How long will regional hiring continue?

[bgaviator]

How much longer do you think the regionals will be hurting for pilots? The reason I ask is because I have close to 400 hours, but only 14 multi time. I have a commercial/multi/instrument and CFI license. I haven't been at the controls in two years. I currently work fairly comfortably as a 121 dispatcher. Part of me thinks it would be a good idea to start getting my flying skills back up so that way I can easily jump ship to flying commercial if I want to. My biggest issue for not wanting to jump back into flying is the pay issue. I finally make enough money to where I can pay back my student loans with a little ease, but if I took a job at a regional I really don't know how I could do it. How much longer do you see these desperate times for the regionals continuing? Thanks.

 

[SkyNation]

how much do you make as a dispatcher? you could go to any number of regionals and upgrade within 1-2 years and be making 70K or more.

hiring will be brisk for quite some time, I'd guess.

 

[norskman2]

how much do you make as a dispatcher? you could go to any number of regionals and upgrade within 1-2 years and be making 70K or more.

hiring will be brisk for quite some time, I'd guess.

Whoa there, Tex! This year's 1-year upgrade could easily be next year's 6-year upgrade and vice versa. And not too many regionals have that magic combination of low hiring minimums, fast upgrade AND high first year CA pay.

BG, with your times, the only regionals whose minimums you currently meet would be TSA, PDT and PSA, I believe none of which have fast upgrades or high first-year CA pay

How long will the party last?

Good News: The number of people earning their Private and Comm licenses has fallen off steadily in the last 5 years. Fewer pilots in the pipeline = more open jobs.

Bad News: Regional job openings are also being fueled by hiring by the majors, which could stop at any time, and atrocious regional pay & QOL.

So....pick your poison. Good QOL and pay as a dispatcher or bad QOL and pay, but a job as a pilot.

The tradeoffs are clear.

One possibility, with the current pilot shortage some 135 charter operators may be hiring low time pilots, likely with better pay/QOL than the regionals.

 

[Americam]

Hiring should be stout for the next 5-10 years. The issue isn't with the regionals, it's the attrition due to retirement being seen at the majors. All the Vietnam-era pilots, and pilots hiring immediately after deregulation, are hitting the mandatory retirement age, and thus the void is felt all the way down to the flight instructor ranks (the flight school I came from can't find enough instructors to teach initial-CFI applicants) All though your pay potential may be greater as a pilot, it will be a few years until you will make as much as a 121 dispatcher as a pilot.

 

[BoilerUP]

The mandatory retirement age rising to 65 in the coming months will slow age-related attrition for a while...

 

[Americam]

The mandatory retirement age rising to 65 in the coming months will slow age-related attrition for a while...

key word... "slow"... it won't stop it all together. Plus most air carriers will be offering huge bonuses to pilots who will go at 60 rather than wait it out. It's just too expensive to keep these high dollar pilots on the payroll for 5 more years. The business plan of no airline accounts for this.

 

[BoilerUP]

Plus most air carriers will be offering huge bonuses to pilots who will go at 60 rather than wait it out.

Time will tell if your "buyout" prediction comes to pass...

 

[blueridge71]

No one knows with all the uncertainty in this business. Age 65 Rule will slow hiring. Another terrorist attack could restart furloughs. One of the majors liquidating would put a lot of pilots on the street. High fuel prices could slow growth. Global warming restrictions and costs could do the same.

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

EVERY jet manufacturer has HUGE backlogs of planes.

Boeing says that approx. 19,000 airline pilots will be needed per year for the next 20 years.
The US is the ONLY place with excess pilots.

The pilot shortage is getting worse and worse each month. UAL and NWA will be hiring soon, as will UPS. In about 12 months, both FedEx and USAir will be hiring. In about 18-24 AA will join the fray.

Many airlines have already planned or are currently planning ab-initio hiring (just like the military). Only a MAJOR event(s) will derail the pilot demand train. More and more people in India and China are wanting to fly, and more and more freight is being flown worldwide.

You can get a job next week, if you want.

Good Luck!
cliff
YIP

 

[~~~^~~~]

There will always be unfillled "openings" for the bad jobs and 11,500 applications on file for the class of 80 "good" jobs. There may be a "pilot shortage" at the regionals, but FedEx has not noticed any shortage.

Hiring will continue at the "Regionals," which are the old National Majors in size and scope. This hiring will continue because of the reasons mentioned in this board and because there are retirements at the "regionals" and folks simply getting out of the game to follow other more lucrative opportunities.

