Phil;
Sadly I think it is now a proper shortage of experienced pilots. Salaries for onshore have now reached a level where they are starting to affect pricing(with small margins salaries are a major chunk of the cash) A pilot recently negotiated a salary of £80 000 on-shore.
We are losing experience at a frightening rate of knots and the younger guys are fighting to gain experience in a very restrictive market. The operators don't have the budget to train new pilots and certainly aren't going to put new pilots through the IR when there is no guarantee that the trainee will stay with them long enough for the ink to dry on the rating.
For the first time I recently binned a CV when the sender phoned me up in response to my acknowledgement letter. He was to say the least of it bloody agressive about why an operator should pay for him to do an IR. He certainly wouldn't listen to my arguments that training costs have to come out of whatever limited profits there are. Our owners pay management fees and the rest is public transport, where we are competing against everyone else at pretty much the same prices. When I asked if he would be prepared to do a partial pay back from salary or a two year bond for an operator his attitude was "why should I?"
He had 650 hours, 640 R22 and 10 B206, and an ego which made me doubt his suitability for aircrew, let alone dealing with VIP passengers. The few guys leaving the military seem to be heading straight for the airlines and for the self sponsored the costs are becoming prohibitive. Also the customers are becoming more aware. They talk to each other and hear of Mick Goss and Max Radford and others. They are unaware of the circumstances of the accidents but don't realise it. Rich people died and they are rich people so they try to improve their own safety. 40% of our public transport flights are 2 crew on single crew aircraft! OK its easy money but it b
s up the duty hours and can leave us short.
The two crew jobs would ideal to put inexperienced guys on. Sadly they are often last minute and then we have to go with whoever is available.
The situaton is going to get worse before it gets better. Will the last one to leave please switch out the lights.