Regional airlines, which provide about half the country’s flights, have long argued that training requirements make it difficult to find qualified pilots.
Thune said two-thirds of the country’s airports are served exclusively by regional airlines, and the training requirement contributes to their difficulties hiring pilots.
This topic, at least in USA, is about Regional airlines and pilots getting their first step on the ladder. No-one wants to spend their whole life in a Regional, and the companies know this. Thus they treat them as real apprentices who are being paid in experience and will leave at the first chance.
"How pilots get to 1,500 hours is more important than simply reaching that figure.
Fifteen-hundred hours is not necessarily magic, but however you get whatever training you get is important,” Sen' Blunt said.
True: quality over quantity.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said if regional airlines want to weaken safety standards, they shouldn’t be able to fly with names of major airlines, whose more experienced pilots have more training, on the sides of their planes.
“The American public needs to know that these carriers aren’t meeting the same standards,” Cantwell said. “I don’t think anybody wants to get on a plane that says co-pilot not as qualified.”
True: Airlines have, for a longtime, outsourced flights to cheaper alternatives. I wonder how much oversight they give to them; that they provide the same quality product as the host airline. They should, because any lowering of any standard will reflect badly on them.
The Air Line Pilots Association, a union representing 57,000 pilots, said regional airlines would have more pilot recruits if they paid more. The co-pilot of the Colgan flight earned $16,200 per year.
It is a fact that regional airline flying is more challenging than B787 fully automatic operations. They fly into less equipped airfields; they have less equipped a/c; they had less experienced pilots, especially the captains; they fly at lower altitudes in worse weather; they often fly multi sector days in these conditions and therefore are prone to more tiredness = mistakes. etc. etc. They get the short end of the stick and worse. Yet, they are paid less, have worse T's & C's and most are not motivated to stay.
I flew with a national airline B747 skipper on the jump seat of my B757; he was also the union leader. he admitted that their own regional small jet & turbo-prop fleet was more challenging than his 8 sector per month in his flying palace, but the union was not willing to campaign for better conditions for their own regional. Reason: one day all this will be theirs.
That's OK if there is a career path within one company. That is not the case in the USA or other regionals with a major name on the fuselage. Why not make the regional part of the host company and make a career path?
Many years ago there were some countries that had career paths via the military into the national carrier. That ensured the military had enough pilots and ensured the airline had a steady stream of pilots: not necessarily 100%, but enough for a core. After privatisation that was deemed unworkable and also there was doubt about having 'the right stuff in the wrong place'. Australia has been having problems keeping airforce pilots for financial reasons. the rewards are greater outside.
IMHO there needs to be a complete rethink of how the pilot workforce is recruited, trained and how a career path is offered. Nowadays a cadet goes into huge debt with no guarantee of a job. the squeeze into a LoCo for a few years, burn out, see greener grass and move on. Find the green grass has been fertilised with BS and move on again, and again.
The lowly regionals will always struggle beasue they are a training school; similar with the LoCo cadets.
Also in the regionals you have 40-60 pax paying the wages, not 200-300 per a/c, yet they often charge more per seat, but they can't charge less than jets, they'd never make ends meet. If they were in the fold of the host airline then seat fares and wages could be balanced out in a big pot and career path formed. Standards would rise and be maintained across the board and all fleets and pilot recruitment improved.
Think outside the box. Extra hours for F/O's does not solve the problem.