GA all over again
Are you blokes all living in fairyland???
Most of you are trying to figure out how to get more MUNNY. So are the airlines. And the flying schools. And everyone has a story which they think will influence things in their favour.
It will all be OK next year. There will be a big shortage of pilots. The flying schools have been saying that for decades. But it won't happen this year. Somehow, next year never seems to get here.
And the airlines are trying to steal each others pilots. Or steal them from the Air Force. Or get them to go and get lots of training and experience in GA.
It's cheaper and easier that way.
And only in Australia?
Let's look. In recent times I have spoken to a pilot who "purchased" 300 hours of 737 FO time, with an Asian airline, and found himself out of a job at 350 hours.
Another had five years time in a Lear jet in the USA, including about a year as Captain.
These two were back in Australia, looking for a job in Central Australia, flying piston engined aircraft.
Another young man, a practising CPL, MECIR with about 1200 hours went off to the UK where he was going to pay 60,000 english pounds for a DHC-8 course.
These people get desparate, when they have spent lots of MUNNY they have not got, to get their training. They will do almost anything to reverse the cash flow. You will not get them to hold out for better pay.
The airlines love it. And most of todays Australian airline pilots have helped the airlines make it that way. What they did to GA is now happening to airlines. It is not "GA thinking". It is "Australian pilot thinking", and now it has started, it appears that it is unstoppable.
There may be a shortage of experienced captains who will work cheap. Is there?
I think there are still some respectable airlines in the world that work with their wannabies from an early stage and then give them a long term career. But it appears that there are some organisations out there exploiting new pilots and dumping them, then exploiting more.
It's all to do with MUNNY. Such is aviation. You reap what you sow. And the seeds are sown.