Captain snooze, I am taking your advice, it has been a long time since I lost that much data. I am using Dragon Naturally Speaking 9.5 to write my forum responses, it takes a while to get used to using this voice recognition software, and it seems to be making lots of mistakes which need correcting.
The regional airlines are expanding, as they are taking over some of the mainline flying from the legacy carriers. Half the major/legacy carriers are still in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and are not hiring crews. There are still approximately 7000 to 8000 pilots still on furlough from these airlines from 9/11.
The other half of these carriers have emerged from Chapter 11 and re calling furloughed pilots as well as hiring new pilots off the street.
There is no shortage of applicants and well qualified ones at that who are applying to the major carriers. Most of these pilots come from either the military, or from the regional airlines where they have gained FAR Part 121 airline experience which is pretty much a necessity to get hired at a major.
During this recall, there have been a large number of pilots who have not accepted recall to their previous companies. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this situation, I'll briefly explain. After 9/11, the airline's furloughed over 12,000 pilots, this means people are basically laid off in reverse seniority order and when the airline starts hiring again when times get better they recall in seniority order. All pilots who were furloughed must be offered recall before they can start to select new hires from off the street.
As many of you have no doubt read in Australian magazines, employees at the majors, have taken 30 to 50% pay cuts as well as losing all of their pensions and many other benefits since 9/11.
The regional airlines are in the same position as the regionals in Australia, they are dropping minimums to next to nothing, now less than 500 hours total and 50 hours multi at many carriers. In order to try and get sufficient applicants to interview and fill classes. At many carriers, they are not succeeding and minimums have dropped to bare commercial, instrument and multi engine certificates.
Many flight instructors, as soon as they reach these qualifications are applying to the regionals and leaving large flying schools with a shortage of qualified instructors.
As I have mentioned in previous posts in this forum, the reason this is happening is the same as the reasons in Australia, that is, the pay and terms and conditions are terrible, as is the quality of pilot life.
Despite the fact that management could simply raise the price of a ticket from $1-$3, and then be able to afford to pay an extra 30 odd thousand dollars per year to every crew member, none of them have done so, nor are they likely to. I would be quite happy to see hundreds of airliners parked and management can go down to the local flying schools and see if they can even find an instructor to book a lesson with and begin learning to fly themselves. They all appear to think that it is sooo easy that monkeys can do it and prepared to pay pilots as if they are.
Most first and second year F. O.'s earn from 1500 to less than $2000 per month. Do not bother about converting the currencies as a dollar here buys the same if not less than a dollar in Australia. That is $1500 here is the same as earning $1500 in Australia, as far as what it will purchase. Can anybody live on $1500 per month in any major Australian city, or even most country towns ???.
The following two links are two sites that have details about the airlines and up-to-date copies of their pay scales. One of them has a pay scale calculator that allows you to enter the amount per hour, and the number of min guaranteed hours per month in order to see what the total monthly salary is.
What you
must remember when looking at these payscales, is that this is for
actual stick time only. The actual number of duty hours that most pilots will work is in access of 160 hours per month, so divide that number into the monthly salary to see what the actual hourly rate is. In most cases, it will be around $10 an hour, which is only a dollar an hour more than minimum wage in many places.
Whilst on different forums, some regional pilots claim to learn more than the minimums they have to pick up a lot of additional flying above the minimum guaranteed in order to do so, and even then, the pay is still usually pretty poor compared to what pilots who fly much smaller equipment can earn.
For those of you are unfamiliar, under part 121 of the regulations which govern scheduled air carriers, pilots can be rostered for a 16 hour duty day and are required to only get a minimum eight hours rest, from when they walk into the airport office to report until they sign off. There are certain adjustments required for exceeding these figures, as there are in the CAO's regarding Australian flight and duty time.
Needless to say, while we're on the point, serious fatigue issues are no doubt widespread throughout the industry, even under part 135, which governs air taxis ie charter operators, pilots are limited to a 14 hour duty day. Obviously, the FAA think scheduled airline passengers can be flown by pilots who are even more fatigued than those flying charter passengers around. Very freaking nice, great thinking, until an accident occurs that is.
Here are the links--
http://airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines.html
http://www.willflyforfood.cc/airlinepilotpay/
Any Virgin Blue and Jet Star pilots, who may be wondering what Southwest and other major airline pilots make here can also refer to the above links to compare.
As far as long airline jobs go, for the reasons I mentioned above, there is a shortage of flight instructors at many schools. Many freight companies also have a constant demand for pilots to fly either piston or small turboprop aircraft that these jobs are also not well paid, considering the work involved, and often back of the clock operations.
There are positions for business jet captains advertised every day on the Internet and a lesser number for FO's, flying corporate and/or charter operations. Some of these jobs, especially for corporate operators can pay extremely well and have a great quality of life depending on the company, on the other hand, many of these positions with charter operators pay very poorly and well below what should be a correct industry standard level given the aeroplane type and almost 24/7 on-call status.
The problem for myself, and most other pilots, is that in order to obtain any of these positions, or indeed even send in a resume, you must already have a type rating (endorsement) on the aeroplane as well as time on type which of course you can never obtain unless you have already had the job you are applying for. The old Catch-22. Many of these jobs also require at least 3000 to 5000 hours, as well as at least 500 to 1000 hours turbine time and anywhere from 50 to 500 hours jet time. Having attended school on the aeroplane within the last 12 months is also a commonly stipulated requirement.
To everyone who reads this, I am sorry I do not have better news concerning the state of the industry here but I have tried to paint an accurate picture and not blow smoke where the sun does not shine, especially in case anybody reading this has the opportunity to come here and needs some accurate information before doing so.
If this raises any more questions, or anybody has more questions, please feel free to post them here and ask and I will do my best to answer them. To all of you who are lucky enough to be working right now, fly safe.