RVR800
7th Feb 2001, 19:28
From Aviation Career.Net
Is the pilot shortage real?
At Delta Airlines in Atlanta, recruiters are receiving between 60 and 90 applications a week for pilot positions. Their database is crammed with 19,500 pilots.
"I've heard there's a pilot shortage, but I haven't seen it yet," said Frank Stripling, a recruiter for the nation's third largest airline.
They haven't seen it at regional Skywest Airlines either.
"I've got 300 pilots I need to schedule just to take the written test," said Jim Black, a pilot recruiter for the St. George, Utah-based airline. "We interview 40 pilots a week. We have no problem getting applicants. People are begging to get in the door."
So why all the hype about the pilot shortage? The traditional view is that airline expansion, especially at the commuter and regional levels, fueled by one of the best economic booms in history, is creating a shortage. Combined with that is the Federal Aviation Administration rule that pilots must retire at 60, which means a lot of pilots who were hired during the last expansion frenzy in the 1960s are retiring. So pilots entering the job market today are faced with opportunities generations past didn't have.
And while the opportunity is there, that doesn't mean the airlines are just hiring anybody off the street who wants to be a pilot.
"It's not like (the airlines) are handing out matchbooks with covers that say 'you too can be a pilot,'" said John Mazor, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents 58,000 pilots at 50 U.S. and Canadian airlines. "There are lots of candidates out there."
The perceived shortage comes in when the airlines set their standards above FAA minimum requirements. So while Delta may have 19,500 pilots in their database or Skywest has people begging for interviews, that doesn't mean all those applicants meet the standards the airline has set.
"Finding qualified pilots with the right time is the real shortage," said Skywest's Black.
The unparalleled expansion in the aviation industry in the last few years has hit regional airlines or smaller carriers especially hard. As the majors feed their unending appetite for qualified pilots, they woo them from the military and the smaller carriers. And since the military isn't putting out as many pilots as in the past, that means a majority of the new pilots at the majors are coming from the regionals.
"A lot of pilots look at the regionals as a rung on their career ladder," Mazor said.
And the regionals are very aware of that. In recruiting seminars last weekend at the Aviation Career AirFair in Cincinnati, Comair's chief pilot Steve Rayborn told a crowd of prospective pilots that he's losing 10 to 15 pilots a month to the majors.
"We want you to be successful," he said. "If your aspirations are to earn $300,000 and fly the 777s, that's fine. We just want a couple years from you. But if you want to stay, this is a good place to stay."
Probably one of the reasons people in the industry say there's a shortage is that the airlines are having to work harder to attract those qualified candidates. Before recruiters just sat in their offices and waited for the resumes to pour in. Now they're forced to go to job fairs and try alternative methods of recruiting to find the pilots with the right stuff.
"There is a shortage," said Rich Kane, personnel manager at Airline Training Center Arizona Inc., which trains pilots for Lufthansa. "Ten years ago I never had to advertise, but now pilots have choices they never had before."
While everyone knows about the major airlines, there are also a growing number of commuter and regional airlines, plus corporate aviation is growing as well. As the supply of military pilots is shut off, ATCA finds itself competing with a myriad of employers who want that pilot with the right number of hours.
"We need to keep a core group of people," he said. "And how you do that is treat them right and pay them right."
Pay varies widely in the aviation industry. While a new pilot at a regional might see only $20,000 a year, a seasoned veteran at the majors could be pulling in over $300,000. The smaller carriers find themselves having to raise their wage scales to attract and retain qualified pilots.
"With the growth in air travel has come growth in airline employment, including pilots, and qualified pilot applicants are gravitating to those carriers where wages, benefits and career opportunities are the most attractive," Capt. Duane E. Woerth, ALPA president, said during testimony before the Senate subcommittee on aviation in July. "Some of them are leaving jobs in the commuter airline industry and accepting higher-paying positions with the major carriers. This is a natural phenomenon in a robust free market economy."
"However, as many airline pilots have personally experienced, the converse is also true," he continued. "When the economy is stagnant or in a recession, pilots face lay-offs and are forced to seek lower-paying jobs, often non-flying jobs. Just a few years ago, commuter airlines were able to attract pilots even though entry-level wages were so low that they qualified for government financial assistance, and even though new hires were required to pay thousands of dollars to cover their training costs. Today, these airlines are not able to attract pilots on those terms, but that doesn't translate into a pilot shortage."
The bottom line, according to Woerth, is that pilots, like any other employment applicants, have the luxury of being more selective in choosing a job.
During pilot seminars at last weekend's AirFair in Cincinnati, more than one recruiter told the groups of applicants that they should thank their parents every night. "You were born at the right time," Capt. Jim Elkan, chief pilot recruiter for TWA, told the group.
