Looming Pilot Shortage Lowering the Bar???--Article

[eaglefly]

And just think with over 10,000 hours I could not get an interview with AE in 1996 because I did not have 500 hours in the last year. I only had around 400 hours in MEL turbine. I probalby would not have worked there anyway. Oh to be 33 again just getting out of the Navy.

If you had (and stayed), you'd be an RJ captain in the mid 900's seniority out of 2800 pilots. You'd be getting 14-15 days off per month, 80-95K/year depending on overtime or creative bidding and 75% match on your 401(k) and at least some job security.

Not the best, but not horrible either. Many college grads outside of aviation would consider that a decent living.

I guess Eagle's being forced to take all the 500 hour pilots, becasue all the 1000 hour ones are grabbing the DA-20 slots there for $10K/year more.

 

[climbhappy]

would it be simplistic to raise ticket prices? yes i guess so.

a few regionals need to disapear, but creditors are always ready to bend over for these big buc jets.

that is why it is so hard to kill a major. the common shareholders and pilots take it up the shorts and new lean company emerges and then makes money like they are now.

if the BK judges ordered liquidation, you'd have fewer airlines and bigger paychecks for more qualified pilots and the bar would go back up. sounds easy anyway

 

[Max Powers]

would it be simplistic to raise ticket prices? yes i guess so.

a few regionals need to disapear, but creditors are always ready to bend over for these big buc jets.

that is why it is so hard to kill a major. the common shareholders and pilots take it up the shorts and new lean company emerges and then makes money like they are now.

if the BK judges ordered liquidation, you'd have fewer airlines and bigger paychecks for more qualified pilots and the bar would go back up. sounds easy anyway

.You can't raise ticket prices out there with excess capacity and routes that would be insolvent with ticket prices below 100 dollars.

Yes all you said is correct but one piece to the pay formula is give power back to the working man and not the CEO who demands to be paid "wait he is worth"

 

[ualdriver]

Ualdriver, although quotes like that play well on CNBS, they're not based in reality. You will actually find that economists are very hesitant to call a recession because it has a tendency to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The unwinding of the housing bubble is wreaking havoc on the credit markets. Risk premiums are shooting through the roof. Hedge funds, SIVs, banks, mutual funds, etc are trying to unwind their leverage. That is going to cause severe liquidity contraction. The economy is only starting to unwind; it's going to get much, much worse.
If you own a house, I highly recommend selling and renting for the next few years. It will save you a lot of money because housing prices have quite a way to fall. Shiller's calling for a 30% drop in housing prices; I think that he's being optimistic.

If you're into the stock market, I'd recommend parking it in short term government securities for a while. It's gonna get ugly.

Way off topic, and I've read your posts on other threads concerning this topic.

2 major points:

1) It is IMPOSSIBLE to time the market. Impossible. The pros can't do it. The pros don't even know other pros that can do it consistently. I said "experts" predicting 13 of the last 3 recessions tongue in cheek as many of these so called experts are charlatans who look and sound good on TV. Sorry man, not taking your advice to sell the house and sell stock. In fact, I'll be buying on the dips.

2) I have over 208 years of U.S. stock market, Bond, T-Bill, and Gold history sitting next to me on my desk that I refer to when the latest talking head talks about "the big one." The squiggly lines go down. The squiggly lines go up. And the trend has gone up overall- for 208 years. In "recent" history (the past 100 years), we've been through 2 World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, stagflation, the "nifty fifty," an internet bubble, 9/11, and that's just off the top of my head. Even if you're right about the unwinding of credit due to a housing bubble, the market (housing, stock, bond, whatever) will correct, and we'll come out the other end chugging along. Sorry, not buying economic castrophe yet considering this economy has made it through far worse.

Good luck with your predictions, though. I hope they make you a lot of money!

 

[cjdriver]

To only slightly change the subject; was it ever discovered what caused the gear up touchdown and subsequent go around of the AE RJ a couple months ago at Boston? Just curious.

 

[Question4U]

delete

 

[Question4U]

Pay a professional wage and you'll have all the pilots you want. Until I see crappy airlines like Skybus and Virgin paying the going rate to attract pilots, until I see regionals parking RJ's en masse for lack of pilots, until I see small communities losing air service for lack of aircrew, until I see regionals either paying for flight training from day one or raising entry level wages to a point that allows a professional pilot to earn a good living will servicing the debt required to obtain said position, I won't believe there is a pilot shortage.


Ual maybe United should take your advise there pay and work rules are a joke.

 

[Lear70]

2) I have over 208 years of U.S. stock market, Bond, T-Bill, and Gold history sitting next to me on my desk that I refer to when the latest talking head talks about "the big one." The squiggly lines go down. The squiggly lines go up. And the trend has gone up overall- for 208 years. In "recent" history (the past 100 years), we've been through 2 World Wars, Vietnam, Korea, stagflation, the "nifty fifty," an internet bubble, 9/11, and that's just off the top of my head. Even if you're right about the unwinding of credit due to a housing bubble, the market (housing, stock, bond, whatever) will correct, and we'll come out the other end chugging along. Sorry, not buying economic castrophe yet considering this economy has made it through far worse.

Good luck with your predictions, though. I hope they make you a lot of money!

The squiggly lines continue to go up because of inflation. As the price of everything trends up, so do the prices of individual stocks, and the combined indexes of the Dow, S&P, etc.

To somehow link the general increase of the indexes to an increasingly profitable economy is a flawed argument.

Personally, I've done pretty dang good off my stock choices based on how the economy in general is doing (average 18% ROI over the last 15 years and never worse than 7%, knock on wood). I agree with Andy in theory, if not in intensity: I shifted everything into international mutual funds with a nice, stable 7% growth on a 10-15 year average about 3 months ago and will likely leave them there until the housing bubble finishes popping and the dollar's decline against foreign currencies stabilizes.

As far as the "pilot shortage" goes, we all know that if you fix the money and long-term stability, you fix the shortage. The problem is that the public in general doesn't care, as long as their family of 5 can go see Grandma cheaper flying than they can driving the minivan and they don't die in the process.

The problem we have is that salaries have not increased linearly with inflation, i.e. pilots make less take-home in terms of actual spending power now than they did 20 years ago. Hell, I'm out here flying a Lear for $60k a year as a CA. 10 years ago I was doing the same thing for the same price which was average *THEN*, meaning I *SHOULD* be making about $80k-85k a year now doing that same job. Just about every other pilot in the 135 and 121 world (outside of Netjets, FDX, and UPS) has that same problem.

As callous as it sounds, until enough airplanes are parked that passengers en masse can't get from Point A to Point B or we have a couple accidents with fatalities (God forbid, seriously) with some of those 400 hour wunderkids behind the controls, nothing will change.

Just the reality we live in.

 

[jonjuan]

Pay a professional wage and you'll have all the pilots you want. Until I see crappy airlines like Skybus and Virgin paying the going rate to attract pilots, until I see regionals parking RJ's en masse for lack of pilots, until I see small communities losing air service for lack of aircrew, until I see regionals either paying for flight training from day one or raising entry level wages to a point that allows a professional pilot to earn a good living will servicing the debt required to obtain said position, I won't believe there is a pilot shortage.

So, as there is no lack of qualified applicants lining up to be hired at every major airline, the pay is professional enough?

 

[Lear70]

So, as there is no lack of qualified applicants lining up to be hired at every major airline, the pay is professional enough?

Evidently...

Chasing that brass ring that just keeps moving further and further away and seems to be changing shape into a carrot dangling from a stick held by the monkey on your back is apparently becoming an acceptable practice.