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Airlines Face Acute Pilot Shortage
Hugh Pickens writes "The WSJ reports that U.S. airlines are facing their most serious pilot shortage since the 1960s. Federal mandates are taking effect that will require all newly hired pilots to have at least 1,500 hours of prior flight experience — six times the current minimum. This raises the cost and time to train new fliers in an era when pay cuts and more-demanding schedules already have made the profession less attractive. Meanwhile, thousands of senior pilots at major airlines soon will start hitting the mandatory retirement age of 65. 'We are about four years from a solution, but we are only about six months away from a problem,' says Bob Reding, recently retired executive vice president of operations at AMR Corp. A study by the University of North Dakota's aviation department indicates major airlines will need to hire 60,000 pilots by 2025 to replace departures and cover expansion over the next eight years. Meanwhile, only 36,000 pilots have passed the Air Transport Pilot exam in the past eight years, which all pilots would have to pass under the Congressionally imposed rules, and there are limits to the ability of airlines, especially the regional carriers, to attract more pilots by raising wages. While the industry's health has improved in recent years, many carriers still operate on thin profit margins, with the airlines sandwiched between rising costs for fuel and unsteady demand from price-sensitive consumers. 'It certainly will result in challenges to maintain quality,' says John Marshall, an independent aviation-safety consultant who spent 26 years in the Air Force before overseeing Delta's safety. 'Regional carriers will be creative and have to take shortcuts' to fill their cockpits."
It didn't seem like we were having any real problems due to inexperienced pilots before. If this is really a problem, let's just roll this back.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Golly....if only there was something the airlines could do to make being a pilot more attractive.
This raises the cost and time to train new fliers in an era when pay cuts and more-demanding schedules already have made the profession less attractive.
Well, duh! Cut pay, make schedules more demanding, and whine about a pilot shortage!
"with the airlines sandwiched between rising costs for fuel and unsteady demand from price-sensitive consumers"
I think consumers are sensitive to more than just price. The humiliating experience that flying has become in the USA could contribute.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Air travel prices go up, demand goes down until they match. The riff-raff will have to travel Greyhound.
This plan is already in motion, that's why the TSA has started to search "the bus people".
lucm, indeed.
I would expect this to usher in an era of complete flight automation, right from taxi-ing, to taking off, to flying, and to landing. That would be so cool :D
Unlikely to happen for the same reason we don't have robots dispensing pills instead of pharmacists. If a human makes an error you can blame them and end their career and cut ties.
If an automated system makes an error then you blame the company(s) that engineered, wrote, tested and built the automation system. Too much blame pointing back that can't be easily put off on a scape goat.
(grin)
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
with the airlines sandwiched between rising costs for fuel and unsteady demand from price-sensitive consumers
Really? Actually, jet fuel prices have leveled off in the last six months.
Not all the airlines are doing badly. Southwest--a low-fare carrier--is doing just fine. Maybe there are other problems at the "traditional" airlines.
The simple fact is that there are just not enough reasons that makes one want to be an airline pilot.
Some of the downsides are:
Expensive outlay in initial training through to Commercial Pilot Licence level.
Huge time investment in hour building after that, flying usually as an instructor, hacking about with students doing their best to kill you, for nowhere near enough money to live on without a second job or two.
Even more expense to get multi engine rating, turbine rating...
Then you get to sit your ATPL.
Then if you're lucky you might get offered a job as first officer (copilot)
Then you have to do a rating on the aircraft you're going to be flying, which you'll have to pay for, and is generally stupendously expensive, or your employer pays for your rating but you are then indentured to the employer for years. All the time earning diddly-squat.
Ascending to captains chair, or onto larger types, is usually seniority based, and if you want to move to a new employer, you go back to the bottom of the ladder.
Most of the upsides are:
You get to fly planes for a living.
You get to wear a pilot hat and put bars on your sleeves.
It's just not an attractive job any more. It's not even an "impressive" job any more, once upon a time, pilots were seen as near enough to gods, today, they are barely a step above your local bus driver.
For some, getting to fly panes for a living is enough,they just love flying *that much*. But there are not enough of those people to meet the demand.
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The shortage of doctors in the U.S. is due to the AMA cartel's control over university accreditation and corresponding rent-seeking state laws requiring accreditation. The result is speed-exams when you go visit a doctor (or maybe not see the doctor at all, but rather a "nurse practitioner").
Similarly, with legislatively reduced supply of pilots, look for cattle class throughout, with even tighter row spacing. Better keep those 747's tuned up, airlines, because you're gonna need to convert them to full economy class the way Japan uses all-economy class 747's between Osaka and Tokyo.
