major's hiring future

[jmreii]

Swa will accept any pic turbine time, while fedex will not. If you are not ex-military with a great networking unit, better hope for an act of congress for entry into fedex, goooood luck.

 

[FurloughedAgain]

October 1998. AirTran (was post manatee merger) furloughed. They were recalled in January 1999.

I was already at US Airways and declined the recall.

 

[BILL LUMBERG]

There are several reasons why models that worked in the past do not apply any more.

(1) The Flight Engineer slot is gone. Ask around why FedEx does not plan on hiring for 18 to 24 months.
(2) More than half of major airlines' domestic flying is performed by alter ego carriers like PDT, AWAC or Eagle. At Delta, 49% of total system block hours are flown by non-Delta pilots. The Delta list went from 11,400 to around 6,700.
(3) Mainline pilots are getting outsourced, in house. Just look at NorthWest's replacement of the DC-9's at Compass.

Taken as a whole, the percentage of mainline jobs just does not exist any more. At least half the jobs are not coming back.

A job at a Major is still a good job worth aspiring to. But half the jobs are not at a major. Our profession has to focus on fixing this alter ego problem and raising the level of everyone who calls themselves "professional pilots."

The numbers really tell the story. I don't know if the upgrades come too late. I think the folks getting in right now will be OK, but the window of opportunity will start to close in 18 to 24 months then remain relatively stagnant due to age 65 pushing everything back a half a decade. In the event of mergers all bets are off.

Dammit Fins!!!! There you go again...... Get off the Rj defense garbage......nobody wanted this thread to become another of your rants.......give it a rest PLEASE!!!!

 

[wings421]

Don't feel bad. You only cracked your crystal ball. I drove over mine with a monster truck.

I left Chautauqua as a J31 F/O to go to AirTran and fly the DC9 (before they required any PIC time. In 1998 you wouldn't believe how many CCAir J31 F/Os they hired...)

AirTran furloughed me so I went back to Chautauqua at the bottom of the list as a SF340 F/O.

Got hired at USAirways in 99 because they didn't require any kind of turbine PIC.

Got furloughed in March of 02. After having flown the DC9 and 737-300/400 (by the way, I got my 737 type the old fashioned way -- actually flew for a company that had them! Didn't buy the $10,000 lottery ticket) for over 3 years... still wasn't qualified to even apply at SWA.

J4J hadn't started up yet, so I went and flew the D328 prop as a copilot. They started grumbling about furloughs so I freaked out and went to Comair as a CRJ F/O. At the end of 2003 and I had almost 8000 hours TT but not a single hour of PIC turbine.

So freight-dog, don't feel like you're the only one who made that decision. A lot of us did. You can only make the best decision you can with the information you have available at the time. In the mid-90s when I was at the commuters only FedEx and SWA had the PIC turbine requirement. Who would have guessed that they would change the rules in the middle of the game!?

Good luck to the Generation Y airline pilots. Hope you have better luck than I did.

Ouch!

 

[~~~^~~~]

Bill:

What is your response to the man's question? Does the end of the SO position, age 65 and outsourcing half of mainline flying enter in to the equation?

 

[LearLove]

turbine PIC is turbine PIC. why didn't you stay at your dhc8 job and get your 1000 hours there, then apply at the companies that require 1000 turbine PIC?
dhc-pic time is worth more than 737 f/o time anyday.

I did the opposite - In early 2001 with just over 3000tt and an ATP I was hired by Airtran and turned them down to stay at Allegheny and upgrade (get PIC and go to the majors). I was able to upgrade but 6 months later in the summer of 2002 I was back into the right seat when management decided to not renew some of the Dash leases.

So there I sat in the quasi middle ground of 4000tt and 1600 pic but only a few hundred of that turb pic. Then in the summer of 2004 MDA came along and I though we'll if I'm gonna be an FO with no reupgrade insight I may as well try out MDA. As I finished training at MDA, US Air went into CH13 for the second time. MDA stopped getting deliveries of the 170 and as a stopgap PDT/ALG did not return as many dash 8's as they had planned. So with the PDT/ALG merger had I stayed I would have reupgraded by Nov2004 but how was I to know this in the summer of 2004. Thus the elusive left seat escapes me again.

Had I taken that 4/9/2001 class at Airtran I'd be set.

Its all a crap shoot in the end.

 

[stlflyguy]

'A job at a Major is still a good job worth aspiring to. But half the jobs are not at a major. Our profession has to focus on fixing this alter ego problem and raising the level of everyone who calls themselves "professional pilots."'

I would definitely agree. I really like to compare the American Eagle, Skywest, ExpressJet, Comair, et al pay scales to the regional carriers of yesteryear: Ozark, North Central, Southern, PSA (the original), et al.

Adjusting the wages of those carriers for inflation would probably be pretty impressive. I don't have the answer but any guess as to what the percentage of today's regional airline wages are in comparison to yesteryear?

stlflyguy

 

[AA717driver]

stlfly--Those carriers were still paid a whole lot better than today's regionals.

Even Air Wisconsin paid F-27 CA's $70,000 in 1988 which would be $120k today adjusted for inflation.

TWA DC9 CA's after the Ichan slash and burn contract made $90k in '88. Now, that would be $150k.

That was a lot less than the OZ guys made before they got bought. TC

 

[Gorilla]

These entry requirements are a goof in so many ways. With the vast majority of FO's totally stagnated for decades, are they saying 12,000 hours of part 121 FO time means jack? The way 98% of cockpits are run (if done right) the FO and CAPT are a team. No serious diversions, QRH issues, etc are ever handled without the input of the FO. PIC these days means he signs the paperwork, gets paid more, and is hung out to dry more than the FO. Everything else is pretty much split down the middle.

Oh well, I guess 1000 hours PIC in a citation beats 10,000 hours of narrow and widebody FO line flying, world-wide, in WX from volcanic ash in the Pacific, to 600/600/600 in Santiago, Chile in the wintertime.

 

[Crossky]

(2) More than half of major airlines' domestic flying is performed by alter ego carriers like PDT, AWAC or Eagle. At Delta, 49% of total system block hours are flown by non-Delta pilots. The Delta list went from 11,400 to around 6,700.

Please be careful when using that term 'Alter Ego', that's a four letter word around here! AWAC is not an alter ego or wholly owned by US. PDT and Eagle are owned by their respective parent airlines, but they aren't alter ego either. Keep in mind that most all of the regionals growth has been approved by their respective mainlines pilots union groups. Do a Wikipedia search for Go-Jet Airlines for a true Alter-Ego.