USA Pilot Shortage
The main question now is whether any of the regionals pay per diem or hotel expenses during training, or a tiny salary, in order to better recruit applicants?
One guy on the employee bus a few days ago said that some regional now pays you a salary during training.
Samusi01:
A few days ago another pilot told me that Mesa Airlines recently had an entire class of "no-shows" -- nobody came to class. Maybe only three or four had been hired? If many more were expected, that would be quite significant.
They have lost many pilots who were on the line. A friend worked there many years ago on the 1900 and went to Berlin for CRJ training.
Even back then, they paid Beech pilots at least 25% less than the other companies paid, and transferred pilots often base to base, in order to remain in a Captain's seat.
PS: When many of us trained on the Bandit and Shorts 330/360 in '83-'85, we might have been paid per diem during training. We found roommates in whichever apartments.
One guy on the employee bus a few days ago said that some regional now pays you a salary during training.
Samusi01:
A few days ago another pilot told me that Mesa Airlines recently had an entire class of "no-shows" -- nobody came to class. Maybe only three or four had been hired? If many more were expected, that would be quite significant.
They have lost many pilots who were on the line. A friend worked there many years ago on the 1900 and went to Berlin for CRJ training.
Even back then, they paid Beech pilots at least 25% less than the other companies paid, and transferred pilots often base to base, in order to remain in a Captain's seat.
PS: When many of us trained on the Bandit and Shorts 330/360 in '83-'85, we might have been paid per diem during training. We found roommates in whichever apartments.
Last edited by Ignition Override; 4th Jun 2007 at 06:37.
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Hadn't heard about the Mesa class, but I've got a friend who started with them recently. I'll have to ask him if he heard anything. The regional I referenced is Pinnacle... they are taking care of hotels and all (my understanding) and paying a per diem during training. Two of the guys here at work headed off there and other than being in a rough section of Memphis, all they've said is that sims are backed up and Pinnacle was making noises about shipping them to Montreal or Berlin for CRJ training. Skywest and Horizon may pay for training... I'll have to check with some folks I know over at Mesaba. Flight out this morning had a former co-worker jumping, and he said starting is around $25/hr for his present employer - American Eagle - but I didn't ask about per diem or other pay during training.
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I will not fly on a commuter airline in the US. Do you really want to be sitting fat dumb and not happy in the back of a jungle jet while a no time fo just fills the seat while a low time Captian fly solo? (Comair crash?)
There will not be a pilot shortage if the wages were better than a fry cook at McDonalds.
Wages will not go up till folks stop taking the jobs.
Do you really want to trust your life to a low time pilot ?
This "plot shortage" is going to lead to Major problems down the road.
The good news I've made more money last month by having to go around at LAX. Rj wanted to turn around on the rwy and taxi back to the taxiway he over shot..... 12,000lbs of fuel and a lot of noise later...(oh well i get paid by the minute.) Hopfully seeing a 747 going missed low ,up close and personal woke him up.
Next week rj was told 180kts till the marker, they slowed to Vref early without saying anything..... Kind of scewed up the spacing a tad.
Well i guess the only fix is better training, like that is really going to happen,
WD
There will not be a pilot shortage if the wages were better than a fry cook at McDonalds.
Wages will not go up till folks stop taking the jobs.
Do you really want to trust your life to a low time pilot ?
This "plot shortage" is going to lead to Major problems down the road.
The good news I've made more money last month by having to go around at LAX. Rj wanted to turn around on the rwy and taxi back to the taxiway he over shot..... 12,000lbs of fuel and a lot of noise later...(oh well i get paid by the minute.) Hopfully seeing a 747 going missed low ,up close and personal woke him up.
Next week rj was told 180kts till the marker, they slowed to Vref early without saying anything..... Kind of scewed up the spacing a tad.
Well i guess the only fix is better training, like that is really going to happen,
WD
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There is no shortage of pilots in the United States, I was told by three different companies today that I was over qualified. One told me that if he hired me, he expected to have to pay me to fly while there are plenty of kids around that would do it for little or nothing. and he liked paying little or nothing. Oh well I guess there is a shortage after all.
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Originally Posted by whaledog
I will not fly on a commuter airline in the US. Do you really want to be sitting fat dumb and not happy in the back of a jungle jet while a no time fo just fills the seat while a low time Captian fly solo? (Comair crash?)
