FAA concerned about pilot shortage

[T2Pilot]

Ten years ago there was lots of talk about an approaching crisis due to (experienced) pilot supply not keeping up with the expanding demand from the airlines. At the time every pilot I knew getting out of the military got hired by a major. Obviously everything changed five years ago and now we're tripping over each other and a grand total of 3 majors are hiring. Meanwhile the foreign airlines can't get enough pilots (of course you need 5,000 hours min and be willing to live in the mid-east). I can't get too excited about this new pending "shortage". It will take many years to actually show up at the airline level and until then the good paying companies will still have thousands more applicants than they need. If the shortage does manifest not only will pay increase but airlines will pay kids to train. Maybe they will even pay some of us old bastards to get off the bench and come back into the game.

 

[jetexas]

Shortage? I would think the FAA would be more concerned about the way airlines meet those shortages...by just lowering the mins.

 

[labbats]

The FAA concerned about anything other than keeping the status quo is laughable. Safety first my a@@.

 

[apache]

I suprised no one came up with the correct answer to where cockpit staffing will come from. H-#whatever foreign visa workers. Same with controllers.

Foreigners. Republicans love em. Democrats love em. Lose-Lose for Americans and America.

And for you well paid cargo guys. Pilotless airplanes. Cheaper than foreigners. The software will come from India, or China, or Malaysia, or some other wipe-your-ass-with-your-hand land.

You heard it here first. No need to tell me why I'm wrong, time will tell.

 

[FlyingToIST]

What about the increased TSA training requirements for both citizen and especially non-citizens. Does anyone think this has helped lower the student pilot starts and rating advancements a substantial amount?

I agree with most of the above concerning costs. They have gotten way out of hand.

I have at least 10 people knocking on my door every month for a career training from various parts of the world. Thanks to the "Part 61 school cannot issue student visas" rule I cannot even start giving them the intro lessons..

 

[Knightball]

Forget the towel heads, how many red blooded Americans are knocking on your door?

 

[BushwickBill]

What about the increased TSA training requirements for both citizen and especially non-citizens. Does anyone think this has helped lower the student pilot starts and rating advancements a substantial amount?

I agree with most of the above concerning costs. They have gotten way out of hand.

I know those TSA rules concerning non citizens turned away many a student. And no they weren't from the middle east. I'm sure this affected the numbers too.

 

[ex j-41]

I suprised no one came up with the correct answer to where cockpit staffing will come from. H-#whatever foreign visa workers. Same with controllers.

Ain't going to happen.

Meanwhile the foreign airlines can't get enough pilots (of course you need 5,000 hours min and be willing to live in the mid-east). I can't get too excited about this new pending "shortage".

There are plenty of jobs out there all over the world. Not just the middle east. And they do hire FAA pilots, most with only 1000hrs. But if you don't have the balls to move to the other side of the world....ain't my problem!

 

[Amish RakeFight]

I've heard somewhere ( I think AOPA addressed it for NY state) that criminal background checks may begin to be put into place for those wishing to obtain any level of GA training as well. There are probably a fair amount of people who made some mistakes and got into trouble at some point in their lives which left them with some petty criminal record. Many of these people today are productive persons of society and who for the most part are honest and follow the laws. Concerns of being scrutinzied or the prospects of not being able to obtain training for a flying hobby will certainly keep those away from the flight schools too.

 

[UCF Aviator]

One word regarding the increase in cost of aircraft rental, INSURANCE,
those insurance companies mess it up for everyone for no reason except for more profits. An interesting thing to take notice, many aircraft insurance companies have large investments in the simulator companies (Fligh Safety, etc..)

 

[labbats]

Actually, the insurance companies have to cover their backs because some guy who barely passes his 3rd class medical on his 85th birthday gear ups a C182 for the third time. He pays the same as you and I do for coverage.

 

[Amish RakeFight]

Hasn't the pool of companies willing to insure GA dwindled in the last few years, thus casuing a spike in insurance as well.

