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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?
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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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!
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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
It seems many people are arguing "but that's not going to work, the airlines are already on so very thin profit margins".
Ticket prices are going to rise. A number of airlines are going to file for bankruptcy. Well bohoo. That's just the way it should be - market economy at work.
"Everyone who believes in telekinesis, raise my hand..." - James Randi