Invest $120K and earn $20K….?

[Thrush]

The dream is still up there and some, but not as many, are still paying a small fortune for flight training….

Potential pilots must read: What Can New Pilots Make? Near Minimum Wage - Yahoo Finance (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pilots-near-minimum-wage-012500215.html)

And selection by check-book is still rife. Comments, anyone?

[Narrow Runway]

Yep, the system is broken and corrupt.

[japandwell]

It will mean less jobs in the long run. People who haven't allready made it to a regional will find themselves having a tough time since regionals are parking airplanes.

The supply may be dwindling, but at the same time demand will be reduced. Shoddy industry.

[RAT 5]

Some years ago I flew regularly between 2 EU capitol cities. The a/c was a >130 seater jet. The price was e.g 100. One day I had to fly from a regional airport to my capitol destination: the same distance. The price was 175. I queried this. How could it be that a 50 seat turbo prop from a region was costing me more than a medium jet with a major from a major hub? The answer was "you are paying for transport from one country to another: x-nm. The means is irrelevant. And only 50 people are paying for it, not >130. We are an independent airline" Ah ha. If the pilots want similar pay then the ticket price has to rise; if the host airline wants the ticket price to stay the same then the costs/salaries have to fall. The idea was that the price of transport from X - Y had a value. The cost base had to match that price. The skill involved by the workers and their value was not a factor. Their salary had to balance with the cost. Hence, in the majors, the cost of business class/1st class subsidises cattle class. The regional turbo prop did not have business class.
What should happen is that the regionals should be within the host airline's business package. The regional is operating on behalf of the major and perhaps as a feeder. Thus the host should subsidise the dependant baby and allow correct salaries, not use slave labour at sweat shop rates to maximise its profits. The overall company makes a reasonable profit and the workers get a fair deal. The pax/customer also gets a reliable product of known quality. The host company would be responsible for standards and the pax would be confident of those standards. I've sat next to pax who bought a ticker with XYZ major to then be 'shocked' and boarding a tiny a/c with an unknown operator, but still having paid the normal major's price.
It is that which has to stop. The majors are hiving off their business to not only a lower cost base, but perhaps a lower standards base. The pax are being screwed as are the crews and all employees.

[pull-up-terrain]

It looks like the 1500 hour rule is working

Some small airlines are raising wages. Silver Airways, a Florida-based airline with 35 planes, said last week that it is offering 10% raises to its co-pilots, 5% raises to its captains, and $6,000 bonuses to existing pilots who stay for a year.

Other carriers are resorting to different tactics. Great Lakes Aviation Ltd. of Cheyenne, Wyo., said it has 100 pilots, down from 300 just a year ago. It is removing 10 seats from a handful of its 19-seat planes to operate them under different Federal Aviation Administration rules that require pilots to have just 250 hours of experience.

"We have absolutely no ability to attract résumés" from pilots with 1,500 hours of flight time, said Doug Voss, chairman of Great Lakes, whose pilot salaries start at around $16,500 a year..

But Great Lakes Aviation :ugh: I wonder why they lost 200 pilots and no one wants to work for them lol

[Wizofoz]

Well, no-one can say this wasn't predicted. It's not like the 1550hr rule or the retirement wave at the majors wasn't seen coming- the industry had years to reform and sat on it's hands.

What's been built is a simply unsustainable industry by the basic rules of capitalism.

Of course, execs are happy to extol (and be paid by) the rules of supply and demand when the supply in cheap and plentiful.

When it dries up.....

[lifeafteraviation]

Here...this comment on the article mentioned in the OP sums it up nicely

ninegturn
You all must understand that this is a sponsored article by the Regional Airlines Association actively lobbying Congress to repeal these new safety regulation so they can continue to place low experience pilots in the cockpits of advanced jet airliners previously operated by major airlines. This is not journalism.

Now that the Regional Airlines Association realizes the chances of repeal are low they are looking for subsidies to stay in business. In other words, they want tax payer dollars to continue to support a business model that allows them to cover the costs of a failing business model.

While it's true these new rules will make it more challenging for young pilots to meet their goals of becoming an airline pilot at least the increase in demand will mean when they achieve their goal through hard work they will be looking at more reasonable salaries when they get there.

In the past airlines were mostly self regulating and didn't hire such low experience pilots but this has become the new business model with the promise of higher salaries later in their career. The problem is that as more and more airlines pay less and less there are fewer higher paying jobs and not enough for everyone so some pilots get stuck in the rut for their entire career.

Many of these airlines, such as Republic, are not operating small propeller planes as regional airlines of the past did. These are full size airline jets with as much complexity and sophistication as any large airliner. Do you really want interns flying these planes?

The bottom line is there is no real shortage of qualified pilots, the shortage is in low time pilots willing to work for less than minimum wage anymore. This is why the Regional Airlines Association is lobbying Congress and trying to convince the flying public with these nonsense articles.