have a labor shortage, it means you aren't competitive in the market.

This isn't really true, it wasn't addressed in this manner and in fact the study reports a significant decline in the number of students enrolled in US flight schools. It also reports that flight schools show a shortage of the availability of qualified instructors while the number of available CFIs is more than sufficient to meet demand. The problem again is pay.

I don't think this is a significant issue regarding the validity of the report. When you are set on finding certain results, as you are, you will nitpick and look for errors for the sake of it. As was stated there are margins for error and the GAO study addressed this.

Don't forget the reason this study was performed was because the Regional Airlines complained new safety regulations would exacerbate an already existing shortage of qualified pilots. The fact that an airline refuses to compete with corporate flight departments and non aviation jobs is not the Government's problem. After all, it's not the responsibility of the Government to staff private jets so if the airlines paid pilots competitively the problem wouldn't exist. This is the point of the study and it's perfectly valid.

You don't need to call every single ATP and ask what their motivations are. A small random sample can be used. Most pilots know a small sample of fellow ATPs who are not working as airline pilots for various reasons. Some of them have no intentions of flying again...stay at home moms...successful entrepreneur who now owns his own jet...etc. Most of those people are just working in a different career and many will say they gave up the airline career because of money or the unwillingness to start at the bottom after a layoff.

Just because you don't have exact numbers is not reason to discount those pilots as available supply.

You are deliberately attempting to confuse the issue (are you a politician?) except you forget the company you're in. As pilots we understand Low cost carriers and regional carriers are not the same thing. Regional carrier ticket prices are set by the mainline who handles all their marketing. "Low cost carriers" such as Southwest, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit, Virgin etc. are not the same thing and don't have difficulty hiring pilots that regionals do because they pay much better.

You are trying to confuse the issue of ticket prices and marketing with pilot supply. These are two completely separate issues and with record profits across the board it's a tough sell to tie them together now.

Fascinating but it has little to do with this discussion and in fact you are contradicting yourself. On one hand you cry there is a pilot shortage and echo the regional airline managers' sob story and on the other you're saying there won't be a shortage anyway because we'll all be replaced by robots.

 

Not in the airline sector. I've worked in manufacturing for around 30 years, formerly management at a Fortune 500 company, currently helping manage a company that builds custom industrial automation for manufacturing.

It is my understanding from multiple sources that until 2013, foreign students at U.S. flight schools went home with an ATP. It is no longer true, but would account for a lot of ATPs overseas. One of the unintended consequences of the 1500-hour rule, is that foreign students are no longer getting ATPs, will no longer be as willing to come fly for U.S. airlines if wages go up here. Good for us I guess.

I don't intend to confuse anything, we all need to be as clear as possible on what is going on. Regionals are LCCs, that have been taken under the wings of majors, sometimes grown by the majors from tiny ULCCs. This was not done out of benevolence, it was a very successful strategy to control competition. LCCs are all about the lowest costs possible: lower prices and fewer comforts - that certainly applies to regionals. Independent LCCs undercut the majors to gain market share wherever their costs are lower than majors are charging, and it has worked very well to keep majors from charging, in some cases, even what it costs to operate.

LCCs under the control of majors are the way the majors kept independent LCCs in check, somewhat. The majors have also had to become LCCs themselves to compete and match ticket prices: lower prices and fewer comforts. This is where profits and pilot shortage begin to connect. LCCs can't find enough pilots...they can't expand into markets where majors are raising prices...and price hikes hold. It has been happening for the past year, prices and profits are finally going up for the majors, because the LCCs are unable to expand into markets where prices are higher than their costs.

Automation, that's a whole different topic, but I throw it in because it is relevant, and it is my specialty. The future is fewer ATP pilots in cockpits, whether from MPL pilots or automation or whatever, that would explain the lack of concern from airlines. The best way for airline management to have their dreams come true, would be a pilot shortage that inconveniences voters and costs donors money. Don't forget how quickly the sequester ended when the FAA threatened to close towers - air travel problems are political kryptonite for both sides of Congress. Fewer pilots in cockpits is just a stroke of a pen, or a few pens if ICAO, but those pens are primed and ready when the political climate favors lower standards.

