NEWSFLASH: Log just 30 HRS airplane time and anyone can fly an airliner!

[AvroJockey]

IMHO ALPA should be installing hiring minimums in collective bargaining agreements. If there were minimums of say, 2000TT/800ME, it would decrease the supply of qualifiied pilots, and raise the median wage rate.

This is what I've been say all along:

http://forums.flightinfo.com/showthread.php?p=1111259#post1111259

I'm telling you...ALPA needs to do their job, and start controlling the labor supply!!! The MPL will happen unless ALPA does something, other than write articles about it!!!

People...your wage rate is a result of economics!!!! Until ALPA realizes the greater importance of this, our wages will continue to fall. The MPL needs to be stopped, because it will only get worse. The MPL is only one step away from the single pilot flight deck.

Believe me, economics works! I finally went to work in Ireland; because of the good demand and poor supply of 146/Avro captains in Europe, I'm compensated more than any other Legacy narrow-bodied captain in the US. In fact one company, FlyBE (British European), is offering 100,000 quid per year (over 200,000 USD) to skipper a 146. This is all without a union!

Imagine what ALPA could do if they controlled the labor supply in the US!!! Doctors, lawyers, real estate appraisers...they all get paid well because they have associations that control the labor supply!

 

[JoeMerchant]

Read the article folks..... ALPA didn't even oppose the idea! They simply want to have a say in how it is implemented.

"Schedule with Safety".... my A$$!

 

[Exskydiverdrivr]

Avro Jockey's right! Too many lawyers and the bar get's tougher to pass. Doctors control their respective fields by allowing fewer people into med schools.

That being said if EVERYONE refuses too fly with these people - IT cannot happen.

 

[bizjet800]

I'm curious as to how much this new program would cost the individual if this is adapted in the US vs. just getting your ratings the "old fashioned" way. I mean for 50 grand, including housing, you can go to a pilot puppy mill like All ATP's and get all of your ratings outside of your PPL. And there are surely cheaper ways than that to obtain all those ratings. Unless this path provides a significant cost savings, I'm not sure it will make much sense in the US, at least now anyways. What does a "high fidelity" simulator cost per hour, even if divided by two students? If a student can get all his ratings for 50K and a MPL program costs 50K, which path is the student going to choose? What if the MPL program is 40K? 30K?

Further, it would HAVE TO cost significantly less than the present ways that lead to the right seat of a regional jet (for example) as the perceived shortage in the US is simply management induced. I suspect if managements at regionals like Mesa or TSA offered a living wage for a regional FO commensurate with the responsibilites said FO takes to task as the crewmember of a multi-million dollar piece of company capital (40K/yr anyone for starters?), not only would the "pilot shortage" be greatly reduced, but we might see an increase in the flight school/military pipeline. If all I can expect is 20K/year for the first few years of my career (or maybe less for longer periods of time because I'm "only" a MPL pilot and therefore cannot command as high a wage as a "regular" pilot), and this program is going to cost a guy tens of thousands out of his pocket in training costs, aren't we in the same position we are in now, anyway (i.e. high initial training costs with low pay)?

It looks like someone did their economics homework! It's hard to believe that most people in management, not just airlines, actually believe the path to prosperity is cheap labor. What they don't tell you in US schools is that sooner or later, all of these low paid pilots, and everyone else in the soon-to-be low paid world, will barely be able to afford that $10 Skybus ticket! This sounds just like all of those arguments that despise Wal-Mart!

Great comments UAL Driver!