full of luv

But don't the minors play real baseball in real towns in front of real fans?

Bottom line is its all supply and demand. If the companies were allowed to outsource the labor reliably to foreigners safely they would in a heartbeat. As professionals we have to hold out for appropriate compensation.

Ray Red

If we operated in a free labor market, this problem would not exist. The RLA allows wages to stay lower than they would otherwise and encourages prospective pilots to not even enter the profession.

There should have been many small corrections over the last decade, but now we are gearing up for a huge correction. At the rate regional pilots are leaving and are being hired, the size of the regional work force will shrink by an increasing percentage every year. Within 5 years there will be just a few thousand regional pilots left if nothing changes.

Even adding another 10-20k per year will do nothing. Most want mainline jobs that pay even more. The point that it would be viable to stay at a regional is the point that it no longer makes sense to operate the Arline as the cost advantage will no longer exist.

Slick111

^^^^^ This just needed to re-stated. Spot-on! ^^^^^^^^

Slick111

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Is there any question that ^^^ THIS ^^^^ would, (in very short-order), solve the shortage of pilots for any regional airline adoptin it?

I don't think so. But hey, let's convene a two-day summit at Humpty Diddle to see if we can come up with an idea (other than increasing pay) to solve the problem that WE CREATED!!!!

I snicker at the mental image of these self-important stuffed-shirts attending this conference and craning their necks to avoid seeing that HUGE elephant in the room. "What elephant?? I don't see an elephant!! Who left that big pile of elephant dung on the floor??"

Ray Red

Mainline rates are not 3x regional rates for similar size a/c. Probably closer to 1.5x. Even lowering the income gap (presumably by increasing regional wages) would not stop the desire of regional pilots to move to mainline carriers. If I asked my FO this trip if he was making $70/hr would be pull his app from AA, DL, and UA where he would make the same first year, he would laugh.

The cost advantage does not only lie in pilot wages. As the regional experience large scale shrinkage, the Cheif:Indian ratio changes as well. I don't know where the break even point is, but with a small number of aircraft, it would be cheaper to staple and pay mainline RJ rates and eliminating the whole management structure and it would to keep a whole management team and infrastructure.

Ray Red

I think this is why we will see a huge correction in the next few years. If they changed first year FO pay to $75/hr and some guy decided that he now wants to be an airline pilot and takes his first lesson this afternoon, I would be a minimum of 2 years before he could sit in the right seat (if he can get a loan for training costs). Or 4-5 years via the college route.

deltajuliet

A lot of good points and valid observations have been made in this thread. One negative bullet point mentioned that scared me a little bit was increasing retirement to age 67.

Obviously they'd only be kicking the can down the road, but its viability scares me. Everyone's career delayed another two years. And aside from pushing Congress to pass it, the airline's wouldn't have to do anything else to address the real issues, leaving us stuck in regional limbo.

I think at the end of the day, what we truly need to see is higher airfares. To get competent rampers in Denver, to rival the in-flight quality of Singapore/Emirates (I'd argue that's important if US carriers hope to stay competitive internationally), and to pay pilots a reasonable wage. Joe Pax can fly Spirit if he doesn't like it.

gloopy

There isn't a shortage, but there is an insufficient infrastructure/pipeline for future needs. Like you said, there is more than the potential manpower for today's needs though.

Funny thing is, in their lame B-school attempt to throw a lifeline to cheap labor, they are really laying the groundwork for incredibly high costs they will have to shoulder. 6 figure flight training (on top of 6 figure degrees) just to shave a few month's of time building off the carriculum and 5 figure retention bonuses, etc. are going to cost them way, way more than just fixing the pay to begin with.

Conferences though. LOL. Write offs for everyone! Weeeeeeee!

bozobigtop

Stupid people always come up with stupid solutions. Hit the idiot over the head and tell them look at the fine mess you got us into once again.

gloopy

Of course he wouldn't pull his apps. He would attrit at probably the same time. The goal isn't to get everyone to become regional lifers. The real issue is getting people in at the bottom so that when he moves on there is someone to replace him. Getting people to financially commit to flight training again. When they see the current regional pay/QOL as it exists now, far fewer people are willing to get into it.

We need quality, affordable experienced based flight training, another stronger GA Revitalization Act with industry specific tort reform and some financial reforms at the college level (or abandon it altogether if they can't figure out how to more affordably give you a reading list of free material and then test you on it) and higher pay/QOL at the regional level. If they did even some of that (as long as pay went up enough) people would start getting back into it.