Posted on 03/06/2016 7:56:20 AM PST by SkyPilot
Mid-sized and regional airlines in the US are suffering from a pilot shortage that could threaten the health of the broader US aviation industry.
The labor shortfall has led to canceled flights at carriers like Mesa Airlines and Silver Airways. That has hit smaller airports, such as in Redding, California, or Erie, Pennsylvania, according to figures from the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).
The staffing crunch could also constrain traffic for larger companies like United Airlines and Delta Air Lines that depend on the mid-sized companies to serve rural consumers and feed customers into their networks.
"It's becoming a crisis at some carriers, resulting in the cancellation of flights and other serious disruptions," said Patrick Smith, a pilot who runs "Ask the Pilot," an aviation blog.
Republic Airways, which operates flights for Delta, United and American Airlines, filed for bankruptcy protection last month, citing the labor crunch.
"We've attempted to restructure the obligations on our out-of-favor aircraft -– made so by a nationwide pilot shortage –- and to increase our revenues," said Bryan Bedford, chief executive officer of Republic Airways.
"It's become clear that this process has reached an impasse and that any further delay would unnecessarily waste valuable resources of the enterprise."
Things at Republic came to a head last July, when the airline acknowledged cutting four percent of its flights due to a dearth of pilots. Delta subsequently filed suit against Republic, alleging breach of contract.
- Pay gap -
Aviation industry insiders cite a number of factors for the drop-off in pilots: longer working hours, contentious relations with management, fewer job protections and industry turnover with the expected retirement of some 18,000 pilots through 2022.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Sounds like tough pay and working conditions to me.
But have to say, I don’t have any solutions. Clearly better pay will help, but then who pays? Raise airfares and thus cut the customer base??
It’s easy to say about any job field, that certain people should be paid more. But it’s much harder to say where the money will come from to pay someone more for the job.
I think by a small amount. It's a stubborn number: the carriers aren't really viable if they do raise wages. The large number of regionals now is entirely a product of too many willing workers at too low wages. And the EAS program (Essential Air Service), which is being phased out.
One exception has been SkyWest, which actually has decent pay for its long time employees. They keep their MRO costs down and operate from the cheapest places in America: St. George, Tucson, etc.
And they have very sensible fiscal practices.
But they're the exception.
When I lived in the Arlington, VA area (2010 to 2013)...I got into a chat with a guy in the apartment complex who was a pilot for a no-thrills carrier that flew out of Reagan. The guy was in his late 20’s and very happy to be a pilot. But he noted that the pay deal was lousy and his only escape was to get accredited on a larger airframe, which his current employer wouldn’t pay and this cost would take him at least five years go save up and be able to pay (in cash). He figured somewhere along age 40....he’d finally be in the big leagues and bringing home $100k a year.
The thing that gets me....is that this was a young guy who’d gone out and got his Cessna license at 18, and did two years at some community college for a degree in X-ray medical field. He would have done better to just stay in that medical field in terms of income and stability. But he enjoyed flying.
After he laid out the path and the license business....I kinda wish that I was 20 again and I’d probably go do this the same way as well.
So I was trying to quantify the difference in numbers.
I believe that in the late ‘60s, USAF was training ~ 4000 pilots / yr, Navy about half that. Army was doing 6000 helo pilots at the height of the war, IIRC! All 19 YO WO’s, Ft. Rucker was a zoo...
And now it’s ~ 1500 USAF, 1200 Navy? I can’t even guess the Army numbers.
Perhaps you can enlighten? In addition to non-existent flight hours.
You say "remember" 5,000 hours . . . yeah I do! 1976 to 1981. Those same years required an ATP just to become an instructor. But I also remember decades of 500 hours and onto the puddle jumper. Hell I had students hired by UAL with 500 hours regularly. Of course they were of the proper gender.
