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."