"Where have all the Pilots Gone?"

[Rez O. Lewshun]

Anyone care to draw a comparison to the maritime industry? East bloc labor?

 

[ebaybob]

Somebody explain to me why banks are willing to loan students 100k to pursue ratings when the likelihood of them paying that money back is low. That's the problem with pilot wages...it's tied directly to the amount of money newbies can borrow to meet the minimum qualifications to sit in the right seat.

Pilot wages will increase when the supply of pilots dries up. The supply of pilots will dry up when credit granted to aspiring pilots dries up...not before!

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

Regionals are hiring pilots WITHOUT a commercial rating. They get it when they complete the sim check.

Mesaba is hiring street captains.

PCL had to pay a fine to NWA because their completion rate got too low.

SWA dropped their mins from 1300 PIC to 1000 PIC.

Emirates dropped their TT requirement by 500 hrs to 3500. They dropped their jet requirement by 500 hrs. They ended their max age requirement. They increased their max age to 65. They stopped requiring a type rating or time in type for street captains.

Emirates and Cathay are now at every job fair, and recruiting US pilots hard. Cathay had to ground one of their freighters for lack of pilots.
Other foreign carriers are now home basing pilots in the US.

DAL got WAY less mil applicants than they wanted.

Another poster reported NWA got 1200 applicants in 2 weeks after opening the hiring window. He said last time it was open they got 12,000 applicants in 2 weeks. Other posters said similar numbers about UAL.

UAL/NWA/USAir all began hiring WAY sooner than they planned.

NWA raised their pay/improved their work rules in the middle of a contract. NetJets has offered to pay their pilot group a lot more in the middle of their contract.

A number of flight schools have shut down, as their instructors all left. The ab-initio flight schools in CA/PHX are paying $42K to their flight instructors.

The numbers of student pilots, comm pilots, and ATPs are down severely over the past 5 years, and it will only get worse, relative to the numbers of people wanting to fly, according to the FAA.

But there is no pilot shortage.

cliff
ABQ

 

[Flash]

Is there any list of hard numbers showing student starts, commercial tickets etc? The airport where I learned to fly, right by my house, has been like a ghost town in the last couple of years.

 

[captain dad]

Here's some interesting information from a recent article in Air Transport World, which is an airline managment magazine. The article was titled "Where Have All the Pilots Gone?"

U.S. will need 120,000 new pilots by 2017

FAA estimates it will take 15 years from 2001 to get our number of U.S. based Airline Transport Pilots back to where they were in 2001/2002. Ditto for active Commercial Pilots. There were also some other statistics in there showing how the U.S. pilot pool since 2001 has shrunk in the number of student, commercial, and ATP pilots. But the number of CFI's has gone up about 10% during that time.

Pinnacle Airlines experienced attrition rates of 25%, with as many as 10-20 pilots leaving each month. "We were in a pretty difficult situation," VP Phil Reed told ATW. ".......we had a great deal of difficulty keeping our schedule active." Pinnacle had to reduce flying and pay a 1.3M penalty to NWA. VP Phil Reed goes on to say later in the article, "a Pinnacle Captain with several years of flying can make $80,000 or $90,000 annualy........pilots begin at low rates but ramp up quickly....."

VP Warren Wilkinson of Republic Airways says, ".....we are not having a problem now hiring pilots......we are filling our classes and haven't lowered our minimums." Early he stated that in the 1st quarter of '07, they had high pilot attrition rates and had to slow growth because they couldn't staff the cockpits.

Jim French, MD of UK based Flybe says, "I can understand the shortage with that salary [$20,000/yr. or less]. No one is going to go through the private investment.....with such a return on the investment. You could not recruit pilots in Europe based on that rate." A Q400 F/O at Flybe makes 25,000 POUNDS Per year to start, rising to 38,000 pounds per year. Flybe Captains make 52,000 pounds per year and rise to 63,000 pounds per year.

Frank Ayears, chairman of the ERAU Flight Department states that enrollment in ERAU aviation programs are up about 25% for the past 2 years. He said it was the busiest summer they've ever had.

You can get ATW for *free* if you sign up on their website or fill out a card from inside the magazine.

A Spinicle pilot would have to be there 15 years and work and average of 92 hours each month to break $90,000 gross. I have to call shenanigans on that one. Then again look who said it. What a lieing D0uche Bag.

