Posted on 05/25/2022 7:00:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
Planning to fly this summer? Good luck.
Delays are up. Cancellations, too.
Why? Because of the pilot shortage.
A pilot shortage? How can this be? Flying is a popular job. Some people fly small planes just for fun. Why aren't there enough commercial pilots?
Because the government passed another dumb law.
In 2009, after a Colgan Air crash near Buffalo, New York, killed 50 people, Congress decided that airlines could only hire aspiring commercial pilots who already had lots of flight time.
Instead of 250 hours, now they have to have 1,500 hours!
"That never made any sense," says current commercial airline pilot Tracy Price in my new video.
The sixfold increase wouldn't have prevented the Colgan crash. Those pilots had many more than 1,500 hours of flight time. The pilot had 3,379 -- the co-pilot, 2,244.
That didn't matter to the politicians. "We need to improve pilot training, address flight crew hours and service," said Sen. Frank Lautenberg.
Demanding more pre-hire flight time discouraged people from trying to become pilots. It had "the effect of pulling up the ladder," says Price.
Few people have the time or money to get 1,500 hours in the air before they can even apply for a job. The number of certified pilots fell even as flight demand increased.
The pilots unions didn't object.
"Fewer applicants means higher pay," explains Price.
I say to Price, "This rule is good for you!"
"Great for me (and other) professional pilots," he replies. "If you believe in freedom though, it's a bit of an issue."
The union blamed the pilot shortage on poor pay at regional airlines, so I push back at Price, "Some of these regional airlines were paying pilots as little as $21,000 a year."
"(But) there was no shortage of applicants!" Price responds. "Plenty of people were willing to take fairly low pay and live with roommates for a year or two to gain that really valuable jet experience."
Today's required 1,500 hours doesn't even create better pilots. Actual pilots get trained in simulators today. The computerized cockpit gives them more useful experience than unsupervised hours of hobby flying.
In fact, those hours may leave pilots less prepared. "Flight time does not equal experience," Faye Black of the Regional Airline Association told Congress. "We waste a lot of time in training, breaking bad habits pilots acquire while trying to quickly get to 1,500 hours."
The politicians ignored her.
That's not surprising. Once government creates new rules, those rules tend to live forever.
Many are just unnecessary. Airlines don't want to kill their customers, and pilots don't want to kill themselves, so they self-regulate.
The last fatal commercial airline crash was 13 years ago. Flying is much safer than driving, biking, and taking a bus or train.
"Safer than any mode of conveyance ever, including walking," says Price.
But politicians believe that if they're not passing more rules, they're not doing their job.
So expect more flight delays this summer.
"I spend a lot more time than I want to making announcements to people apologizing for being late," says Price. "We should be looking for ways to expand the availability of airline travel to more people so more people can take advantage of this amazingly safe way to get from A to B."
For what it’s worth from a 26000 hour retired airline pilot, 250 hours of flight time is nothing. At that stage the fledgling pilot is still trying to figure out which rudder to use on a crosswind landing. (is it right rudder and left aileron or ....)
After 800 hours of being a Flight Instructor, I thought I had scared myself enough times to know what not to do, but hold on. The scaring and learning goes on for a while longer.
I got my first job as a copilot on a 10 seat Piper Chieftain. I considered that twin engine propeller plane to be quite large at the time. That led to an eventual upgrade to captain two years later after turning 23 and amassing 2000 hours of flight time. I grew into the airplane.
My first turboprop flying came at the 4500 hour mark and, once again, that was a lot of airplane to get used to. Larger and larger turboprops followed. The scaring was over. I had learned enough to avoid putting myself into difficult situations.
I was an airline instructor and check airman for a period of time when the company’s previously stringent hiring requirements were relaxed and we onboarded a group of pilots with 400 hours experience to fly as copilot on turboprops. They were the cream of the crop since no other airline was hiring. Most did really well but some did not so well at all.
Finally the big show arrived around the 10000 hour mark....jets. The transition was fairly easy. Things just happened at a much faster pace with less room for error.
I see a few roadblocks causing the pilot shortage. First, the retirement age was moved to 65 from 60. This stagnated pilot hiring for 5 years. The likely pilot candidates were sharp, intelligent people with degrees in business, engineering and computer science. They moved on. Very few stepped up to take their place.
Secondly, the cost of getting training and a pilot certificate exploded from expensive to almost unachievable. Between the imputed cost of liability built into an airplane’s cost and the ridiculously high cost of fuel...which has gotten exponentially worse...the pool of candidates is dwindling further.
Third, why go through all of the expense and uncertainty of an aviation career when that $85k software programming career can start the day after graduation with remote work?
I’m waiting to see what happens to commercial aviation when hydrocarbons are banned. I’ll still be sitting on the beach watching the waves. I’ve already traveled the world with 300 passengers and 17 hour non-stop flights halfway around the globe. The waves are inviting.
I look back at my rather blessed career with the certitude that even I was not ready for the big show at 250 hours. If Mr. Stossel wants to strap himself into a 600 mph tube with a 250 hour copilot and a 1500 hour captain (Yes, that is the minimum) he is free to do so. Just don’t fly over populated areas.
