Sallie Mae Doing its Part to Reduce the Glut of Pilots

[Amish RakeFight]

Wow. My mortage is only 4.7% interest, and that's for a 30-year fixed loan. My student loan is fixed at 2.85%.

How'd you swing that? Is that for a college tuition loan or is it connected to flight training. I haven't any debt from flight training, but I'm still paying off my liberal arts education at a much higher %.

 

[BoilerUP]

4.7% for a 30 year means you have a credit score at or above 800...OR you timed your financing perfectly.

 

[AceCrackshot]

Wha...???

[some snipping occured here...]

Incidentally, I have NO problem with anyone cutting funding to "puppy mill" academies and PFT / Gulfstream type companies, but it's a mistake to cut funding to the 4-year Accredited degree programs that have flight departments such as ERAU, UND, MTSU, etc. Those are recognized flight schools that can only be funded in conjunction with four year Bachelor degrees, and THOSE are the kinds of pilots I'd like to see coming up through the ranks.

Why, exactly?

1) Everyone's ATP is the same color, regardless of its origin.

2) ERAU, UND, CMSU etc. are not much better than the "puppy mills" you rightly deride. I've dealt with these graduates also, all of whom were sold an "all of our graduates are above average" bill of goods. The quality spread of their graduates is about the same that I've found from the military, Part 61, Part 141, etc.

3) The market is reacting to the reality of pilot wages and career expectations. It makes no sense to pay 70k for education that will yield considerably less than that, even over a 10-20 year time frame. The ability to pay back that loan is practically impossible.

4) Airlines need to adjust to the training reality. They've been the beneficiary of a HUGE subsidy in the form of a glut of trained pilots, for DECADES. They have just expected this to be around, like the rain. They created training bonds and contracts, and other probably unenforceable contract language to bind and restrain the pilots right of trade (seniority language and other things.)

Personally, there needs to be two or three pilot unions in the U.S. who provide trained pilots for airlines on a bi-yearly basis, more along the lines of other skilled trades unions. This won't happen, for reasons that are obvious to anyone.

Ideally, the union in the short-term would fight cabotage, the MPL, and for airline ab-initio. This would give the airlines incentive to retain trained personnel.

 

[Dornier 335]

somewhat off topic

If MPL becomes a reality, it will still be expensive to achieve. The FAA has done plenty of stupid things but I don't see them signing off on this. Most jets and big T-props require 2 PILOTS, not an ATP and a button pusher.

lionflyer, I wouldn't bet my money on it. MPL has already been introduced at some airlines in Europe like Air Berlin and Flybe and I am afraid more airlines in Europe will follow suit and eventually start here in the US. As far as I understand it, the training syllabus is specifically laid out for that airline, so your b@lls are being held, restricting your move. But hey, your flying a shiny jet, right?

It is obvious that the FAA has been nothing else than a puppet of the airlines or IATA. Few examples: Crew rest for ultra-long flights (AA and CAL), 16 hour duty days/ min rest accidents (AA @ LIT, Comair etc.), caught with their pants down with SWA. When it comes to the individual FAA inspector to show off his flying desk skills by trying to violate you for forgetting to sign or submit paperwork, you know common sense has been lost a long time ago. How many FAA inspectors do you know who are in touch with reality with avarage Joe the Linepilot? All they care about besides the paperwork is to be home @ 4pm. Long days, fatigue, re-routes etc. has no grounds for understanding any more.

 

[lionflyer]

lionflyer, I wouldn't bet my money on it. MPL has already been introduced at some airlines in Europe like Air Berlin and Flybe and I am afraid more airlines in Europe will follow suit and eventually start here in the US. As far as I understand it, the training syllabus is specifically laid out for that airline, so your b@lls are being held, restricting your move. But hey, your flying a shiny jet, right?

It is obvious that the FAA has been nothing else than a puppet of the airlines or IATA. Few examples: Crew rest for ultra-long flights (AA and CAL), 16 hour duty days/ min rest accidents (AA @ LIT, Comair etc.), caught with their pants down with SWA. When it comes to the individual FAA inspector to show off his flying desk skills by trying to violate you for forgetting to sign or submit paperwork, you know common sense has been lost a long time ago. How many FAA inspectors do you know who are in touch with reality with avarage Joe the Linepilot? All they care about besides the paperwork is to be home @ 4pm. Long days, fatigue, re-routes etc. has no grounds for understanding any more.

Yeah I agree. Remember the Jetblue 8+hr transcon proposal? Or the SWA pax still standing on pushback so they could reduce turn times proposal? The FAA doesn't buy everything the airlines cry about. The MPL raises serious safety concerns. How many Regs will they have to change to accomodate the MPL? Like someone above just stated: "the market is responding". The airlines can pay up or shut up.

 

[lionflyer]

And the MPL, if enacted, will not be cheap training. Good luck to anyone who trys to get financing.

 

[Lear70]

Wow. My mortage is only 4.7% interest, and that's for a 30-year fixed loan. My student loan is fixed at 2.85%.