Just a thought.
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John gets hired as a low time f/o. The captains he flies with were hired as low time f/o's, like John is. In 2 years John becomes a cap'n. He's trained under the tutelage of low time, inexperienced pilots.
I would look at him as a self-taught pilot. His low time f/o's even more so.
I would look at him as a self-taught pilot. His low time f/o's even more so.
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flyboyike
Oh how I yearn for the glory days of aviation when people were born with experience.
A facile response.... of course nobody is born with experience... but hat experience should be gained hard time without putting the lives of paying passengers at risk. Give me an FO who's been flying night-freight out of vermont through a couple of winters on a Bandit anytime over some classroom qualified wanabee when things are going pearshaped on a crappy night.
Oh how I yearn for the glory days of aviation when people were born with experience.
A facile response.... of course nobody is born with experience... but hat experience should be gained hard time without putting the lives of paying passengers at risk. Give me an FO who's been flying night-freight out of vermont through a couple of winters on a Bandit anytime over some classroom qualified wanabee when things are going pearshaped on a crappy night.
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Originally Posted by poorwanderingun
A facile response.... of course nobody is born with experience... but hat experience should be gained hard time without putting the lives of paying passengers at risk. Give me an FO who's been flying night-freight out of vermont through a couple of winters on a Bandit anytime over some classroom qualified wanabee when things are going pearshaped on a crappy night.
I came to the airline after over a year of flying a turboprop, and what I struggled with was getting over the whole single-pilot mentality. The airplane wasn't the problem, the systems were no big deal. Getting used to being part of a crew was. Now imagine if I had 5,000 hours in the Bandit or a King Air doing all that freight flying. I submit to you the transition would have been even harder, not easier.
There is experience and then there's relevant experience. There is a reason why JAL, Lufthansa, Singapore, and many other big-time carriers pick up people with 200-250TT. It's to teach them the airline way from the outset. That way they are not reverting back to the Bandit and night freight while in the right seat of a 744. And those carriers have an exemplary safety record. That tells me that not all low-time pilots are created equal.
Besides, I fully expect to get to 10,000 (or whatever) hours and have fossils tell me that they didn't become a "real pilot" until their 14,546.3rd (or whatever) hour. In this business there never seems to be a shortage of people who get off by belittling others, with or without reason. Regrettable, I think.
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I've flown with 15,000hr pilots who performed pathatically on a regular basis for various reasons and with 500hr pilots who performed very well on a regular basis. So please save your 'flight time = experience' b.s. for someone who doesn't have thousands of hours and doesn't know there are sub-standard pilots out there with thousands of hours of flight time who can't fly worth a crap. The accident files are littered with high time but low experience pilots who looked very competent on paper and flew perfectly good airliners into the ground with hundreds of pax onboard. Experience is a matter of knowledge & ability, time alone only gives you a 'chance' to learn and improve yourself. Some choose not to put in the effort and learn next to nothing after all those thousands of hours of flying and their low performance level shows it... I see it all the time. Read pilot error accident reports and look at the high flight times of the pilots involved. Then ask yourself if they had a high experience level matching their high flight time.
Also a freight pilot flying Bandits or the like for a shady outfit which does not keep their equipment up to standards and expects it's pilots to break many regulations on a regular basis (pretty much ALL small plane freight outfits in the US), who has knowingly broken the rules to the satisfaction of his/her employer sinking below standards to keep his/her job is hardly the professional aviator I would hire. I don't care what kind of crap he/she has flown thru and lived. Those initial attitudes and habits are hard to get rid of. On the other hand a low time aviator who has been trained to perform to high standards with dicipline to adhere to SOPs and regulations is someone I would trust with my aircraft. I don't have to untrain a lot of bad habits and attitudes which are inherently present in the typical freight pilot who has the initial traits of a rougue pilot imprinted in his/her character as a basis of his/her 'experience'.
Amount of time is not a good indicator of 'experience level', simply becuase some people are lazy idiots. And once a lazy idiot, always a lazy idiot.
