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There is no pilot shortage! Sorry. By the way Santa Claus isn't real either.

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Nevets said:
As a taxpayer, if we keep subsidizing education, the institutions of higher learning will keep increasing the "costs" of an education to meet the ever increasing supply of taxpayer subsidized money.

Anyway, there is no pilot shortage. There is only a shortage of pilots willing to fly for regional compensation. That's the point ALPA has been trying to make.
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Not to mention spending all that money and graduating with no skills that have any value to any employers. Reminds me of an article in the WSJ a while back were a Stanford graduate with a 4.0 in Art could not find a job except at Starbucks, and she was complaining it was just not fair becuase she had worked so hard. But a welder graduating from a trade school can start in $50K range with virutally no debt.
 
pilotyip said:
Reminds me of an article in the WSJ a while back were a Stanford graduate with a 4.0 in Art could not find a job except at Starbucks, and she was complaining it was just not fair becuase she had worked so hard. But a welder graduating from a trade school can start in $50K range with virutally no debt.
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The fact she was complaining and not understanding explains why she went into art :)

Seriously, what do you do with an art degree, work at a museum? Sounds more like a hobby to me.
 
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livin'thesim said:
It is clear that a lot of people are trying to rationalize their decision to go deeply into debt for college. Lots of debt is fine for a degree that will deliver the big bucks after graduation, but high debt for a worthless degree in some "soft" subject is just a waste of time.

However, a lot of people who spent all this money need to justify it to themselves, so they try to play the "elite, college educated" card. But the evidence of this supposed quality education is often completely lacking. I read plenty of writing by college grads that is middle school level.

I have a college degree, however I paid it off as I went, and was very careful not to overspend. College now is too expensive to pay as you go, you need parent's money or loans/grants. There is almost no other way.

Colleges are basically just financially raping the kids and giving them a diploma that often gives them no demonstrable return on investment.
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Spot on. College tuition costs should be going down not up! They should be going way down. Government stafford loans only help to keep costs high.
 
Nevets said:
As a taxpayer, if we keep subsidizing education, the institutions of higher learning will keep increasing the "costs" of an education to meet the ever increasing supply of taxpayer subsidized money.

Anyway, there is no pilot shortage. There is only a shortage of pilots willing to fly for regional compensation. That's the point ALPA has been trying to make.
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Good point! Please spread the word. When I started out you could get all of your licenses for under $20,000.00 and the majors were making $300k.
 
pilotyip said:
This guy gets it! Good for you. Investment is post-secondary education must yield a good middle income job. In post-secondary we are not talking strictly college, skilled trades like fixing cars, running Nuclear Power Plants and flying airplanes can lead to a good life.

Repeat, but it fits here. In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We've elevated the importance of "higher education" to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled "alternative." Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as "vocational consolation prizes," best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of "shovel ready" jobs for a society that doesn't encourage people to pick up a shovel. In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a "good job" into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber if you can find one is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we'll all be in need of both. I came here today because guys like my grandfather are no less important to civilized life than they were 50 years ago. Maybe they're in short supply because we don't acknowledge them they way we used to. We leave our check on the kitchen counter, and hope the work gets done. That needs to change.
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Shack. However that time has already come on supply vs demand.
 
pilotyip said:
Not to mention spending all that money and graduating with no skills that have any value to any employers. Reminds me of an article in the WSJ a while back were a Stanford graduate with a 4.0 in Art could not find a job except at Starbucks, and she was complaining it was just not fair becuase she had worked so hard. But a welder graduating from a trade school can start in $50K range with virutally no debt.
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And this is a point that can't be made enough. I can't tell you how many dudes I fly with who sell themselves short for what they are worth (highly skilled labor that generates tangible revenue for the company) while decrying the praises of VEEPS and leaders that don't do squat for the bottom line other than increase overhead and wear out clip boards.
 
pilotyip said:
Not to mention spending all that money and graduating with no skills that have any value to any employers. Reminds me of an article in the WSJ a while back were a Stanford graduate with a 4.0 in Art could not find a job except at Starbucks, and she was complaining it was just not fair becuase she had worked so hard. But a welder graduating from a trade school can start in $50K range with virutally no debt.
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Too bad she didn't get that degree in business, then she could be your boss at an airline trying to decide how many pilots she can throw under the bus to pay for one of her vacation homes.
 
It is much, much easier to get student loans in Canada, and the universities there are much, much cheaper than in the US.
 