Don't worry, even though there won't be a business class to upgrade to with your frequent flyer miles, you'll still be able to spend your miles on magazine subscriptions.
Why am I not surprised that the libertarian with the malware download link completely glossed over the low pay and bad schedule?
There is a problem with high speed rail. It requires good public transportation at the end nodes. It works in Europe because they have good local public transportation systems. It will not work in the US because we do not.
High speed rail is step 2, not step 1.
Step 1 is good local public transportation.
Instructing is not an apprenticeship. First Officer is an apprenticeship, a program which of course already exists.
Take off every 'sig' !!
There's a shortage of airline pilots because the job doesn't pay well any more and takes extensive training. Training most US airlines are not willing to pay for. The WSJ is whining that the FAA raised the standards for an Airline Transport Pilot rating and requires pilots to get more sleep. That's in response to the crash of Continental flight 3407 on February 12, 2009. The WSJ conveniently does not mention that.
Some airlines do pay for training. Here's the British Airways training program. BA pays pilot trainees as employees through the whole training process. Most US airlines expect pilots to work for years for less than a typical city bus driver makes to build up their hours before they fly the big iron.
A First Officer (copilot) on RyanAir starts at $3700 a month.
I am an ATP Pilot turned computer programmer. There is no shortage of pilots, just a shortage of pilots willing to work for 18k a year and be treated like crap. I went into the airlines after 4 years of college for a bachelor in Aeronautical Science, several years of flight training and being an instructor and over 100k in debt. What I found out was that the old theory of working for a commuter to build your time was gone. The major airlines outsource over 65 percent of the flying to the commuters who are now flying tons of the majors old routes. So what you have to look forward to someday is maybe making it to a major after surviving several furloughs and years of 18k in pay. Oh yeah the furloughs? They are because the majors move the flying around to whoever is cheaper, and if a commuter starts to get too powerful, they shut them down and open them back up under a different name after filing bankruptcy and selling the assets off to their new company. Over the years it has gone from needing to be super experienced and professional to guaranteeing people jobs if they pay the airlines 70k. Yes that's right people now pay them for guaranteed jobs. Oh and the crash rate? There was years without a pilot error crash, then the airlines started lowering their minimums, and requirements from college degree to heartbeat, and they plowed 3 or 4 into the ground within a few years. The whole thing is really complicated, and the airlines like it that way. On top of all this they put out propaganda that the avg pilot makes $120k a year. Guess what the average pilot now makes $22k a year, has to pay for a dump crashpad, parking, their own uniforms etc... All this for a job that you are never home and on avg is letting you get home to your family maybe 10 days a month after the bitch of commuting. Oh and on top of it, the government bails the bad airlines out every time they go into bankruptcy. United and US Air were out of business in 2005 ish time. Guess what the government came in, wouldn't let the creditors re po their airplanes, and bailed them out. So the next time you say you "won't fly this airline", don't bother. Because your tax payer money allows them to run the crappiest operation they can. Politics gets involved and they say "we have to keep the airline" x amount of people will lose their jobs. Guess what, all the airlines that were doing a good job have planes and pilots ready to go on furlough, and can help the "FREE MARKET" prosper. The problem is it's not free, especially when cities and states fund their pensions on US Airways stock, and the shit starts hitting the fan. Sincerely, a bitter ATP pilot that isn't going back to that crap hole job for less than 200k!
It also has no intuition or learned experience. It cannot make a leap of logic and intuition and perform actions "outside the envelope" to save a desperate and logically hopeless situation. If you want to know what I mean, go read up on some of the stories about how many WW2 pilots managed to bring their aircraft home after severe damage when they should not have logically been able to stay in the air. Many private, charter, and airline pilots can tell you about similar seemingly-doomed mid-air situations, especially in places like Alaska, where it was an experienced and intuitive move counter to normal logic on the human pilot's part that saved the day.
If some military drone goes down, oh well, just another item on the next supply req form. When it's a plane full of passengers, people get all excited for some reason.
You'd really need something close to a true human-level AI, IMHO. We ain't there yet.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Yeah, myth busters in a sim, where the "pilot" was not tired after a long shift and had to land the aircraft already put in line with the runway, was perfectly functional, with a perfect radio connection, with no real life pressure, could land it in perfect weather conditions.
Well, here is a fucking hint, I did that WITHOUT someone talking me through it. It is fucking easy! That they even managed to crash shows how stupid these guys really are. Anyone can try it themselves, you can play with high quality sims as "games" on the PC all you want and most come with scenario's that do put you in line with the runway and all you got to do is land. As long as you don't start freaking out and jerking the controller around, you will be able to land the plane pretty easily.
