Originally Posted by
bafanguy
FlyTCI,
That's the impression I've gotten from the bits & pieces I read about biz av in the US. The question I have is whether the owners are willing to abandon the luxury of corporate airplanes rather than do (pay) what it takes to attract and retain the desired level of pilots and talent.
Is there a central clearinghouse of accurate info about how the biz av industry is actually dealing with this vs commentary about what they're thinking ?
There are various companies/organizations out there publishing annual pay guidelines, some better than others, but often they are off (on the low side) of what it would take to attract someone to not go 121.
I’m member of a US based pilot web forum whose members were probably 95% corporate pilots a couple of years ago. Over the last two years a very high number of them, even those flying G’s, Globals, BBJs and so on are crowding the exit doors to “start over” as FOs on everything from the ULLC’s to SWA, the legacy carriers and UPS/FedEx. Due to many of them having been long time in the biz jet part of aviation there’s a wealth of knowledge of just about every biz jet operator out there, and hence it’s quite easy to find out what various operators are offering and when they improve conditions.
Funny enough the first company to foresee this and acted to retain their pilots by offering significantly better contracts was WalMart about two years ago. I believe the number for a LR60 captain is/was close to $200k, better pension contribution and with more days off than they had before. Despite this sizeable increase they still cannot compete with the airlines long term though. The main reasons why some choose to stay corporate is the to not wanting to move/commute to a base, or they are too old to make the move.
There will be, and has to some extent already happened, operators on the lower part of the ladder who have been forced to close due to not being able to staff their planes. So far this is mainly in the 135 world, but my guess this will eventually start to heppen in the 91 world too. They don’t mind spening loads of money on their doctors or lawyers, but the have been so spoilt over the last 20 years or so by the access to cheap pilots that they will refuse to pay what it takes. Those are obviously the kind of people you don’t want to work for anyways, so I say good riddance.