Great time to ride the wave. Get your board. Surfs Up!imp:

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

Stats:
U.S. 2001 2006 % Change
Student Starts 61,839 61,448 -1
CFIs 82,875 91,343 +10
Commercial 120,502 117,610 -2
ATP 144,702 141,935 -2
The above growth, or lack of it, worked, because Commercial Airline growth in the US was minimal-Domestic Capacity was up only 1.9%

This is when things get really bad:
U.S. 2006 2020 % Change
Student Pilots 84866 100,181 +18
Commercial 117,610 130,590 +11
ATP 141,935 145,655 +3
Total Pilots 597,109 651,752 +9

Comm PAX 768mill 1.2bill +56%
RPMs (trillions) .79 1.4 +77%
Comm Aircraft 7,626 11,203 +47%
So, we (the pilots) are going to support an increase in Commercial Aircraft of 47%, and increase in Commercial PAX of 56%, and an increase in RPMs of 77%, with ONLY an increase in the number of ATPs of 3%, and an increase in Commercial Pilots of just 11%? How is this going to work???

And, it just gets worse:
Globally 2006 2020 % Change
Comm Acft #s 17,000 30,000 76%
Commercial PAX growth per year is forecast to be 5.3% PER YEAR, while freight growth is forecast to be 5.9% PER YEAR. All this while the US has 3% more ATPs over the WHOLE 14 YEAR PERIOD.

Remember, that we, the US, is currently the ONLY country that produces any number of excess pilots. EVERYWHERE ELSE is experiencing more airline seats opening than the numbers of commercial pilots they can produce.

Here's some more interesting info:
U.S.

[FONT=Helvetica, sans-serif]Student pilots are important to general aviation and the aviation industry as a whole. In 2006, according to statistics compiled by the FAA’s Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, the number of student pilots decreased by 2.7 percent. This is the second consecutive year of decline in this important pilot category.[/FONT]​

The FAA is planning on 6300 VLJs flying by 2020, while the current number is basically 0.

China, India, and Worldwide Growth:
Through 2020:
China's GDP will quadruple.
1/2 of the World's GDP growth will be
1-China: yearly GDP growth of 6%
2- US: yearly GDP growth of 2.9%
3-India: yearly GDP growth of 5.9%
China will be the same economic size as the US by 2020.

What does this mean for aviation, and the pilot shortage?

Between 1980 and 1998, China's Domestic PAX airlines grew at an average rate of 16.5% per year

North America's domestic freight market has 770 aircraft. China currently has LESS THAN 7!

Remember, by 2020, China will be the same economic size as the US!

Asia's freighter fleet will increase by 340%, to 419 aircraft, by 2020.

The top 5 countries buying new aircraft through 2020 will be:
1-US
2-China
3-Great Britain
4-Germany
5-India

And, to top it all off:
China is currently producing 1,000 pilots per year.
India was producing 150 per year, but that was before 2 of its 5 flight training schools had to close because all of their instructors were hired by the Indian airlines. Sound familiar?

The pilot shortage Tsunami is just beginning.

When American gets around to hiring, they will be the last ones, with UPS/FedEx/SWA already hiring again, and all the other majors already hiring. They will get a much lower return of furloughees than they expect, and the number and quality of applicants will probably shock them.

What does this mean for you and I?

HOLD OUT FOR MORE PAY!!!

Good luck to you!

cliff
ABQ

 

[Texanflyboy]

To top that off, look at all the corporate jet charter operations there are. Our lowest time FO has 350 hours TT and he's an FO in the CJ, King Air, and the 550 Citation (part 91 w/in the 48). Most of our FO's don't have too much more time than that. Some of our Hawker 700/800 FO's have just under 1,000 TT. Those guys still arn't easy for us to get. They're all going to SkyWest, ExpressJet, ect. We do pay our FO's a decent charter salary and if they're contract it's 250 per day. Not bad for 350 to 1000 hours TT.

We're growing at our company. Everybody in SoCal is on aircraft buying spree. If we're having a hard time finding FO's, how about finding Captains! Can't upgrade FO's b/c not enought TT, can't find Captains willing to move to SoCal!! Don't get me wrong, we're a great company, great place to work, great people, good pay. We even pay a flight hour bonus! 10 bucks extra per flight hour. I Captain the SII and the Bravo and average between 50 and 70 hours per month. Our King Air guys are flying more. That's an extra 6-8k average per year. And we're still having trouble finding qualified Captains.