Cheers
Also a freight pilot flying Bandits or the like for a shady outfit which does not keep their equipment up to standards and expects it's pilots to break many regulations on a regular basis (pretty much ALL small plane freight outfits in the US), who has knowingly broken the rules to the satisfaction of his/her employer sinking below standards to keep his/her job is hardly the professional aviator I would hire. I don't care what kind of crap he/she has flown thru and lived. Those initial attitudes and habits are hard to get rid of. On the other hand a low time aviator who has been trained to perform to high standards with dicipline to adhere to SOPs and regulations is someone I would trust with my aircraft. I don't have to untrain a lot of bad habits and attitudes which are inherently present in the typical freight pilot who has the initial traits of a rougue pilot imprinted in his/her character as a basis of his/her 'experience'.
Amount of time is not a good indicator of 'experience level', simply becuase some people are lazy idiots. And once a lazy idiot, always a lazy idiot.
Cheers
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I will not fly on a commuter airline in the US. Do you really want to be sitting fat dumb and not happy in the back of a jungle jet while a no time fo just fills the seat while a low time Captian fly solo? (Comair crash?)
There will not be a pilot shortage if the wages were better than a fry cook at McDonalds.
Wages will not go up till folks stop taking the jobs.
Do you really want to trust your life to a low time pilot ?
This "plot shortage" is going to lead to Major problems down the road.
The good news I've made more money last month by having to go around at LAX. Rj wanted to turn around on the rwy and taxi back to the taxiway he over shot..... 12,000lbs of fuel and a lot of noise later...(oh well i get paid by the minute.) Hopfully seeing a 747 going missed low ,up close and personal woke him up.
Next week rj was told 180kts till the marker, they slowed to Vref early without saying anything..... Kind of scewed up the spacing a tad.
Well i guess the only fix is better training, like that is really going to happen,
WD
Then how about the US airline heavy that was lined up with 25R although they were cleared for VISUAL 24R two weeks ago at LAX. Not only they had to go around themselves, they made a 737 go around as well due to a TCAS RA and we were right behind that 737 watching this whole thing listening to ATC calling them repeatedly. I met the morons on the crew bus later, they were mistakenly on ground freq already while on final and only went around becuase they saw an RJ in position and holding. They didn't have a clue it was the wrong runway until then. Both high time with thousands of hours to go along with their white hair. What's their excuse??? Calculate the fuel burn for that one. I would not trust my life with these two morons, I don't care how many thousands of hours they have.
Cheers
There will not be a pilot shortage if the wages were better than a fry cook at McDonalds.
Wages will not go up till folks stop taking the jobs.
Do you really want to trust your life to a low time pilot ?
This "plot shortage" is going to lead to Major problems down the road.
The good news I've made more money last month by having to go around at LAX. Rj wanted to turn around on the rwy and taxi back to the taxiway he over shot..... 12,000lbs of fuel and a lot of noise later...(oh well i get paid by the minute.) Hopfully seeing a 747 going missed low ,up close and personal woke him up.
Next week rj was told 180kts till the marker, they slowed to Vref early without saying anything..... Kind of scewed up the spacing a tad.
Well i guess the only fix is better training, like that is really going to happen,
WD
Then how about the US airline heavy that was lined up with 25R although they were cleared for VISUAL 24R two weeks ago at LAX. Not only they had to go around themselves, they made a 737 go around as well due to a TCAS RA and we were right behind that 737 watching this whole thing listening to ATC calling them repeatedly. I met the morons on the crew bus later, they were mistakenly on ground freq already while on final and only went around becuase they saw an RJ in position and holding. They didn't have a clue it was the wrong runway until then. Both high time with thousands of hours to go along with their white hair. What's their excuse??? Calculate the fuel burn for that one. I would not trust my life with these two morons, I don't care how many thousands of hours they have.
Cheers
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Work Permits
If there is this shortage of pilots in the US, what are the chances of a British person with FAA tickets getting a job in the US - even for a year or two?
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>>>Oh how I yearn for the glory days of aviation when people were born with experience.<<<
I yearn for the days when experience was valued.
The problem with a certain number of low time pilots in the United States is not that they are low time, but that they don’t value experience. This seems to be the result of being told during their training in the pilot puppy mills that “good training” is more important than experience. Then, when they start to fly for a living, they are paired with Captains with only a couple of years in the real world.