I argue we are headed for a pilot shortage, not to blow lavender-scented smoke up your pants and claim we are all going to get rich. It is a warning. Good things are not coming from it.

 

That may be true, but you have to bear in mind this is fundamentally an economics discussion with the latter being notorious for creative guesswork. The best we can do here is guess and look at indirect evidence.

I tend to agree it probably is not well connected, and in fact has become so disconnected that urban mythology has crept in (the pilot shortage folklore we all know and love).

Of course we all know this, dozens of school are full of English-mangling foreigners. But you cannot say these people have no possible option of working here. I would tend to agree they generally go back to whomever pays for their training, and more effort definitely needs to be placed on determining how many.

This data could be estimated to an order of magnitude by downloading the entire FAA Airmen Database for its ATPs and subtracting the active ones out, a known figure of around 140k. Some unknowns will remain, such as how many are still viable as commercial pilots. It has to be a huge number even with the estimation it contains.

 

I'm happy to hear an outside perspective. So you fly now?

Foreign students didn't obtain an ATP because it was impracticable, expensive and completely unnecessary to stay in the USA until they had 1500 hours. They usually spend about two years training in the US and then go back to their country with a Commercial and approximately 250 hours. The 1500 hour rule did not change the requirements for the ATP certificate which has always been 1500 hours. Prior to the 1500 hour rule, pilots were permitted to work for a scheduled 121 airline with only a Commercial pilot certificate except that it used to be unusual for an airline to hire such a low time pilot.

I believe the GAO study excluded Commercial pilots without a current medical which would have excluded all those foreign pilots who went home once their medicals expired although I think that was a separate number. Either way, the number of foreigners with a commercial certificate isn't significant as far as the results of the study.

This isn't an accurate statement. In fact many of the regional airlines are wholly owned subsidiaries of the majors which makes them nothing more than a mechanism for contract busting B-scales for pilots. Since "Regional Airlines" don't sell their own tickets or even control prices they aren't in the category of LCC you describe. The actual independent LCC (as I mentioned) such as Southwest, JetBlue, Spirit, etc.... aren't considered "Regionals" anymore and generally pay their pilots more competitively. These LCCs don't currently have a pilot supply issue and are not having the difficulty attracting or retaining pilots such as "Regionals" do.

Again this isn't really happening at all.

A warning for who? I don't think the supply of pilots is going to change the progress of automation in the aerospace industry and an attempt to frighten pilots into being submissive for fear of being replaced by robots is silly.

Generally a labor shortage is always a good thing for anyone seeking work in that field. Not so good if you're hiring.

 

Lots to disagree about I guess. If we change "regional" to "affiliate" airline, this discussion would be easier, affiliate meaning contract airlines serving majors. All twelve affiliate airlines have a business strategy that emphasizes low-cost over comfort, convenience, network size, or any other common airline strategy for gaining market share. That makes all the affiliate airlines LCC by definition. Some also fly independent flights not for the majors, where they are understood to be LCC.

For the past decade, independent LCCs grew quickly wherever the market allowed daylight between price and cost. The majors had higher costs, so if they weren't losing money, the LCCs were able to take passengers, the majors were losing steadily. The majors couldn't cut enough costs (primarily labor) to compete, so they contracted with or grew their own LCC divisions. The majors generally didn't make money on their affiliate relationships, I've heard they mostly lost money but justified it. The strategy maintained their networks, which is still the biggest factor in selling airline tickets, even over price. People will still pay a little to stay on the same network, network size remains king.

The airline industry is powered by risk-taking egomaniacs who want to be in the airline business. There are always people trying to start up new airlines, or make their airline bigger, even when none are making money. This is why supply doesn't follow demand, and there is no capacity discipline. Cries from the financial sector for capacity discipline have always been ignored. Today the financial sector is fawning over the airline sector, for finally having capacity discipline. Does anyone really think airline executives suddenly found religion? Demand is growing slowly, and the majors can't meet it with affiliate flying or internal growth.