 

[Publishers]

Like anything else, the lack of students is attributable to more than one reason. For sometime now, there had not been growth in certificates but what had gone up was the % of initial students that went right on through the system to advance ratings and employment. In short, more of those that started did so for a career and less for pure pleasure flying.
The 9/11 thing did stop a good many foreign students from starting so that impacted the schools as well. Thirdly, cost killed some of the other players.
There always will be shortages and then there are shortages. It si one thing to have a shortage of personnel for very good commercial airline jobs, another to have a shortage of pilots in general. There is such a focus on these boards of United States big airline jobs that the worldwide employment for pilots of all types does not get notice. There could well be a shortage there and the big airline world would never even notice it.

 

[pilotyip]

Great Career, don't knock it.

This is still a great career and anyone starting to fly right has a good chance of making a decent career in aviation. I am teaching my grandson to fly just as I did his father. If he wants to pursue an avaition carer I will encourage him, I would perfer military over civilian, but that will be his choice. BTW if he truely wants to be a civilian pilot I will encourage him to skip college, because it has nothing to do with flying an airplane. Do a degree in businesss on the side.

 

[ReverseSensing]

BTW if he truely wants to be a civilian pilot I will encourage him to skip college, because it has nothing to do with flying an airplane.

The hiring preferences of nearly every airline notwithstanding.

 

[FlyingToIST]

Forget the towel heads, how many red blooded Americans are knocking on your door?

People with that attitude is one of the reasons why this industry lost its "export" advantage. I was born and raised in Turkey and the country had an aviation boom last 3 years. Thanks to my connection I could bring at least 30 students. I even had an airline approach me for a bulk training proposal. When I told them i couldn't train people, they were really surprised.

I also have a connection to India, Japan and Taiwan from my IT consulting days. Just Indian students would create enough demand that would make me buy a new C172 every other month.. Once again TSA rules are the ones to blame on this..

Part of the problem is the lower disposable income of the people. People have less to spend besides their gas, food, etc. On top of that, the avgas got so expensive that I wouldn't even dare to spend money on flying compared to 6-7 years ago when i worked on licenses and certs..

Foreign students are bread and the butter of any college/university in outside of USA. TSA rules destroyed the flight portion of it for small schools like us..

 

[G-force]

Supply & Demand

Heard through the grapevine that a FAA jumpseater was concerned about the number of pilot certificates being issued in the last 2 years. He supposedly said that it is down in the neighborhood of 50% from historical averages and the FAA is starting to take notice.

Has anyone else heard anything similar or able to confirm this?

There is no shortage of pilots,but the supply is way down from what it was in the mid-1990's.
Which means that BOTTOMFEEDER outfits will not be able to hire any pilots!!!!

 

[apache]

This is still a great career and anyone starting to fly right has a good chance of making a decent career in aviation. I am teaching my grandson to fly just as I did his father. If he wants to pursue an avaition carer I will encourage him, I would perfer military over civilian, but that will be his choice. BTW if he truely wants to be a civilian pilot I will encourage him to skip college, because it has nothing to do with flying an airplane. Do a degree in businesss on the side.

No offense Randy, but remember the rules in Scarface.

"Don't get high on your own supply"

Take care

 

[YourPilotFriend]

There is no shortage of pilots,but the supply is way down from what it was in the mid-1990's.
Which means that BOTTOMFEEDER outfits will not be able to hire any pilots!!!!

The high paying jobs have 500 apps for each person they hire. The low paying jobs are lucky to get any applications anymore. The mainline will never experience a shortage because of the way the system now works. The industry's new answer to the pilot shortage is to move more higher paying jobs to lower paying jobs. Thus through scope relief the mainline will never see a pilot shortage. The bottom however will come up but the top will still be coming down.

 

[Gofish]

There's an invisible hand, and all you want is a raise? You need to dream bigger, my friend. I'm thinking reach-around.


I'm thinkin...invisible beaver...story of my life.