I certainly do not remember racking up 750 hours per year as an instructor. Am sure many did, but was not the norm. But if you don't believe 1,500 hour rule has no affect . . . well whatever, your opinion
But they don’t teach landing procedures—only take-off. :-)
Yes, the military is producing far less pilots. The Air Force and Navy aircraft tails are far, far fewer than we had back in the 70s, 80s, or 90s. The Air Force closed two pilot training bases in the early 90s as well.
On top of this, general aviation in the US is dying. When I was a kid, there were many airports around me where aviation was blooming. I soloed at age 16, and could fly before I could drive a car. I used to ride my bycycle to a grass strip airport in the summer to go flying.
Today, general aviation is not only expensive, it can be a hassle. Increased regulation combined with expense have frozen out the generation that was to replace the old heads.
On top of that, it is not uncommon to see a military pilot with only 600 total hours. Flying time has been drastically cut.
According to my friends who have retired from the USAF in the last ten years, and now fly for the airlines, it is a pretty well paid job of bus driver.
They will always tell me that flying for a living is great. But the hours and the work “conditions” —(the long routes and what not)—get tiring after a while.
But as a friend of mine who flew in Iraq in ‘90 and ‘03, it is nice not to be shot at.
Flying fighter jets and then an Airbus are two very different things.
The guys I know who are still flying for airlines flew the big tankers and other larger cargo planes. Many of them transitioned to major airlines ten years ago or so.
The fighter and A10 jocks mostly work for contractors. None of them fly much any more at all.
The general aviation business is really hurting and CFIs do get the hours they once did.
Hire the Muzzies, that’s what they’re here for, aren’t they...
Oh...wait.
I’m from the same era. Think my peak year was about 600 hrs instruction, and I wasnt really full time year round, although that year it seemed so. Never saw the ground...
But i knew guys doing more in places like Orange County, Phoenix, etc.
It may be improbable now with the slowdown of GA. But it was not impossible back then...
So OK: lets call it three years now. So what? 18 to 21, you fly 500 hrs / yr?
Pretty relaxed really, especially if it was something like overnight freight (everyone’s flown for Amflight, right?!). Beats McDarnalds...and you dont have to speak Spanish.
And yet America has 95 million working-age adults out of the labor force.
We are a nation with many, very great, contradictions.
We have baggage handlers at airports making more than some pilots.
When the pilots have gone on strike, they were abandoned by organized labor. There was a strike in the 1990s, and both a Clinton appointee and an organized labor boss told the pilots they were "not part of our people." There is a certainly jealousy, and a wide class distinction whereby the highly educated and trained pilot workforce is essentially "white collar" and not "blue" - even though they are highly, highly unionized.
They can start by paying pilots a decent salary.
Guess they’ll have to hire someone mooslimb rapefugees to do the work Americans won’t do.
My father finally stopped flying when he was in his 80s. At the airport he flew from, the mix of pilots who are general aviation are mostly in their late 50s to mid 70s.
Very, very few young general avaition pilots. I know there are thousands of them, I just don't see that many. General aviation is dying, and so are its greatest numbers of pilots.
Until a few years ago, I had no idea that pilot pay could be so low considering the responsibilities for the passengers and equipment.
I thought I made nothing (close to it) in public TV years.
The article didn’t mention the root cause of the pilot shortages.
IMHO the root cause is the downsiszing of the American Military. Like it or not for over 30 years the Department of Defense ran the world’s largest technical training school system. And to a large degree it still does today.
Where else can a recent high school graduate with no money learn technical skills like every job in the airline industry? Where else could the high school graduate learn the inter-personal skills required to be a good employee and lower to mid level manager?
The technical training costs thousands of dollars - the personnel skills cost even more - time.
Jump to college graduates and the same rules apply
Reduced number of military pilots means fewer future civilian pilots and higher training costs at every level.
For the smaller regional airlines it means higher training costs (dollars and time) than they can absorb. Thus the problem will continue and deepen.
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