My airline has a number of Doctors, Lawyers and other professionals who have becoime pilots, then returned to their other professions after having "lived the dream."

 

[Crash Pad]

Well I had just started at United when 9/11 happened and whamo I was on the street... Took unemployment for a while then tried to get a job. Couldn't pay anyone to hire me.

Sound familiar. We are one downturn away from zero hiring and zero growth. How long can this bull run? Next downturn will KO at least one of the big boys.

Not to many airlines hire during a recession.

 

[norskman2]

Well I had just started at United when 9/11 happened and whamo I was on the street... Took unemployment for a while then tried to get a job. Couldn't pay anyone to hire me.

Sound familiar. We are one downturn away from zero hiring and zero growth. How long can this bull run? Next downturn will KO at least one of the big boys.

Not to many airlines hire during a recession.

Almost like clockwork, the airline industry has had a major downturn every decade - the early 60s, early 70s, early 80s, early 90s, early 2000s. You can't predict in advance what it's going to be -- a recession, an Arab oil embargo, a Mideast war.

Everything is cyclical - the airline industry, the economy, the stock market. Projections for air travel growth mean squat. The good times won't last forever. It's all a crapshoot.

 

[Mike man]

...as will UPS.

Didn't they just close the hiring window?

 

[Flybet3]

how much do you make as a dispatcher? you could go to any number of regionals and upgrade within 1-2 years and be making 70K or more.

hiring will be brisk for quite some time, I'd guess.

Ok, first thing you're gonna have to do bud is not listen to comments like these that tell you that you need to go somewhere where you are going to upgrade fast! Why? I'll tell you why....
#1 Upgrade today might be 2 years, it might be 8 years by friday.
#2 You have such low time that if you got on at a regional within the next couple of months you might not have enough time OR ESPECIALLY experience to upgrade.
#3 Just because you've been an FO for a few years does not mean that you will upgrade. You might get the Upgrade slot, and begin training, but who's to say that you wont bust your checkride. Yes Yes Yes, I know you can fly and by that time you SHOULD be familiar with how things are done at the company. But, I've know guys that have been FO's for 7 years then they do their CAPT checkride and fail.
Could they fly? Hell yeah! Great pilots, but for some reason they were just having a bad day.

Everyone keeps trying to play the "Quick upgrade, get 1000PICJet and On to a Major" Game, when clearly times have change and you need to go somewhere where you wont have to commute, pay is liveable while you're in the right seat, and where at some point if everything goes smoothly you will upgrade. Dont do what some people do and try to rush their careers. That's why so many training places (Gulfstream, Jet University, ETC.) keep getting rich, b/c people keep trying to get ahead by buying their "experience". I can tell you know, no money will replace experience.

 

[Flybet3]

One possibility, with the current pilot shortage some 135 charter operators may be hiring low time pilots, likely with better pay/QOL than the regionals.

Better Pay Yeah, surely. But QOL in the 135 world is Non existent. Unless you're flying scheduled cargo, but Caravan time, Beech 99 and Shorts time can only get you so far sometimes. Unless you get a gravy job flying a King air, which most of them want 135 currency or a type. You might get lucky.

 

[igneousy2]

Actually the 135 airlines during hiring booms have higher minimums than a lot of 121 carriers. That's because most 135 jobs are PIC jobs which require 1200 hours total. There are not as many 135 VFR jobs - if you can find one - it's 500 hours. Pilot's are already getting on by merely graduating from approved programs (i.e. UND, FSI, ERAU).

This is only the begginning of the hiring boom. The hurt on the regionals for pilots is only begginning. During the last hiring boom EVERYBODY was hiring and a lot were hiring in EXCESS of 100 per month. We are not even close to seeing those kinds of hiring numbers yet.

Hurry up and get your time - the way to not get furloughed is to be on the front of the wave. It's not too late, but the pilots hired on the back end have usually ended up as mere furlough protection for the guys hired on the front.

Good luck.

 

[bgaviator]

thanks for all the advice....If I can come to grips with taking the huge initial paycut, I may do it

 

[RP170]

thanks for all the advice....If I can come to grips with taking the huge initial paycut, I may do it

I thought you were holding out for Skybus?

 

[bgaviator]

I don't ever remember saying I was holding out for anyone....I would need to be flying commercially for awhile before I'd have enough hours for SX anyways.

 

[RP170]

I don't ever remember saying I was holding out for anyone....I would need to be flying commercially for awhile before I'd have enough hours for SX anyways.

Is that where you are dispatching at?