Asia Pilot Shortage

[777boyo]

This from todays CNBC......

Asia travel lacks pilots to cope with travel boom, Airbus CEO Bregier says (http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/18/asia-travel-lacks-pilots-to-cope-with-travel-boom-airbus-ceo-bregier-says.html)

Go East, Guys and Gals!

7B

[The Dominican]

They aren't doing enough still to attract qualified people in my opinion...., business class confirmed tickets not only to one of the port cities of the airline but to your home city is a must on today's market...., month on and month off rosters..., or 14 off days stretch rosters are also a must......, company supplied accommodation while at base is also a must and they need to talk to the CAA about their medical parameters...., having a single medical parameter for a 20 year old cadet and a 50 year old experienced captain is hurting them.

[fatbus]

Don't think the CAAC really cares.
( med) Slow to change Gov thinking anywhere in the world , China even slower.
Some have month on / off and 2 weeks on / off. Travel, pilots are cheap , offer them money instead of business class seat and most will take the cash and complain about positioning in Y

[The Dominican]

The money is already there..... QOL issues need to be addressed

[bringbackthe80s]

Exactly. Loads of talks about shortages in Asia but no real changes to attract experienced people..also the money might be there if China floats your boat, but there's not a lot of good options in other Asian countries at the moment for someone to leave a good job in the west I think..

[framer]

It is really only China at this stage. They will pay 20k USD for a narrow body Capt while an hour down the line they are still trying to recruit at 10-12 K.
I agree they need to address quality of life rather than cash. Their target market (Captains with a few hours on type) are doing pretty well in their home countries right now so it has to be a pretty spectacular set up to get people to uproot their families.
The only reason I am not there right now is because of the quality of life for my wife and kids ( I would take them rather than commute). If they offered up some mint expat community set up with a golf course and gym, kindergarten and primary school, bar etc then I would take the family to China. I have lived that kind of expat life before and it would be a nice change for two or three years, very social, easy to make some good expat friends. It would have to be of ' country club ' standard to take me away from the beautiful country I now live in, as well as about 20k USD. Anything less and I am quite happy where I am paying off the mortgage in 12 years rather than 5.
That's my take on it......give me the country club!

[glofish]

The whole story about pilot shortage is not about absolute numbers. It's only about the amount of guys they'd like with the desired experience to get better safety and thus lower insurance rates.

But as it is with everything else on this beautiful world, it's all about the money, money, money.

If you can't get the desired numbers with the money you're ready to fork up, the beancounters will restart their Windows95 programs and tell the greedy managers, that by paying a little more on insurance, you can get a lot more of the cheaper monkeys that are banging on the doors and end up with less expenses than if you'd have to pay the experienced guys the money they'd need to come.

The only downside of the story is a slightly bigger hole in one of the Swiss cheese slices, but that does not bother anyone in the industry too much.
The lip service about 'striving for the utmost safety' is reiterated ad nauseam and the even more nauseating statements after the next tragedy are diligently rehearsed.

There is no shortage!

[JNPS]

"There is no shortage!"

Never has been, never will.

[wanabee777]

Not Asia, but as I understand it, many of these cancellations are due to flight crew staffing issues:

FlightStats Global Cancellation and Delays (http://www.flightstats.com/go/Media/stats.do?region=us&queryDate=twoDaysAgo)

[bringbackthe80s]

jnps there is a shortage, of experience captains that is.
There is a shortage in Asia, having said that the truth is if they had to adjust to what it'd take to get good candidates to leave a decent job in the west it would simply be unsustainable and not competitive compared to many other airlines...hence they try to get away with what they can and has worked so far. Don't forget it's not only pay, it's rosters, hours a month, commuting in business,ctype of aircraft, and also super lenghty conversions for licences which many people are not willig to risk..
I guess we'l ll see if it keeps working.