Elkan calls today's boom in pilot hiring a "generational hiring wave." "Two things drive hiring: attrition and the economy," he said. "Most of the time the economy drives hiring, but this is a unique time."
Attrition is high now, as the group of aviators hired during the boom in the 1960s find themselves reaching retirement age. Back in the 1960s, the airlines wouldn't hire anyone over the age of 32, he said, noting the airlines wanted to get a long career out of the pilot in exchange for the investment in training.
"Today we're hiring pilots of all ages," he said, noting he hired a 56-year-old pilot just a few years ago. "You're not going to see the big spikes in attrition like now. It will be more spread out."
He predicts the hiring frenzy based on attrition will last until 2003 or 2004. And of course any kind of drop or change in the economy could put the brakes on the high-speed hiring.
"Will this last forever?" he asked. "In theory, yes; but in reality, no. It's probably not going to be like this in the future," he said. "But when will it change? I have no idea, it could be next week or it could be 10 years. That's why you want to take advantage of the opportunities that are out there now."
At Delta Airlines, recruiters are hiring 60 pilots a month and plan to continue doing that at least until next March.
"We'll be hiring 400 pilots a year indefinitely, as long as the economy stays healthy," said Stripling, who joined the Delta pilot recruitment group in 1996. The carrier currently has 9,800 pilots. Competitive candidates have an average of 3,200 hours. Delta also requires all pilots to have a four-year college degree, which eliminates some candidates.
At Comair, a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta based in Cincinnati, new hires average about 2,600 hours, according to Rayborn. Starting pay is $19,000, a lot higher than the $9,000 Rayborn accepted 13 years ago as a rookie pilot. He told the group that once the new pilot contract is settled, new hires will start at $30,000.
Comair's pilots have been in negotiations for a new contract for 26 months. According to sources outside the company, the pilots may take some action if a contract isn't settled soon.
First year pilots at World Airways start around $40,000, according to Brian Robinson, a pilot recruiter at the carrier. Captains make salaries in the six figures, with some captains making annual salaries in the "low $190,000s," he said.
Of course, flying for World Airways, with its international flights and military missions to Somalia, is a lot different than flying for Comair, a regional carrier.
According to information from Aviation Information Resources, more than 19,000 pilots will be hired this year. There have been some suggestions of increasing the mandatory retirement age to remedy the alleged shortage, which ALPA is opposed to. Others have suggested relaxing immigration standards to allow foreign pilots easier access to the cockpits of U.S. airplanes.
Skywest's Black said he hired a pilot from another country just a few days ago. But the company will not sponsor foreign pilots. The pilot must have proof that he or she is able to work in the United States, have good communication skills and know the airline's routes, as well as meet the minimum requirements for hours.
ATCA's Kane said he has to turn away many good applicants because they don't have the right to work in the United States.
"We don't have a sponsorship program," he said. Finding qualified candidates may mean the airlines will have to change a lot of things besides their recruiting strategies.
"When pilots were plentiful, the regionals wanted 2,000 hours before they'd even read their resume," said ALPA's Mazor. "As they find it more difficult to maintain the supply, they'll cut it to 1,600 or 1,200 hours."
But that doesn't mean the airlines are "plucking kids in baseball caps off the airfield," he hastens to add.
"These are experienced pilots," he said. "This is where training comes in. A pilot with 3,000 hours military flying is a lot easier to get trained to the proper levels than someone with 1,200 propeller hours. It just means they have to work harder in the training phase."
When pilots were plentiful, the training phase at a regional often cost the new hire tens of thousands of dollars in programs known as pay-for-training. If the airline didn't require the trainee to fork over his own money, they often required he or she sign a one- or two-year commitment. If the pilot left before the end of the commitment period, he or she would owe the regional for training costs.
These programs are not as prevalent as they used to be, according to ALPA's Mazor.
But similar programs are springing up. Atlantic Southeast Airlines, a Delta subsidiary, has just started a program called "Fast Track," which promises the candidate a fast track into the right seat in about 12 to 14 weeks. Cost of the program is $30,000. Applicants receive a conditional offer of employment before training begins.
That's not the only way to get into the right seat. The carrier also offers what it calls the ASA-Instructor track, in which applicants work at FlightSafety International in Vero Beach, Fla., as a flight instructor to build their time to 800 hours. It usually takes about a year. During that time, future ASA pilots are employees of FlightSafety and get paid for working as instructors. If the applicant leaves before the 800-hour agreement is fulfilled, they will have to reimburse FlightSafety for any training received.
The new programs were devised to feed ASA's continuing need for pilots.
"ASA needs 50 pilots a month and they are ready to increase that to 70 pilots a month," said Jay Elder of FlightSafety Academy. "Delta is hiring all of ASA's pilots."
