So..the pilot shortage is coming?

[Full of LUV]

Great points you make. A bit of thread drift on pensions follows but every airline pilot has been affected by this. Many (most?) large companies were completely funded and then some through the 90s. Earlier law required worker pensions to be fully funded from current obligations AND prohibited companies from using these pension funds for anything else.

When the market zoomed in the 90s the pensions had so much money that they could pay out fully for every employee, including new hires, even if they all lived to 99. Execs found this inaccessabilty to our own contractually-agreed-to pension funds unacceptable and lobbied hard to free this huge pension pot of money to recapitalize business to "be competitive and create jobs."

Congress eventually gave in and the execs then took the pension money and in one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history, instead of investing in their company and creating jobs, gave it to themselves. It's part of the reason CEO compensation went from 20x worker salary to 400x worker salary from 1980 to today.

Then pleading that the now empty pension funds and now newly unfunded future obligations (remember the "$2000 of every car goes to union pensions" propaganda?) were killing their business and making them unable to be "be competitive and create jobs," (that mantra always seems to work) they threatened or entered BK in order to eliminate pensions altogether.

Voila, the once fully-funded pension money has been transferred, there are no more pensions for workers, the economy tanks, jobless and retirees increasing rely on the government, and the same folks who took the pensions--impoverishing the retiree and not creating the promised jobs--turn around and buy politicians who will "get government out of our lives" by defunding safety nets.

It's all been conducted like a symphony. Darwinian capitalism at its finest. Read all about it in the book "Retirement Heist."

Well, I'm not an expert on the subject didn't Delta petition the government to allow it to prefund it's pension plan (with pretax money) in 1999/2000 time frame because congress had set up the rules that since the pension funds were rockin with stock returns, the companies actually could not contribute to them (unless it was post tax money) which made it excessively expensive. Then when stock market and economy tanks a couple of years later and while the companies are losing money the government says cough up huge pension deposits.

Not saying the companies are pure and virtuous, but often congress and bizness work hand in hand to muck it up.

 

[densoo]

Not saying the companies are pure and virtuous, but often congress and bizness work hand in hand to muck it up.

oh yea, it couldn't have happened without politicians who were lobbied and bought by the companies.

 

[pilotyip]

oh yea, it couldn't have happened without politicians who were lobbied and bought by the companies.

yea this has nothing to do with the ticket buying public who would not support airline ticket prices that allowed the pension funds to stay stable. It is always greedy management, or some other factor beyond the control of the work force.

 

[Lear70]

yea this has nothing to do with the ticket buying public who would not support airline ticket prices that allowed the pension funds to stay stable. It is always greedy management, or some other factor beyond the control of the work force.

It has very, very little to do with that.

You'd know if you'd had done some research. They are 100% accurate in their analysis of what happened with the stock market, how it affected pension funding, and what CEO's and senior management did with that surplus.

End of discussion. Do some research.

 

[007]

Replace the red highlighted area with "The majors will be taking young inexperienced pilots that HR is looking to meet its quota or who have great internal recommendations". Or "the majors will be excluding any with too much experience (rumor about Delta's Airapps will not even look at your resume if you have over 7500 hours) or is too old as HR has done studies about the great abilities and trainability of those right out of flight school"

Yeah, this is a hook line and sinker thread, quite enjoyable to read. But the truth of the matter is that there are what, an expected 10,000 mainline jobs coming in the next ten years? Great, there just happens to be 20,000 regional pilots. And with Comair (Delta) putting 600 out on the street and you can look at Pinnacle and see there will be about another 1000 more by 2015 there will be a lot more applicants for those jobs. I love how the majors will lower their hiring minimums to hire the inexperienced but will not over look the lack of currency for those who have lost their jobs.

If you are at a major, why not ask why your HR departments are not taking the best most qualified, but are just lowering the bar in order to get the "ones they want"

^^^^^^^^^^
THIS

Heard this a lot now and it's true, everyone getting jobs is junior to me and has less time....and yes, I have been applying myself.

 

[pilotyip]

If the airlines were smart, and we are not sure of that, they would hire across a uniform age range to ensure a steady turnover instead of the stagnation in movement we have today. Besides if you hire guys in their late 50's they will never max out the pay scale

 

[clippyrip]

It has very, very little to do with that.

You'd know if you'd had done some research. They are 100% accurate in their analysis of what happened with the stock market, how it affected pension funding, and what CEO's and senior management did with that surplus.

End of discussion. Do some research.

Research is hard to do, it's easier to turn on Fauxnews and regurgitate whatever they say.

 

[livin'thesim]

Research is hard to do, it's easier to turn on Fauxnews and regurgitate whatever they say.

Another Fox News hyperventilator? Heh, anytime a news source reports something that is unfavorable to your viewpoint you go into hysterics.

People like you talk about Fox the way the way some wild-eyed bible-thumping pastor talks about rock and roll being "from the devil".

Really, it makes you look a little crazy. Or a lot crazy.

 

[Data]

Research is hard to do, it's easier to turn on Fauxnews and regurgitate whatever they say.

Claiming someone is regurgitating Fox news is the equivalent of regurgitating whatever someone else says without 'doing the research'. A bit ironic if you ask me.

 

[livin'thesim]

...with the ticket buying public who would not support airline ticket prices...

Yip, I'm not sure that is accurate. There is a market for tickets at many different price levels.

If airlines raised ticket prices 10%, it's not like you are going to lose 50% of travelers. Obviously the supply/demand function is a curve, which I'm sure you know.

I think that we did go through a fare-war / market-share war where airlines ran prices lower in order to get to a different point on the demand curve, hoping to eventually be profitable at that price point (due to higher loads), or to bleed out their competition and return to a higher price point later.

The recent bleeding of cash is not really a function of the public "refusing to buy tickets", or "demanding lower prices". People ALWAYS like lower prices.


I would rephrase your statement to be:
"...with a marketplace that would not support profitable airline ticket prices at the level of volume that the airlines were seeking..."