 

[Ponchus pilot]

FAA concerned about pilot shortage

If this is true its the best news Ive heard in a long time. Supply and demand baby. Now you can demand pay.

 

[suupah]

If this is true its the best news Ive heard in a long time. Supply and demand baby. Now you can demand pay.

We'll see. they will come up with another way to screw us....don 't worry

 

[GogglesPisano]

We'll see. they will come up with another way to screw us....don 't worry

It's called an H-5 Visa. Business leaders and lobbyists love 'em.

 

[myflyby]

all I know is that someone very high up in the hiring process at my company apologized to our upgrade class for the quality of pilots they now have to hire. There just isn't anybody out there anymore except the "I know everything, I'm a 1000 hour flight instructor!". I don't know where an expert on stalls comes in handy, but I guess that's what happens when you don't get to fly an airplane for 700 hours as an instructor and try to hop into a jet.

 

[ex j-41]

Curr Position: PIC, so do what you're told and shut up!

Nice attitude. You must have been one of those 1000hr flight instructor with the big ego. Making up for something you lack?

 

[apache]

all I know is that someone very high up in the hiring process at my company apologized to our upgrade class for the quality of pilots they now have to hire. There just isn't anybody out there anymore except the "I know everything, I'm a 1000 hour flight instructor!". I don't know where an expert on stalls comes in handy, but I guess that's what happens when you don't get to fly an airplane for 700 hours as an instructor and try to hop into a jet.

You are correct. This has been going on for quite some time now. It has been my experience that the 1000 hr instructors have much better attitudes than the 350 hr pay for your job academy types. Putting in the time and sacrifice to instruct for 700 hrs or more shows a lot of dedication and self discipline. The academy and intern types have shown me a lot of mouth without much to back it up. They don't like the "old school" discipline in the cockpit, but they often turn into tyrants when they upgrade. Then they complain about the quality of new hires. Payback

 

[BushwickBill]

It's called an H-5 Visa. Business leaders and lobbyists love 'em.

Exactly why we need to stop fighting each other and inform the public about the life of a regional / major airline pilot.

This is not a flame:

My circle of friends know I'm a pilot and there was a lot of heckling going on when the Comair crash in Kentucky happened. "Hey don't take off on the wrong runway..." stuff like that.

Here is why I'm sharing this with you. I don't talk smack about pilots. I make a point of it. So when people were making fun of pilots I thought I'd let them know what was going on. I told people what it was like for a regional pilot.

When I told my friends how much a F/O makes at a regional people became very concerned. I would just say "can you imagine where you would be mentally if you only made 20k a year and lived in a major city?" People were freaking out. They really looked very concerned when I told them about what life was like at a regional.

If the public knows about what pilots go through they will demand better and you bet your ass they will be willing to spend more than 80 bucks on a ticket.

Believe me if they pull people from overseas to fly it wont go over well with the public. However, they have to know about it!

 

[Hootie9750]

Why are we even talking about this? There is NO FVKING PILOT SHORTAGE!!!
Mesa still has applicants who show up every day with fifty bucks to interview! WTF!!

 

[myflyby]

Nice attitude. You must have been one of those 1000hr flight instructor with the big ego. Making up for something you lack?

Nope, I had the pleasure of interviewing for my airline on 9/11/2001. I had over 3000 hours then and I was the lowest time guy interviewing. I'm not that smart either or I would've seen the writing on the wall then. But we don't do it for the money, right? By the way, no need to get so defensive. The fact that you take that seriously...Oh, I don't lack anything, it's always the FOs fault! And by your response, it must be your fault.

Apache, I agree that the attitudes are great. Eager to learn and eager to work. I'm eating a little crow on this one after I reread my post. It was way more harsh than I realized. I just got off a trip where it was more babysitting than CRM and sometimes that can be a little frustrating. Maybe I was just like that guy at one time "just glad to be here".

 

[apache]

No need to consume crow flyby. A lot of us have had to put up with it too. I'm afraid it is going to get worse, not better, as time goes by. Take care.