The problem in real life is that when shit happens, it happens in spade. Bad weather, confusing communication, failing instruments, high pressure, lack of sleep. THAT causes accidents, not having to land fresh on a sunny day with no wind on an wide open runway.
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You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They didn't offer sufficient pay and now they don't have enough pilots. Seems pretty simple to me.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Well, they better start paying pilots a lot more money then. I don't see what the problem is. If they have to start charging more for tickets to cover the overhead, then they have to charge more for tickets. It is not like it is a cost that will affect one airline but not another.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/airline-and-commercial-pilots.htm#tab-5
Just to bring some numbers into the discussion.
Personally, I'm a private pilot, I would NEVER make this my profession - so much more money to make in IT, and working hours as a pilot are pretty bad mostly.
Don't forget that entry level pay is much less than those stats show - that's the MEDIAN (not even average).
"The median annual wage of commercial pilots was $67,500 in May 2010. Among commercial pilots, the lowest 10 percent earned less than $34,860 and the top 10 percent earned more than $119,650."
For such an important job this pay is RIDICULOUSLY LOW.
How odd, in the Netherlands we have a surplus of trained pilots. It was big news here of few weeks ago, with many freshly graduated pilots even willing to fly for known unsafe Africa/Asia based airlines just to get a job!
Some news articles (dutch) i grabbed just now via Google:
- http://www.nrc.nl/carriere/2012/10/16/zorgen-over-opleiding-en-banenmarkt-verkeersvliegers/
- (dated) http://blog.spitsnet.nl/2010/06/28/jonge-piloot-zit-zonder-baan/
Hivemind harvest in progress..
... who knows?
Maybe the gubment hikes the basic requirement to force the airline to think of the unthinkable - to employ robots as pilots
Hey, Hong Hai (Foxconn) is doing it in China, Canon is doing it in Japan, what is stopping USA from joining in the fun?
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The numbers you give for the 747 don't look unreasonable to me, but it seems worth noting that jet airplane efficiency is downright awful compared to other mass-transit. While jet planes are the only practical solution in many cases (overseas, extremely long haul), they're overused in the U.S., where poorly developed regional transit leads to an over-reliance on inefficient (in terms of fuel usage, landling slots, etc) regional jets. It would be a good idea to better develop regional and medium-distance rail, and concentrate on using air-travel for cases where it works better (many countries have already done this of course).
5 gallons of jet fuel per mile is around 450MJ/km; if we assume a 747 holds 450 seats, that's about 1MJ/seat-km. A bit of googling suggests that this is roughly accurate, but probably based on cruising efficiency only; takeoff/landing is much less efficient, and regional jets are signficantly less efficient than large ones.
Modern HSR (and modern non-HSR electric rail) uses around 0.15MJ/seat-km or better....
We live, as we dream -- alone....
They need 60000 pilots by 2025 (i.e. in the next 13 years), and only 36000 have passed the ATPL exam in the past eight years...
60000 divided by 13, times 8, makes... 36923
Slightly less dramatic than you thought, no?
Drones do exist that can take off, fly some given route, come back, and land. If the weather is fine. With systems no more complicated than simple flight controls, an engine, and whatever surveillance equipment they're carrying. Even with those extremely modest requirements, a pretty high number of them still crash due to some malfunction or other.
If you ever have a chance to witness a flight simulator session, by all means do. As soon as systems start failing (which they do in real life, from time to time), both pilots are extremely busy and we would often wish for a third pilot to help out. Airplane manufacturers are not even considering moving to a single pilot, let alone no pilots. Maybe in a hundred years or so, but certainly not in the near future.
Remember Qantas flight 32, with an engine that exploded and cut a number of fuel lines and electrical systems? They actually had five pilots in the cockpit instead of the normal minimum of two (observation, check pilots,...) and still took hours before they could get all the checklists done to land the plane safely.
Whenever systems start failing in a serious way, automation starts giving up as well. Big failure in the electrical or hydraulic system? Say bye-bye to the autopilot too. Trust me, you still need us.