American and Delta can't move into Cleveland where United pulled their affiliate flying for lack of pilots. Frontier/Spirit/Southwest moved in quickly, but now have cut back as well. Small markets are losing service all over the country due to lack of pilots to serve them. The independent LCCs are in fact struggling to find pilots fast enough to replace those leaving. Major airlines say the regionals contain a pool of about 6,000 pilots they want, and that is drying up quickly.

If there are tens of thousands of qualified pilots waiting for things to turn, they are impressively patient or not very qualified.

You need to look at this as a resource shortage. When farmers run out of one source of calcium supplements for their fields, they turn to another source, or plant something that doesn't need calcium. Higher prices lead them to find other ways if they can, rather than double or triple their costs. Not just farmers, but all kinds of government and industry experts rush in to find alternatives to calcium supplements. To think ATP pilots will continue to be the only solution if they become scarce, is one-dimensional. There are a lot of other options on the table, and a lot of smart people looking at this as an opportunity. The automation option is growing quickly, will certainly become the preferred option eventually.

I have fourteen years left at a major, will retire a wide-body captain if I stick it out and nothing changes. If FOs are entirely replaced by MPLs or automation or an empty seat, I'll still be ok. But I'm not quitting my day job anytime soon.

 

Corporations can't just work for market share or egos with no other objective, they must make money for their stockholders. If not, heads roll on the board. If the business plan makes no sense to stockholders and their representatives, then it does not continue for very long. To claim the regional (affiliate) airline industry is only about market share is ultimately nonsensical. They make money, made money, and will continue contracting out flight capacity as long as it is cheaper than doing it in-house. I think you are correct it was all about lower labor cost though. That's why the ultimate no-no is having higher pilot salaries at contract carriers. And this is precisely the behavior we see now- very strong resistance by regionals to the pink elephant in the room, which is higher pilot salaries. Bonuses, retention pay, flow through promises, anything but a substantial pay raise.

I'm going to toss a flag on this claim. I am not in the airline industry lately, but I seriously doubt this statement is correct. I used to fly in this very market (CLE) and I NEVER heard the withdrawal of United there was due to affiliates having trouble staffing their airplanes. Regional markets come and go, it was not the pilot supply.

Respectfully, this is just nonsense. We are back to that old conundrum of whether failing to pay for a desired service equates to a shortage of that service- it doesn't, yet that is exactly what is going on everywhere. There pilots are there, the money is not. Saying the pilots are not there is nonsense.

Impressively patient maybe while they do other lines of work besides fly for a living. Not very qualified? How hard is it to fly a modern automated jet? Maybe there are a lot of non-121 pilots around, if that is the case but you have to PAY to train them which is precisely what they do not wan to do. They want it cheap and they do not want to pay for anything. But a shortage it is not.

The low-hanging fruit of automation is already there in modern airliner cockpits. It is a 2-man system because we cannot make it just one. Single pilot airliners are not safe enough of this operation, and we will not see unmanned airliners in our working lifetime. More automation is not the solution to the alleged pilot labor shortage. The solution is higher pay and reduction of "affiliate" operating capacity.

 

I'm not trying to be rude but all of what you just wrote here is complete and total nonsense and even gibberish. it's not about disagreeing with you, its just utter nonsense. It's just made up and makes no sense.

again...utter nonsense. you are literally arguing that pilots must go work for $20K per year to protect our profession from being replaced by robots. Ridiculous. If that's what this career has become then screw it I say. You can earn ten times the money in a different career and just buy your own plane if you love flying.

how is that even possible? You just stated you were working for a company that develops automation and previously worked as a manager for a Fortune 500 company for 30 years! Now you are a pilot at a major and only 51 years old? Do the math!

 

Scott sure has a lot of posts in regional threads, mostly about pilot shortages. In 2013 he said something in the Eagle thread to the effect of "hopefully they make this place worth coming to." He also worked in the Air Force in the 80s I think...I would quote it but it's hard on my phone to copy and paste that much. I'm trying to figure out his timeline too. Maybe he did the air force thing, worked for a Fortune 500 company as management, then got on with a major at some point and does automation as a side gig?

"I heard the pilot shortage rumors in the '80s, when I was flying in the Air Force."

Could check if he held two jobs at once.