Compare this to a European ab-initio program where the new FO clearly understands that he has a lot to learn, is expected to work diligently at learning it, and is paired with well seasoned Captains. Same with the United States in the late 60’s when low time pilots were being hired.
What we have in the United States is a profit based training system that tries to increase its perceived value by denigrating the importance of experience. This attitude then flows into their trainees and airline management.
I yearn for the days when experience was valued.
The problem with a certain number of low time pilots in the United States is not that they are low time, but that they don’t value experience. This seems to be the result of being told during their training in the pilot puppy mills that “good training” is more important than experience. Then, when they start to fly for a living, they are paired with Captains with only a couple of years in the real world.
Compare this to a European ab-initio program where the new FO clearly understands that he has a lot to learn, is expected to work diligently at learning it, and is paired with well seasoned Captains. Same with the United States in the late 60’s when low time pilots were being hired.
What we have in the United States is a profit based training system that tries to increase its perceived value by denigrating the importance of experience. This attitude then flows into their trainees and airline management.
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JulianStorey wrote:
"If there is this shortage of pilots in the US, what are the chances of a British person with FAA tickets getting a job in the US - even for a year or two?"
Better than an American with a current CAA/JAR ATPL and type rating without a "Right to live and work in the EU" passport. A bit lopsided don't you think?
RDG
"If there is this shortage of pilots in the US, what are the chances of a British person with FAA tickets getting a job in the US - even for a year or two?"
Better than an American with a current CAA/JAR ATPL and type rating without a "Right to live and work in the EU" passport. A bit lopsided don't you think?
RDG
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Originally Posted by 742
I yearn for the days when experience was valued.
I value experience very much. What I don't value is people waving their logbooks in my face as conclusive proof that their flatulence has no odor.
For the record, I worked very diligently throughout my training and am fully aware that, as Master Yoda would put it, much to learn I still have.
742 and HeavyWrenchFlyer posted some thought-provoking comments.
A Line Check Airmen at this crewbase described the possibility that some future pilot new-hires might have mostly glass-c0ckpit experience. I hope I'm not quickly paired with any such new-hires (maybe next year?) unless they received adequate legs during IOE. One of our guys jumpseated recently to TYS and it was quite an eye-opener for him. The plane has some glass but no autothrottles. He told us that he was very relieved when the Captain finally took the controls, perhaps having been reluctant at first to embarass the new FO in front of an off-line guy on the jumpseat.
Can they learn to fly an old jet, with no 'glass' automation? There are many (727s) at Fedex also. Southwest pilots are supposedly trained to not use LNAV and VNAV. Their glass displays in the SWA Boeing 737-800 were designed by Boeing to indicate airspeed, VSI etc as if on round gauges.
Might one underlying problem, discussed in various ways on this thread, be caused partly because of many young pilots' reliance on automation for almost the entire flight? It might be most awkward to go on a "steam-gauge" jet from ORD to LGA or ATL-DTW, forced to navigate with a Jepp Hi Chart and the DYLYN Arrival to EWR with weather enroute. Or fly a procedure turn at Kalispell or Missoula, MT on a pitch black night.
A Line Check Airmen at this crewbase described the possibility that some future pilot new-hires might have mostly glass-c0ckpit experience. I hope I'm not quickly paired with any such new-hires (maybe next year?) unless they received adequate legs during IOE. One of our guys jumpseated recently to TYS and it was quite an eye-opener for him. The plane has some glass but no autothrottles. He told us that he was very relieved when the Captain finally took the controls, perhaps having been reluctant at first to embarass the new FO in front of an off-line guy on the jumpseat.
Can they learn to fly an old jet, with no 'glass' automation? There are many (727s) at Fedex also. Southwest pilots are supposedly trained to not use LNAV and VNAV. Their glass displays in the SWA Boeing 737-800 were designed by Boeing to indicate airspeed, VSI etc as if on round gauges.
Might one underlying problem, discussed in various ways on this thread, be caused partly because of many young pilots' reliance on automation for almost the entire flight? It might be most awkward to go on a "steam-gauge" jet from ORD to LGA or ATL-DTW, forced to navigate with a Jepp Hi Chart and the DYLYN Arrival to EWR with weather enroute. Or fly a procedure turn at Kalispell or Missoula, MT on a pitch black night.
Last edited by Ignition Override; 16th Jun 2007 at 07:25.