I can just imagine what it's going to be like a few years down the road! My .02

 

[Raskal]

I've seen it too. We just started two FOs for the king air/hawker part of our fleet with less than 1000tt. This has, until now been unheard of-we needed almost double that when I came in 5yrs ago.

The best example I can think of also is me. I have two mid-size jet types and 3200hrs, whoopee. Even a couple of years ago would I have been able to get an interview at NWA? No.

Things-are-a-changin, I'm just not sure what to do about it.

 

[ROSWELL41]

RAH has lowered their mins despite what the article says. I have two friends hired there with 500-600 TT and 50-100 ME to fly the ERJ-170. One is already on line flying.

 

[pilotyip]

And just think in 1977 a Navy pilot with an ATP, L-188 type, 2700 TT, 2400 MEL, and 2200 Turbine, at age 33 I could not get an interview anywhere except a non-sked at YIP.

 

[finnjl]

is it really that good.....I have been a FO for a long time.....I would of been an FO for 5-6 years at ASA before I would of upgraded

I now Pinnacle was running around 2 years

I am getting close at Flex it appears to be around 2-2.5 years

Maybe there is a lot of turnover at the bottom

I find it hard to believe a Pinnacle captain to make 80-90/ must work all the time and been there 10 plus years.....why do CEO types give facts that are not exactly true

 

[Rerouted]

is it really that good.....I have been a FO for a long time.....I would of been an FO for 5-6 years at ASA before I would of upgraded

I now Pinnacle was running around 2 years

I am getting close at Flex it appears to be around 2-2.5 years

Maybe there is a lot of turnover at the bottom

I find it hard to believe a Pinnacle captain to make 80-90/ must work all the time and been there 10 plus years.....why do CEO types give facts that are not exactly true

Why do CEO types not tell the whole truth publically - it's not to their advantage sometimes. Somebody further up in this thread pointed out that the mainline's that the regionals serve certainly don't want to hear they can't find pilots. At some companies, like RAH, they are in the middle of contract negotiations. There's nothing like publically announcing that you are having a hard time finding pilots without giving up your ability to negotiate a contract that doesn't give away some of that ever important "not so honest CEO type" bonus money. It's all like a game of poker. As soon as I can read a thread like this without hearing pilots giving away their hand by saying there is no shortage, I might start believeing pilots as a whole stand a chance of making a little more money. Until then, "there's no shortage" = There's no hope.

 

[Raskal]

And just think in 1977 a Navy pilot with an ATP, L-188 type, 2700 TT, 2400 MEL, and 2200 Turbine, at age 33 I could not get an interview anywhere except a non-sked at YIP.

You still down there? USA jet? Hows things going?

 

[pilotyip]

Still there

You still down there? USA jet? Hows things going?

Still here living the good life. It has been a fantastic adventure I would change little

 

[ualdriver]

To top that off, look at all the corporate jet charter operations there are. Our lowest time FO has 350 hours TT and he's an FO in the CJ, King Air, and the 550 Citation (part 91 w/in the 48). Most of our FO's don't have too much more time than that. Some of our Hawker 700/800 FO's have just under 1,000 TT. Those guys still arn't easy for us to get. They're all going to SkyWest, ExpressJet, ect. We do pay our FO's a decent charter salary and if they're contract it's 250 per day. Not bad for 350 to 1000 hours TT.

We're growing at our company. Everybody in SoCal is on aircraft buying spree. If we're having a hard time finding FO's, how about finding Captains! Can't upgrade FO's b/c not enought TT, can't find Captains willing to move to SoCal!! Don't get me wrong, we're a great company, great place to work, great people, good pay. We even pay a flight hour bonus! 10 bucks extra per flight hour. I Captain the SII and the Bravo and average between 50 and 70 hours per month. Our King Air guys are flying more. That's an extra 6-8k average per year. And we're still having trouble finding qualified Captains.

I can just imagine what it's going to be like a few years down the road! My .02

Just out of curiosity, what exactly would said Captains that you're having difficulty finding, make flying those aircraft you mention in Southern California? How many days would said Captain be required to be on a pager?