Yep, my mortgage is 5.25% FHA 30-year fixed, wanted to refinance, but only have a 780 beacon score and can't find a bank that will talk to me 30-year fixed under 4.75 without putting a lot of money down (which I don't have), even though I have well less than a 80% loan-to-value (got it in foreclosure several months ago).

The big problem with Sallie Mae loans is you can only refinance once. Ever.

Unless you're consolidating. When I first went to college, it was cheap, only $750 or so a semester for in-state plus books, so I paid cash. My last 2 years is when I did all my flight training and had to take out Stafford Loans, only $12,000, my total training and college was nothing compared to a lot of folks, so I'm lucky there.

But I ended up with two loans, one for the 1992-1993 school year and one for the 1993-1994. The interest was 11.75. I'm not kidding. So when the loan rates hit 9.25 and I got the consolidation letter, I was like "sweet!", not realizing (it was in the very fine print on page 4) that you could only do this ONCE.

Between switching jobs every 2 years after that for 6 years and making minimum payments and putting it in forbearance a couple times (layoffs, 9/11, etc), the loan is up to $25,000 after 15 years.

The only way to get a lower interest rate on your Sallie Mae student loan is to take out a 2nd mortgage and pay it off, or get another Stafford Loan, take 4 classes or so to be considered full-time, then combine those loans.

If I wasn't working, I'd probably be working on my MBA and doing just that right now... Wish Obama had fixed the "no refinance" policy along with all the other free money he's been throwing around.

 

[Lear70]

Why, exactly?

1) Everyone's ATP is the same color, regardless of its origin.

2) ERAU, UND, CMSU etc. are not much better than the "puppy mills" you rightly deride. I've dealt with these graduates also, all of whom were sold an "all of our graduates are above average" bill of goods. The quality spread of their graduates is about the same that I've found from the military, Part 61, Part 141, etc.

OK, if you really believe that, then I'm not even going to try to dissuade you; I'd be wasting both my time and yours.

Puppy Mill = no usable skills other than a wet CMEL.

4 year degree with CMEL = a wealth of knowledge and skillsets including command of the English language, knowledge of history and events, and an overall better customer service foundation than a high school graduate with a wet CMEL.

Simple math.

Government education funding existed to put people through the collegiate education system. Glad to hear its use for other training is being curtailed.

 

[AceCrackshot]

OK, if you really believe that, then I'm not even going to try to dissuade you; I'd be wasting both my time and yours.

Puppy Mill = no usable skills other than a wet CMEL.

4 year degree with CMEL = a wealth of knowledge and skillsets including command of the English language, knowledge of history and events, and an overall better customer service foundation than a high school graduate with a wet CMEL.

Simple math.

Government education funding existed to put people through the collegiate education system. Glad to hear its use for other training is being curtailed.

If I had a nickel for everytime I heard the words "worthless degree" and "Embry" or "UND" from graduates of those institutions, I'd retire early. That's not my assessment of their education, it was THEIRS.

Collegiate flight programs have created the glut of pilots, as much as any other factor. Their job is make money for the state, and they've done a spectacular job of overselling the industry.

The important issue for us, though, is the end result.

How many CPLs and ATPs are available for employment at any given time, and how many positions are there? That is an order of magnitude more important than if one ATP can translate Virgil from the Latin and the other can bearly read a restaurant menu.

Airlines differentiate among candidates, to be sure. However, once hired, the pay is based on longetivity and position, not resume.

For the purposes of making the career viable again, numbers count. The more people vote with their feet, and airlines feel the pain of the withdrawal of subsidy, the more likely the market forces will be in our favor.

Anything that makes getting an ATP harder, is a good thing. That's elitism, but there it is.

 

[Dornier 335]

And the MPL, if enacted, will not be cheap training. Good luck to anyone who trys to get financing.

That's how airlines with their ab inito training make sure you don't leave! LH is a prime example.

 

[Lear70]

I have no issue with thinning the supply, don't get me wrong.

I also would never have spent the kind of money ERAU required, but at least it came with a degree. Any of the state schools with an aviation program with in-state tuition, UND, MTSU, Parks College, etc, are good programs and worthy of government funding.

The $75,000-$125,000 Gulfstream Academies of the world? Just for the licenses you could have obtained at any local flight school and a "chance" at a regional interview? Not so much.

Like I said, I agree with you that the supply needs to dry up. I also agree with many other posters that, as soon as it does, and the airlines feel the supply pinch, their big-money lobbying system will go into full-swing and we'll end up with some equivalent of the MPL and government- and airline-subsidized direct training.

You wanna know the sad part? It'll probably be U.S. pilots working for $25 bucks an hour training these monkeys... Training your own replacement for peanuts. That's how smart the average pilot seems to be the last couple decades... take the job for nothing, work for free, pay for training, just so you can make $17 an hour and call yourself an "airline pilot".

Makes this 3rd generation pilot sick about what this profession has become.

 

[LAFrequentflyer]

ALL ATP now accepts VA / GI Bill - right?

I've also heard good things about prairie air service.

 

[lionflyer]

That's how airlines with their ab inito training make sure you don't leave! LH is a prime example.

Which airlines are these? I'm not familiar with foreign airlines so forgive me please. Who is LH?