By Janice Wood
Is the pilot shortage real?
At Delta Airlines in Atlanta, recruiters are receiving between 60 and 90 applications a week for pilot positions. Their database is crammed with 19,500 pilots.
"I've heard there's a pilot shortage, but I haven't seen it yet," said Frank Stripling, a recruiter for the nation's third largest airline.
They haven't seen it at regional Skywest Airlines either.
"I've got 300 pilots I need to schedule just to take the written test," said Jim Black, a pilot recruiter for the St. George, Utah-based airline. "We interview 40 pilots a week. We have no problem getting applicants. People are begging to get in the door."
So why all the hype about the pilot shortage? The traditional view is that airline expansion, especially at the commuter and regional levels, fueled by one of the best economic booms in history, is creating a shortage. Combined with that is the Federal Aviation Administration rule that pilots must retire at 60, which means a lot of pilots who were hired during the last expansion frenzy in the 1960s are retiring. So pilots entering the job market today are faced with opportunities generations past didn't have.
And while the opportunity is there, that doesn't mean the airlines are just hiring anybody off the street who wants to be a pilot.
"It's not like (the airlines) are handing out matchbooks with covers that say 'you too can be a pilot,'" said John Mazor, a spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association, a union that represents 58,000 pilots at 50 U.S. and Canadian airlines. "There are lots of candidates out there."
The perceived shortage comes in when the airlines set their standards above FAA minimum requirements. So while Delta may have 19,500 pilots in their database or Skywest has people begging for interviews, that doesn't mean all those applicants meet the standards the airline has set.
"Finding qualified pilots with the right time is the real shortage," said Skywest's Black.
The unparalleled expansion in the aviation industry in the last few years has hit regional airlines or smaller carriers especially hard. As the majors feed their unending appetite for qualified pilots, they woo them from the military and the smaller carriers. And since the military isn't putting out as many pilots as in the past, that means a majority of the new pilots at the majors are coming from the regionals.
"A lot of pilots look at the regionals as a rung on their career ladder," Mazor said.
And the regionals are very aware of that. In recruiting seminars last weekend at the Aviation Career AirFair in Cincinnati, Comair's chief pilot Steve Rayborn told a crowd of prospective pilots that he's losing 10 to 15 pilots a month to the majors.
"We want you to be successful," he said. "If your aspirations are to earn $300,000 and fly the 777s, that's fine. We just want a couple years from you. But if you want to stay, this is a good place to stay."
Probably one of the reasons people in the industry say there's a shortage is that the airlines are having to work harder to attract those qualified candidates. Before recruiters just sat in their offices and waited for the resumes to pour in. Now they're forced to go to job fairs and try alternative methods of recruiting to find the pilots with the right stuff.
"There is a shortage," said Rich Kane, personnel manager at Airline Training Center Arizona Inc., which trains pilots for Lufthansa. "Ten years ago I never had to advertise, but now pilots have choices they never had before."
While everyone knows about the major airlines, there are also a growing number of commuter and regional airlines, plus corporate aviation is growing as well. As the supply of military pilots is shut off, ATCA finds itself competing with a myriad of employers who want that pilot with the right number of hours.
"We need to keep a core group of people," he said. "And how you do that is treat them right and pay them right."
Pay varies widely in the aviation industry. While a new pilot at a regional might see only $20,000 a year, a seasoned veteran at the majors could be pulling in over $300,000. The smaller carriers find themselves having to raise their wage scales to attract and retain qualified pilots.
"With the growth in air travel has come growth in airline employment, including pilots, and qualified pilot applicants are gravitating to those carriers where wages, benefits and career opportunities are the most attractive," Capt. Duane E. Woerth, ALPA president, said during testimony before the Senate subcommittee on aviation in July. "Some of them are leaving jobs in the commuter airline industry and accepting higher-paying positions with the major carriers. This is a natural phenomenon in a robust free market economy."
"However, as many airline pilots have personally experienced, the converse is also true," he continued. "When the economy is stagnant or in a recession, pilots face lay-offs and are forced to seek lower-paying jobs, often non-flying jobs. Just a few years ago, commuter airlines were able to attract pilots even though entry-level wages were so low that they qualified for government financial assistance, and even though new hires were required to pay thousands of dollars to cover their training costs. Today, these airlines are not able to attract pilots on those terms, but that doesn't translate into a pilot shortage."
The bottom line, according to Woerth, is that pilots, like any other employment applicants, have the luxury of being more selective in choosing a job.
During pilot seminars at last weekend's AirFair in Cincinnati, more than one recruiter told the groups of applicants that they should thank their parents every night. "You were born at the right time," Capt. Jim Elkan, chief pilot recruiter for TWA, told the group.