LOL! They are being “screened” and we are NOT seeing a 30% loss!
LOL....then, why the pilot shortage?
What % loss *has* caused this shortage? I’m sure YOU can provide a link, too.
It’s not training requirements, as they’re now going to lower that.
“What % loss *has* caused this shortage? I’m sure YOU can provide a link, too.”
Unrelated to vaccine. Pilot’s association says no shortage.
“It’s not training requirements, as they’re now going to lower that.”
Southwest says there is backlog in training.
Pilots association??
You mean like the CDC?
🙃
The all opinionating 'gator has spoken!
😂
👍🏼
Your first link:
“I can assure you that ALPA will give no ground—and we will call out every instance of false rhetoric about pilot supply for what it is: an attempt to distract and deceive the flying public and members of Congress about the airlines’ mismanagement of the government bailout provided to ensure our industry would not only survive the pandemic but be ready to thrive once the recovery we are seeing today took hold.”
Yes….a PILOT’S UNION!!
What We Do
ALPA represents and advocates for more than 64,000 pilots at 39 U.S. and Canadian airlines, making it the world’s largest airline pilot union
Now, do the other links. There obviously IS a pilot shortage. Facts are stubborn things.
Don’t just look for the Union label. 😂
Are you in/retired from a union?
I am happy to see this article. The revised hour requirement was just a knee jerk reaction to a sad event. Many people warned of upcoming pilot shortages.
Sick and dead pilots don't fly and government coerced deadly mandates have everything to do with it.
I can agree that the federal government has usurped many powers that, under the constitution, belong to the states.
However, I believe that creating the FAA to establish rules and regulations for airlines is constitutional under Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution (AKA Commerce clause).
Airlines carry passengers and cargo between states and foreign nations. Clearly, this is "commerce" as defined in the Commerce clause.
Unfortunately, the Commerce clause is often incorrectly cited as rationale for the federal government to usurp state power.
Above are my insights & thanks for giving me the opportunity to provide them.
Hey, the Left, as they have with everything having to do with constitutional freedom from government coercion, eviscerated the 14th Amendment and and have wrested the intent of the ratifiers.
The 14th Amendment was simply one of the Post-Civil-War Reconstruction Amendments intended to instate blacks as full citizens and restore our union.
The so-called “Incorporation Doctrine” ( “incorporating” the feds as enforcers of the first ten amendments against the states - EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of the wording and intent of the first ten amendments which are pointed directly and exclusively at LIMITING federal power) is Leftist counterfeit which must be rejected and decisions based on that false doctrine nullified and overturned.
The 14th Amendment was NEVER ratified by the states to expand the power of the federal government beyond the constitutional sovereignty and independence of the states by such an order of magnitude. This is a deception and a lie and Patriots must stand up against this Leftist trash and stand up for the Constitution as written and originally understood and intended.
The Commerce Clause limits federal power to removing hindrances to interstate commerce, NOT giving the feds unlimited power over all interstate communications, transportations, and commerce. Your Leftist fascists have done that and it’s time to dismantle this 80%+ unconstitutional portion of the feds and restore our Free Constitutional Republic.
While the 14th was as you well point out, intended simply a post-CW reconstruction amendment, it has sinister language written by crafty devious attorneys. Effectively, while the 13th freed slaves, the 14th then reversed it, making ALL ‘citizens’, both blacks and whites, slaves to the federal government.
What the 14th started for the death knell of the states, the 17th finished them off.
Yes, the language of the 14th Amendment was purposefully crafted to be confusing and give an open door for unconstitutional government power.
But the deciding factor of the 14th Amendment isn’t the terribly written and confusing language. A crucial way to decide on ambiguous, confusing language of a law is to look to the intent of those who passed the law, in this case, the INTENT OF THE RATIFIERS - the states that passed the amendment and gave it power. And it is clear that the intent of the ratifiers was certainly NOT to give the feds unimaginably new sweeping powers over the states.
If so there would have been a record of huge debates in Congress about this. But there is not one iota of evidence of any debate which says that ratifiers intended this amendment prima facia to be a Post Civil-War Reconstruction Amendment limited to instating full black citizenship and restoring the union.
And this issue was decided and incorporation” was rejected by the Supreme Court not long after the ratification in cases called the “Slaughterhouse Cases”. No matter. The Left ignored this very important precedent of the “Slaughterhouse Cases” that had mandatory authority. And since the Right wasn’t stopping them, the Left continued to cut the Constitution with a thousand cuts, using among other things, the counterfeit and officially rejected “incorporation doctrine”.
We’ll be seeing the economic, social and political costs for decades to come.
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The downside of depopulation, not to mention the intentional wrecking of logistics.
Not a FRoctor, but a parser.
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Exactly!
We’ll drive to any vacation we take.
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You’re right! Plenty of things to see and do right here in the good ole U.S. of A. I’ve seen and done many of them and there still many left. One on my bucket list is to attend the public hanging of H.R.C.
👍🏻👍🏻
I’ll meet you, there!
There is no verbiage WRT "removing hindrances to interstate commerce".
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