 

[Colonel Savage]

Luftwaffe, er, Lufthansa...Sorry, I always get those two mixed up.

 

[hockeypilot44]

4.7% for a 30 year means you have a credit score at or above 800...OR you timed your financing perfectly.

Both.

 

[AceCrackshot]

I have no issue with thinning the supply, don't get me wrong.

I also would never have spent the kind of money ERAU required, but at least it came with a degree. Any of the state schools with an aviation program with in-state tuition, UND, MTSU, Parks College, etc, are good programs and worthy of government funding.

The $75,000-$125,000 Gulfstream Academies of the world? Just for the licenses you could have obtained at any local flight school and a "chance" at a regional interview? Not so much.

Like I said, I agree with you that the supply needs to dry up. I also agree with many other posters that, as soon as it does, and the airlines feel the supply pinch, their big-money lobbying system will go into full-swing and we'll end up with some equivalent of the MPL and government- and airline-subsidized direct training.

You wanna know the sad part? It'll probably be U.S. pilots working for $25 bucks an hour training these monkeys... Training your own replacement for peanuts. That's how smart the average pilot seems to be the last couple decades... take the job for nothing, work for free, pay for training, just so you can make $17 an hour and call yourself an "airline pilot".

Makes this 3rd generation pilot sick about what this profession has become.

Excellent point. Additionally, I agree with your assessment. However, I believe that the airlines, rather than jousting at the FAA windmill for a new license class, or ponying up the money for ab initio, will simply use a "pilot shortage" argument as the driver for irreversable cabotage. They will use "Open Skies" arguments, i.e. Joe Sixpack just flew from Dublin to Chicago on a United flight (operated by Aer Lingus), what's the difference if they now go on to Kansas City, on that same airplane? After all, they got over here safely, didn't they? Ireland and EU are sure to give us cabotage within Ireland and Fifth Freedom rights within Europe, any day now.

The U.S. Government, for 30 years plus, has been more than willing to trade fifth freedoms and route authorities away. While I've been called a conspiracy theorist on this website, I imagine the Government has done what they have done for what seemed like good reasons, at the time.

Either way, without better management able to understand what's at stake, the American Airline Industry is going the way of the American Merchant Fleet. In other words, going from world dominance to practical irrelevance in a span of a generation, mostly due to a combination of bad policy and bad management.

 

[Lear70]

Can't argue that...

 

[jppt2000]

I have no issue with thinning the supply, don't get me wrong.

I also would never have spent the kind of money ERAU required, but at least it came with a degree. Any of the state schools with an aviation program with in-state tuition, UND, MTSU, Parks College, etc, are good programs and worthy of government funding.

The $75,000-$125,000 Gulfstream Academies of the world? Just for the licenses you could have obtained at any local flight school and a "chance" at a regional interview? Not so much.

Like I said, I agree with you that the supply needs to dry up. I also agree with many other posters that, as soon as it does, and the airlines feel the supply pinch, their big-money lobbying system will go into full-swing and we'll end up with some equivalent of the MPL and government- and airline-subsidized direct training.

You wanna know the sad part? It'll probably be U.S. pilots working for $25 bucks an hour training these monkeys... Training your own replacement for peanuts. That's how smart the average pilot seems to be the last couple decades... take the job for nothing, work for free, pay for training, just so you can make $17 an hour and call yourself an "airline pilot".

Makes this 3rd generation pilot sick about what this profession has become.

Maybe those people at the Gulfstream-type academies, don't agree with you, about the "legacy" schools you've pronounced as "good".
IMHO the degree you're talking about was used to weed out thousands of applicants for a few available airline jobs.
I believe the RJ and small jet airliner has completely changed the way pilots' skills are viewed by management, (I don't agree with management, but it is what it is).
Those "good" schools are having a tough time justifying their existence at this time.
Why not get a degree that can ensure you can make a living for your family if you are put out on the street? On the side, take flight training from a mom and pop flying school.

 

[Colonel Savage]

But if you do the mom and pop flight school instead of the Puppy Mill, you don't get the guarenteed access to the interviews at the RJ operators. That's the bait: 1) Get the bank loan (easy credit, easy money) 2) Buy the program 3) Get the guarenteed interview (meaning job).

It made a mockery out of the whole hiring process, and provided a guarenteed stream of cheap labor to fuel the outsourcing.

Now the kids are out of work, can't pay back the loans, and the Glut remains.

 

[hockeypilot44]

But if you do the mom and pop flight school instead of the Puppy Mill, you don't get the guarenteed access to the interviews at the RJ operators. That's the bait: 1) Get the bank loan (easy credit, easy money) 2) Buy the program 3) Get the guarenteed interview (meaning job).

It made a mockery out of the whole hiring process, and provided a guarenteed stream of cheap labor to fuel the outsourcing.

Now the kids are out of work, can't pay back the loans, and the Glut remains.

Their jobs only paid $25,000 - $30,000 to begin with. Even while working, they couldn't pay back the loans. It's sad how flying airplanes has become a minimum wage job with more and more well-paying jobs disappearing every day.