Elkan calls today's boom in pilot hiring a "generational hiring wave." "Two things drive hiring: attrition and the economy," he said. "Most of the time the economy drives hiring, but this is a unique time."
Attrition is high now, as the group of aviators hired during the boom in the 1960s find themselves reaching retirement age. Back in the 1960s, the airlines wouldn't hire anyone over the age of 32, he said, noting the airlines wanted to get a long career out of the pilot in exchange for the investment in training.
"Today we're hiring pilots of all ages," he said, noting he hired a 56-year-old pilot just a few years ago. "You're not going to see the big spikes in attrition like now. It will be more spread out."
He predicts the hiring frenzy based on attrition will last until 2003 or 2004. And of course any kind of drop or change in the economy could put the brakes on the high-speed hiring.
"Will this last forever?" he asked. "In theory, yes; but in reality, no. It's probably not going to be like this in the future," he said. "But when will it change? I have no idea, it could be next week or it could be 10 years. That's why you want to take advantage of the opportunities that are out there now."
At Delta Airlines, recruiters are hiring 60 pilots a month and plan to continue doing that at least until next March.
"We'll be hiring 400 pilots a year indefinitely, as long as the economy stays healthy," said Stripling, who joined the Delta pilot recruitment group in 1996. The carrier currently has 9,800 pilots. Competitive candidates have an average of 3,200 hours. Delta also requires all pilots to have a four-year college degree, which eliminates some candidates.
At Comair, a wholly owned subsidiary of Delta based in Cincinnati, new hires average about 2,600 hours, according to Rayborn. Starting pay is $19,000, a lot higher than the $9,000 Rayborn accepted 13 years ago as a rookie pilot. He told the group that once the new pilot contract is settled, new hires will start at $30,000.
Comair's pilots have been in negotiations for a new contract for 26 months. According to sources outside the company, the pilots may take some action if a contract isn't settled soon.
First year pilots at World Airways start around $40,000, according to Brian Robinson, a pilot recruiter at the carrier. Captains make salaries in the six figures, with some captains making annual salaries in the "low $190,000s," he said.
Of course, flying for World Airways, with its international flights and military missions to Somalia, is a lot different than flying for Comair, a regional carrier.
According to information from Aviation Information Resources, more than 19,000 pilots will be hired this year. There have been some suggestions of increasing the mandatory retirement age to remedy the alleged shortage, which ALPA is opposed to. Others have suggested relaxing immigration standards to allow foreign pilots easier access to the cockpits of U.S. airplanes.
Skywest's Black said he hired a pilot from another country just a few days ago. But the company will not sponsor foreign pilots. The pilot must have proof that he or she is able to work in the United States, have good communication skills and know the airline's routes, as well as meet the minimum requirements for hours.
ATCA's Kane said he has to turn away many good applicants because they don't have the right to work in the United States.
"We don't have a sponsorship program," he said. Finding qualified candidates may mean the airlines will have to change a lot of things besides their recruiting strategies.
"When pilots were plentiful, the regionals wanted 2,000 hours before they'd even read their resume," said ALPA's Mazor. "As they find it more difficult to maintain the supply, they'll cut it to 1,600 or 1,200 hours."
But that doesn't mean the airlines are "plucking kids in baseball caps off the airfield," he hastens to add.
"These are experienced pilots," he said. "This is where training comes in. A pilot with 3,000 hours military flying is a lot easier to get trained to the proper levels than someone with 1,200 propeller hours. It just means they have to work harder in the training phase."
When pilots were plentiful, the training phase at a regional often cost the new hire tens of thousands of dollars in programs known as pay-for-training. If the airline didn't require the trainee to fork over his own money, they often required he or she sign a one- or two-year commitment. If the pilot left before the end of the commitment period, he or she would owe the regional for training costs.
These programs are not as prevalent as they used to be, according to ALPA's Mazor.
But similar programs are springing up. Atlantic Southeast Airlines, a Delta subsidiary, has just started a program called "Fast Track," which promises the candidate a fast track into the right seat in about 12 to 14 weeks. Cost of the program is $30,000. Applicants receive a conditional offer of employment before training begins.
That's not the only way to get into the right seat. The carrier also offers what it calls the ASA-Instructor track, in which applicants work at FlightSafety International in Vero Beach, Fla., as a flight instructor to build their time to 800 hours. It usually takes about a year. During that time, future ASA pilots are employees of FlightSafety and get paid for working as instructors. If the applicant leaves before the 800-hour agreement is fulfilled, they will have to reimburse FlightSafety for any training received.
The new programs were devised to feed ASA's continuing need for pilots.
"ASA needs 50 pilots a month and they are ready to increase that to 70 pilots a month," said Jay Elder of FlightSafety Academy. "Delta is hiring all of ASA's pilots."
By Janice Wood