CTC on Radio 2
Educated Hillbilly
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CTC on Radio 2
Highly amused me, Antony Petterford (CTCs Chief Commercial manager previously of OAA), getting interviewed on Radio two earlier this evening.
Again it was very amusing to hear on the national airways he was propagating the myth of an impending airline pilot shortage.
Again it was very amusing to hear on the national airways he was propagating the myth of an impending airline pilot shortage.
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There is a pilot shortage on the way...a massive one!
However it is a shortage of 3000+ hour guys. There are far too many guys and girls being fooled into parting with their cash by these big commercial flight school machines, sold on the promise of a glamorous life with the airlines pounding down the door to hire their graduates. A lot of them are totally ignorant of Type Rating costs and of course the true reality of the job market when you have 200h in the book.
The HOT(a retired airline pilot) at my old manor told me that people are coming off integrated courses with 200h and are in truth being over taken for the few jobs out there by modulars who have 50 more hours in the can.
People are people and a lot of people who fly for these McDonalds wages and terms realise soon after that the job is a job and while they may enjoy it the size of the aircraft and the tropical or other nature of the destinations do not matter. It's the flying they enjoy and there are better ways to make money with a few 1000 hours than heading off for days away from family and friends.
There is a shortage of people with 3000+ heavy jet hours who are willing to or have to jump through an airline's hoops to get a job.
Budget carriers are short of rated captains all over the place. If you are a SFO at certain airlines, living in the base you want with your family settled in and happy you are not going to be overly interested in a promotion to the left seat for not too much more money and a shift back the bottom of the base pile.
THIS is the shortage of 'lore.
However it is a shortage of 3000+ hour guys. There are far too many guys and girls being fooled into parting with their cash by these big commercial flight school machines, sold on the promise of a glamorous life with the airlines pounding down the door to hire their graduates. A lot of them are totally ignorant of Type Rating costs and of course the true reality of the job market when you have 200h in the book.
The HOT(a retired airline pilot) at my old manor told me that people are coming off integrated courses with 200h and are in truth being over taken for the few jobs out there by modulars who have 50 more hours in the can.
People are people and a lot of people who fly for these McDonalds wages and terms realise soon after that the job is a job and while they may enjoy it the size of the aircraft and the tropical or other nature of the destinations do not matter. It's the flying they enjoy and there are better ways to make money with a few 1000 hours than heading off for days away from family and friends.
There is a shortage of people with 3000+ heavy jet hours who are willing to or have to jump through an airline's hoops to get a job.
Budget carriers are short of rated captains all over the place. If you are a SFO at certain airlines, living in the base you want with your family settled in and happy you are not going to be overly interested in a promotion to the left seat for not too much more money and a shift back the bottom of the base pile.
THIS is the shortage of 'lore.
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PeppyJeppy
Can I suggest you maybe rephrase your post ever so slightly I hear "pilot shortage" way too often?
Using the phrase “pilot shortage” suggests there simply are not enough pilots when in fact there are way too many pilots on the planet. Way more than enough to cover all the current and future flying requirements for some years.
Certainly in Europe we have been training something in the region of 4-5 times the pilots required to fill all the vacancies. There are 000’s of folks trained and unemployed in the UK alone, let alone the rest of Europe.
Although you mention 3000+ hour folks as the main requirement it has been shown today that <100hours in an actual a/c is all you need to fly an A330, check out Virgin Atlantic, busting that myth to a certain degree.
I would suggest however that in fact what there is, is a lack of incentive for the qualified folks to move onto pastures new allowing the less experienced guys finally get onto the ladder. Nothing more, nothing less. That is by no means a shortage. Similar to what you have said I know just rephrased.
The only area I can see where they are trying to incentivise folks is China. A few years back it was $150k for a Captain, today I have seen >$300k. Is this enough, only time will tell but as I say there are way more than enough to take on these positions.
Also you mention that budget carriers have a shortage of Captains. If you rephrase that they have plenty enough SFO's to upgrade however the incentive is not there......this is not a shortage.
THERE IS NO IMMEDIATE OR PENDING "PILOT SHORTAGE" PERIOD!!!!
Can I suggest you maybe rephrase your post ever so slightly I hear "pilot shortage" way too often?
Using the phrase “pilot shortage” suggests there simply are not enough pilots when in fact there are way too many pilots on the planet. Way more than enough to cover all the current and future flying requirements for some years.
Certainly in Europe we have been training something in the region of 4-5 times the pilots required to fill all the vacancies. There are 000’s of folks trained and unemployed in the UK alone, let alone the rest of Europe.
Although you mention 3000+ hour folks as the main requirement it has been shown today that <100hours in an actual a/c is all you need to fly an A330, check out Virgin Atlantic, busting that myth to a certain degree.
I would suggest however that in fact what there is, is a lack of incentive for the qualified folks to move onto pastures new allowing the less experienced guys finally get onto the ladder. Nothing more, nothing less. That is by no means a shortage. Similar to what you have said I know just rephrased.
The only area I can see where they are trying to incentivise folks is China. A few years back it was $150k for a Captain, today I have seen >$300k. Is this enough, only time will tell but as I say there are way more than enough to take on these positions.
Also you mention that budget carriers have a shortage of Captains. If you rephrase that they have plenty enough SFO's to upgrade however the incentive is not there......this is not a shortage.
THERE IS NO IMMEDIATE OR PENDING "PILOT SHORTAGE" PERIOD!!!!
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I think there is a lot of truth in the thought that there are pilots but no incentives to create job openings however I also believe there is a simply supply and demand shortage as PeppyJeppy was saying. I know 2 airlines straight away (LoCos) that have been trying to recruit DECs and haven't been able to fill the void, their pool of SFOs is decreasing as they are running upgrades as much as they can and unless something changes, within the year they are probably going to still need captains, except they will have only a tiny pool of SFOs to train in the near future, leaving them still with still with the problem of DECs.
