Congress agrees to 1500hr min for airlines.

HeyEng said:
Looks like Congress is in the finally stages of getting the reconciled version to the Senate. They are mentioning "middle of this week"...but they are running late as of now. The union stuff seems to be tying it up.

All in all, I think it's a great idea. I wonder how it's going to go down. Most of the articles mention changing the minimums from 250 to 1500...so what would they be doing exactly? 1500 to get a new "121" type of certificate...or just adjusting the time requirements for the ATP? There is NO way they could adjust the commercial requirements to 1500 hours!
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They are going to make 121 requirements 1500 just like 135 IFR is 1200.
 
boondr said:
I think (operative words) that there is another dynamic here, in the sense that Embry-Riddle, other colleges and the "we'll make you an airline pilot in 90 days" schools will be out a lot of students if the students realize just the flight training to get an airline job costs what a Harvard education does. The other part of this is the time building jobs are going to stay at about the same numbers so there will be a true "filter-up" system. Just my thoughts and honestly I am probably the least knowledgeable of anyone here on this subject as I have never even looked at a pilot job.
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I'd be curious how many 190/250 hour CMELs the regionals hired out of Riddle(or anywhere) last year. I'd be willing to be it was 0. So this doesn't actually change anything except maybe the pilot mills have a harder time telling their students they can do 0 to hero.
 
They can make the requirement 10,000 hours, but until they can produce magical energy pills with no side-effects, I don't know that this will change much.
 
Murdoughnut said:
... to the end of Gulfstream Academy :beer:
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NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was PROMISED an airline job for just thousands of dollars!!!!! Life isn't fair!!!!!!!!!!











































Just a tiny bit of dripping sarcasm. (Speaking of that...where did the sarcasm button go?)
 
I feel really bad for the current regional bus drivers. You think its bad now, wait till they can find enough warm bodies to fill the right seats.
 
USMCmech said:
It will take 2-3 years for this to have any effect on wages.

When supply hits a hard floor, and demand is climbing, then wages will have only one direction to move.
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Seems like it takes 2-3 years for anything to really take effect in this industry.

Things will evolve. Patience is our biggest asset now.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
Agreed. Right now you probably have to have close to 1500 hours to get hired anywhere, yet there are still tons of people lining up to be treated like crap by Colgan and Pinnacle.
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I was the only person with an ATP at my Colgan interview in March, and one of the few who had more than 1500 TT.
 
z987k said:
I'd be curious how many 190/250 hour CMELs the regionals hired out of Riddle(or anywhere) last year. I'd be willing to be it was 0. So this doesn't actually change anything except maybe the pilot mills have a harder time telling their students they can do 0 to hero.
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And that is a good thing...

Perhaps now they'll see the value in actually getting some more training rather than just trying to jump ship the day after they get their slip of Commercial Multi-Engine in their hand.

This is aviation tough love - for the utopian dreamers, airline management teams, and gurus of exploiting money from naive young chaps/chapettes (re: Flight School Owners and Marketing teams).
 
z987k said:
Unless the amount of people training goes way down, I see this happening for a few years while the low time jobs are over-saturated with pilots, but eventually it will catch up and there will be 10,000 pilots that have 1,500 hours to. I just don't see any pay increase until supply goes down. That is basic supply and demand no?
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As has been said...

Yes, it is. If the supply of pilots goes down, demand goes up. Setting the bar at 1500 hours would make it nearly impossible for the ATP's of the world to churn out their wonder kids in 90 days with 1500 hours. If it isnt possible/logical to shell out the ungodly amount of money that would be required to buy 1500 hours and be a cool airline pilot in a matter of a few months :insane:, then the number of people training will decrease.

Back in '07 airlines were forced to hire 250 hour ATP wonders... this will no longer be an option and something will have to change to lure more pilots to the airline industry. (pay, work rules, schedules... etc)

And for the record, I'm at 1100 hours and all for the new requirements.
 
averettpilot said:
I'd be interested to know what pilot's support this bill. Are they those who have over 1500 TT and stand something to gain by the pool of competitors being shrunk? Just interested to know.
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I think the people that support the bill are people that don't want to see 300 hours guys in the right seat ever again. All the talk of pay is a red herring to what the intent of this bill was about.

And yes, you can go through the NTSB archives and find plenty of accidents that involve high time crews, but I can also tell you plenty of stories where the only thing keeping the plane I was flying out of the dirt was me because if I wasn't there for some reason the guy in the right seat sure as hell wouldn't have been able to keep the plane in the air. And that was just on a normal operations day. No weather. No fatigue. No MX issues.
 
I should also add, that this alone is not enough in my book if we are really trying to improve safety.

The FAA needs to - without Congress's strict legislating - reform flight time / duty time regulations to address fatigue.

Airlines need to have the flexability to terminate a pilot after multiple training failures - without the Union continually defending the guys' job - one too many failures could end up with another Buffalo. ALPA Pro-Stands and Training committees and obviously Negotiating and Contract compliance need to find a way to protect the integrity of this profession. How many training failures is okay, well, all of us will have different opinions - but there needs to be an "Enough is enough...turn over your stuff...good luck" point.
 
FlyingPoke said:
As has been said...

Yes, it is. If the supply of pilots goes down, demand goes up. Setting the bar at 1500 hours would make it nearly impossible for the ATP's of the world to churn out their wonder kids in 90 days with 1500 hours. If it isnt possible/logical to shell out the ungodly amount of money that would be required to buy 1500 hours and be a cool airline pilot in a matter of a few months :insane:, then the number of people training will decrease.