Here's a step by step approach to becoming a commercial airline pilot:
1) Spend $15-20K on getting your private pilots license
2) Spend another $10K on your instrument, high performance, and complex ratings
3) Fly 250 hours at a cost of about $100/hr to build time and experience
4) Spend another $5-10K on a commercial rating
5) Become a flight instructor, getting paid about $10-15/hr to put your life in the hands of a student pilot - fly about 500 hours as a flight instructor
6) Spend another $5-10K on a CFII rating, so you can instruct instrument, getting a ~$2/hr raise
7) Fly another 500 hours at $12-17/hr teaching instrument
8) Spend $5-10K on Multi Engine Instrument and MEI-Instructor ratings
9) Fly 200 hours Multi
10) Apply for a first officer position at a Charter or Regional making $10-12/hr, but with benefits, if awarded job, spend $5-10K of your own money on the rating for whatever aircraft you'll be flying, and your ATP rating
11) Fly 1000-2000 hours as a first officer, and then apply for a captain position making $15-20/hr with benefits.
12) Fly 1000-2000 hours as captain for a Charter or Regional, then apply for a First Officer position for a major airline, making $20K/year - the airline MIGHT pay for your rating on their B737 or whatever you'll be flying
13) Do that for 25 years
14) On a seniority basis, you'll be able to apply for a captain position when an existing captain quits, dies, or retires. Then you'll make $100K plus.
So the short story is, you'll lay out $200K of your own money to get a job that pays $10/hr, and you'll make that for 25 years, and then maybe you'll get a left seat and make the big bucks, but chances are you won't, because you'll either get sick of working 100 hours/week for 40 hours of $10/hr pay and quit, or you'll fail your Class-1 Medical on Blood Pressure and lose your job.
I wish the TSA would go ahead with the plan to place an agent in every home. Got up last night to fetch a glass of water, and having an agent waiting in the hallway to grab my balls could have provided much needed warmth and a feeling of security against the threat of copyright infringing terrorists.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
I'm stunned the article doesn't include the public's distaste for dealing with the TSA as a substantial contributing factor in lower patronage. I've always assumed it was at least a relevant number. I know I don't fly anymore unless unavoidable due to TSA. I've had friends lose computers at the airlines. I'm avoiding the airports, and keeping both my dignity and my property safe.
Maybe the airlines need to do some serious lobbying to get rid of the TSA, if only to be looking out for themselves? I've heard they understand it's affecting sales, but I don't see them doing anything about it other than cowering and going along with it. Ad when their customers complain, they just blame all the inconvenience on the TSA. (who really doesn't give a damn) I can't believe they have no ability to influence change here.
If they're really in as dire straights as they're saying, evicting the TSA from their terminals ought to be somewhere on their how-to-avoid-bankrupcy list.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
What you have to understand is this. When the airlines talk of a pilot shortage, what they are saying is "There are only 20 applicants for each job". Normally, there are 200 applicants for each job.
The thing is most people who fly *really want to fly* and will practically prostitute themselves just to be in the air. This causes several bad things to happen. For instance, the majority of flight instructors aren't instructing because they want to, they are instructing merely to build hours to get that airline job. This means many private pilots are being trained by instructors with a few hundred hours, who aren't good teachers and have no interest in actual teaching. (This is why I found a grizzled old freelance instructor who did instruction as something on the side to his main job as an engineer, he was instructing because he cared about instructing, and also had thousands of hours of experience). That's not to say all young instructors with their eyes on the airlines are like this -- there are some who really do care, and continue to instruct after they get the coveted airline job. But at the same time, whenever I go for a checkout to rent a plane somewhere, it's not unusual that I have three times the hours than the instructor who is checking me out, and a much broader depth of experience. Aspiring airline pilots also take on some other pretty awful flying jobs such as flying canceled checks around in marginally airworthy aircraft in weather conditions they have no business flying in (single pilot IFR in a marginally airworthy light twin is pretty risky). I get the impression that half the aspiring commercial pilots would do these jobs for free, or even pay for the privilege.
Because there's never really a shortage of pilots as most normal people understand it, even during times of "pilot shortage", the pilots of smaller airliners (think the small turboprop aircraft feeding into airline hubs) are paid peanuts. You can make more as a first level supervisor at Mc.Donald's than you can as an airline first officer in these outfits. It's not until you have quite a lot of seniority and are flying a jet do you actually get a liveable wage.
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No, really: who says flying has to be cheap? If ticket costs skyrocket, what might happen? Here's a couple possibilities. /from airports and pre-board time).
1) Business use of video conferencing goes up.
2) People learn to take vacations nearer to home.
3) Buses and trains handle all the short-haul traffic (as it is right now, it's faster to go Boston-NY by Acela than by air when you factor in travel to
4) More sunny days due to reduced quantity of contrails.
Ok, that last one is a stretch. But I see no reason to exempt airline corporations from the rules of Economics 101.
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is that spoiled little children like you still haven't figured out that the adults are getting tired of your self-entitled whining and tingking that we should all be honored for the privilege of being forced to clean up your messes.