I totally agree with the notion that for half the college graduates their degree was worthless. Mine was too basically, granted I didn't go to a top school. We need to go to European models where instead of like here in the US where after high school your only perceived option is to go to "college", you have the option to go to trade school as well. That's actually embraced in other countries and it leads to jobs you can have a career in, here you're considered a loser if you go that route and it's targeted towards Maury and jerry springer audiences.

As for pilots we do not need a degree to fly planes, as far as I can remember all the guys without a 4 year were just as competent. I'm all for us having competent guys in the cockpit, but after all we fly planes, please leave your masters degree at home.
 
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CX880 said:
I totally agree with the notion that for half the college graduates their degree was worthless. Mine was too basically, granted I didn't go to a top school. We need to go to European models where instead of like here in the US where after high school your only perceived option is to go to "college", you have the option to go to trade school as well. That's actually embraced in other countries and it leads to jobs you can have a career in, here you're considered a loser if you go that route and it's targeted towards Maury and jerry springer audiences.

As for pilots we do not need a degree to fly planes, as far as I can remember all the guys without a 4 year were just as competent. I'm all for us having competent guys in the cockpit, but after all we fly planes, please leave your masters degree at home.
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Thank you
 
Anyway, there is no pilot shortage. There is only a shortage of pilots willing to fly for regional compensation. That's the point ALPA has been trying to make.
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ALPA is just plain wrong. They have an agenda to increase pay, but they are going about it the wrong way. If they would face facts and get behind the reality of the shortage, they could say "there is a HUGE shortage. We need more pay to alleviate the shortage."

They are stuck in the paradigm of the pilot/airline past, when we paid for our own training, and paid for our own experience, and the airlines waited to pluck us when we were ripened by our own sweat and toil and money.

Soon, the Big 3 will have to find seeds or saplings, and then spend the money to develop them into ripe fruit. The paradigm has shifted, and there is no going back.
 
ALPA assumes every licensed pilot wants to be an airline pilot in the US. That is not the case. I know plenty corporate and GA pilots with advance certificates that don't want to be airline pilots. Wether it's a pilots shortage or a pay shortage, ALPA propagated the problem for the last 15 years by ignoring the regional pilots. Now they're trying back-pedal and say they are on the regional pilot's side when they actually aren't. Probably because there is a flood of regional pilots to the majors and pilots have long memories, not to mention major pilots aren't that happy with ALPA either.

The only reason they're taking this position now is because they know the writing is on the wall at the regionals due to attrition. They can look like they are now an advocate without having to take action, because any action is futile for an industry that will all but cease to exist.
 
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wms said:
ALPA assumes every licensed pilot wants to be an airline pilot in the US. That is not the case. I know plenty corporate and GA pilots with advance certificates that don't want to be airline pilots. Wether it's a pilots shortage or a pay shortage, ALPA propagated the problem for the last 15 years by ignoring the regional pilots. Now they're trying back-pedal and say they are on the regional pilot's side when they actually aren't. Probably because there is a flood of regional pilots to the majors and pilots have long memories, not to mention major pilots aren't that happy with ALPA either.

The only reason they're taking this position now is because they know the writing is on the wall at the regionals due to attrition. They can look like they are now an advocate without having to take action, because any action is futile for an industry that will all but cease to exist.
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Ignored the regional pilots?? Does that include the period when the regionals had explosive growth while all the majors were furloughing? A job is a job and nobody was complaining then about the pay or opportunities. In fact, those scum top guys at Comair even tried to use it as leverage to get bigger planes from mainline.

The reason it's a focus point now is that the majors are scooping up pilots left and right for the increased pay and benefits. Nobody should have EVER been under the impression a regional job is a career.
 
atpcliff said:
ALPA is just plain wrong. They have an agenda to increase pay, but they are going about it the wrong way. If they would face facts and get behind the reality of the shortage, they could say "there is a HUGE shortage. We need more pay to alleviate the shortage."

They are stuck in the paradigm of the pilot/airline past, when we paid for our own training, and paid for our own experience, and the airlines waited to pluck us when we were ripened by our own sweat and toil and money.

Soon, the Big 3 will have to find seeds or saplings, and then spend the money to develop them into ripe fruit. The paradigm has shifted, and there is no going back.
Click to expand...


There are those who are so desperate in their careers, that materialization of an "actual" shortage is their only hope for any significant career development.

There is no shortage, only a mathematical fallacy based on unpredictable multiples and biased constants, fabricated by self-interested groups (pilots included) to facilitate false industry development, wage races, and political influence.

In short terms, if you believe in a shortage, you're' a go##damn moron.
 

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