Back in '07 airlines were forced to hire 250 hour ATP wonders... this will no longer be an option and something will have to change to lure more pilots to the airline industry. (pay, work rules, schedules... etc)

And for the record, I'm at 1100 hours and all for the new requirements.
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I am for the rules to... as long as it doesn't force poverty on pilots for an even longer period of time.
That being said, no one is hiring 250 hour CMELs out of ATP or any other training program. So people going to those are currently either grossly deceived(which if you are that naive, you will still be deceived with the new rules) or know that they have to put their time in anyways, so I don't see this really changing anything including the supply of pilots.
What I don't want to see is the pilots that normally go 121 at 800-1200 hours all staying in the lower time jobs making them pay even less(with the same influx of new pilots), and then when you do get to the 121 mins, I think people are delusional if they think the regionals are going to start paying any more... so now 5-8+ years of more low pay.
 
The regional industry missed a golden opportunity to raise QOL back in 06-08 when the lack of "qualified" applicants forced the airlines to continuously keep lowering the bar in order to avoid having to make the job more attractive to the thousands of qualified applicants that still existed out there yet refused to work for the subpar wages. Now with this new law, the next time we face a senario similar to what we saw in 06-08 we will see the airlines forced to increase the pay and QOL to attract the pilots they need to keep the planes flying. Now lets get the new rest/duty time rules made!
 
z987k said:
I am for the rules to... as long as it doesn't force poverty on pilots for an even longer period of time.
That being said, no one is hiring 250 hour CMELs out of ATP or any other training program. So people going to those are currently either grossly deceived(which if you are that naive, you will still be deceived with the new rules) or know that they have to put their time in anyways, so I don't see this really changing anything including the supply of pilots.
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Supply of willing yuppies to the pilot mills is down now that you cant go zero-to-hero in months... Sure they are getting some students through there but sooner or later the supply of 1500 hour pilots will dwindle and they will not be easily replaced by these pilot mills. The thought process will no longer be 'Sure its 60k and one year of bad pay, but at least I'm in a shiny jet with a future!'... it will now be '60k and beating around in a 172 for 3 years making 30k or less with no upward mobility only to start over again at the bottom of the regional payscale - no thanks' (sorry that was long, but hopefully it made sense)

Demand will pass supply, and that is when pilots will have the upper hand... at the airline level anyway, all other pay will continue to be crap. (and no I dont feel bad for those behind me having to put up with such a long period of crap pay, I'm doing it now and I believe with this new rule it will be worth the time spent)
 
FlyingPoke said:
Supply of willing yuppies to the pilot mills is down now that you cant go zero-to-hero in months... Sure they are getting some students through there but sooner or later the supply of 1500 hour pilots will dwindle and they will not be easily replaced by these pilot mills. The thought process will no longer be 'Sure its 60k and one year of bad pay, but at least I'm in a shiny jet with a future!'... it will now be '60k and beating around in a 172 for 3 years making 30k or less with no upward mobility only to start over again at the bottom of the regional payscale - no thanks' (sorry that was long, but hopefully it made sense)

Demand will pass supply, and that is when pilots will have the upper hand... at the airline level anyway, all other pay will continue to be crap.
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I hope so, but understanding how the business world works I'm not quite as optimistic.
 
BobDDuck said:
I think the people that support the bill are people that don't want to see 300 hours guys in the right seat ever again. All the talk of pay is a red herring to what the intent of this bill was about.

And yes, you can go through the NTSB archives and find plenty of accidents that involve high time crews, but I can also tell you plenty of stories where the only thing keeping the plane I was flying out of the dirt was me because if I wasn't there for some reason the guy in the right seat sure as hell wouldn't have been able to keep the plane in the air. And that was just on a normal operations day. No weather. No fatigue. No MX issues.
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My point is that time has only a small part to play in the matter. I think it's a bit ill conceived to think that a 300 hour pilot isn't CAPABLE of safely performing the duties of FO/SIC. Airlines should make sure they are capable through training and testing and I believe in most instances they do.

Your assertion that the guy in the right seat wouldn't have been able to keep the plane in the air seems to mean that you think, on the whole, that right seaters serve no purpose. I would ask you how much time your SIC had at the moment of your heroic recovery. You see, to me, it seems that through your experiences and your training through the years allowed you to solve whatever problem you allowed to develop on a seemingly easy operations day. Perhaps something you learned sitting in the right seat as a low time guy.

I don't know the circumstances, if I'm close or if I am way off, but I'd hate to see an avenue for learning and career advancement closed off because people are scared into thinking higher TT's equals safer, which is why I brought up the point of high time crew accidents. I think the issues lie much deeper than total time. This is all my humble opinion.

In case you wonder what my motives are, I am 1600 hr pilot. I am for change and would support this, however the bill (as I have read it) seems vague, broad, and incomplete with regards to the other issues such as duty time, rest, training, etc.
 
z987k said:
What I don't want to see is the pilots that normally go 121 at 800-1200 hours all staying in the lower time jobs making them pay even less(with the same influx of new pilots)
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Except this is exactly what will happen, and then it will begin to compound and worsen exponentially. As the low time job market (mainly flight instructing) becomes extremely over-saturated and the pay and QOL drop even lower, the number of student pilots will eventually drop as well. Even those who are truly passionate about aviation will shy away when they find out that after graduating from their 50 to 150K they will need to spend another 2 or 3 making no money as a CFI, if they can even find a job.

As flight school attendance drops the number of CFI jobs will decrease, shrinking the already wildly over-crowded low time pilot market. It is an economic noose that will just keep tightening until the flow of new CFIs starts to slow.

And I think this has been covered in previous threads on this topic but just to be sure...previously hired 121 pilots with less than 1,500 hrs will be grandfathered in when the new rule takes effect...is that correct?
 
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