ATPCLIFF: I really enjoyed reading your description of the situation here.
A buddy at NWA told me yesterday that when he was furloughed a few years ago, he applied to be an Instructor at Pinnacle and they only offered him a job as line pilot, which still pays (a salary) little above US minimum wage.
He said that recently NWA assumed that dozens of laid-off mainline pilots would rush over to Compass when they began operations.
A buddy who might not return there told him that only 5 have gone to work there-and Compass certainly still no written contract for pay, benefits or anything else. Are guys interviewing there feeling optimistic after hearing about corporate promises, even if they are interviewed by pilots? If so, what planet were they on until now?
In a recent copy of "Aviation Week & ST", a regional airline 'executive'
describes the pilot shortage. Among those who operate the lousiest airlines, are these guys intelligent enough to discover the connection between their arrogant greed
,the minimum wage starting jet salaries and the surprise that there are far fewer applicants, or why almost nobody shows up for Day One in groundschool at times?
My sympathy lies with the brand-new young pilots who struggle and claw their way through some of the regional airline training programs. My buddy claimed that at one airline with CRJs, about half are not successful. Hopefully they realize, especially after leaving programs that are reportedly not good (a furloughed pilot told me about Chatauqua's training), that there are better programs-possibly training in a SF-340 or Beech-1900.
In my opinion, compared hour for hour, flying mostly short, very busy legs into congested airline hubs and back is much more valuable experience around weather or in winter snow to some (so-called) non-precision approaches in LAN or SPI in a two-pilot turboprop, compared to droning six hours from Niagara Falls to PDX in a C-130 with an FE.