Another Harebrained Idea by AAG

z987k said:
The lack of an accident is not indicative of safety or the system working. I thought we all understood that at this point.

If the feds want to mandate something considerably more difficult than the current 135 ride and let anyone with any amount of hours take a shot at it then i might be supportive but thats not how it would work. A lot of places will slow pitch to get a guy through if they need. Especially with in house examiners.
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Repeal Check 21 to bring back the 135 freight heyday, ban those snoozeworthy turbine singles from commercial IFR flying, Make IFR 135 mins wet CMEL, make the checkride easy, and then make mins for pax carrying 2000 hours or something. Make freight dogging great again, and if you survive long enough you're worthy of carrying pax.
 
Roger Roger said:
Repeal Check 21 to bring back the 135 freight heyday, ban those snoozeworthy turbine singles from commercial IFR flying, Make IFR 135 mins wet CMEL, make the checkride easy, and then make mins for pax carrying 2000 hours or something. Make freight dogging great again, and if you survive long enough you're worthy of carrying pax.
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What is "check 21"?
 
Is no one else appalled that they are so desperate that they are considering sending new hires overseas to build time? The "best and the brightest" just can not seem to accept the fact that the model is dead, kaput, expired, no longer of this earth and are willing to try ANYTHING to extend its life rather than just to do the right thing.
 
z987k said:
The lack of an accident is not indicative of safety or the system working. I thought we all understood that at this point.

If the feds want to mandate something considerably more difficult than the current 135 ride and let anyone with any amount of hours take a shot at it then i might be supportive but thats not how it would work. A lot of places will slow pitch to get a guy through if they need. Especially with in house examiners.
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I don't for a second doubt operators are lowering standards. Very few qualified people would work at those places right now when you can go to an airline, make way more money with better benefits, and end up where you'd end up in the first place without taking a detour. So you have to 'expand your base' so to speak and hire the less desirable.

What my point was is that during the heyday low time days at the regionals guys were getting through training with low washout rates despite high standards. Same thing would happen to the 135 outfits, who would be overrun with applicants now that many would be qualified to sit in those seats, and they could choose from the pick of the litter.

Raising pay is a solution but will slowly choke demand and for what reason? Eventually these smaller 135 outfits will die off and over time even the better larger ones will be full of guys who can't move on for the most part. Very few will make the decision to fly 135 with lower pay, benefits, and lack of career planning that the airlines can offer.

With a better path upwards through the ranks more people would sign up for this stuff. Demand is increasing for pilot jobs, no longer are there enough idiots like me who did it for the chance to make $20k at a commuter after CFI'ing for two years making $15k/yr.
 
Roger Roger said:
Repeal Check 21 to bring back the 135 freight heyday, ban those snoozeworthy turbine singles from commercial IFR flying, Make IFR 135 mins wet CMEL, make the checkride easy, and then make mins for pax carrying 2000 hours or something. Make freight dogging great again, and if you survive long enough you're worthy of carrying pax.
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Coin money and regulate the value thereof! IT HAS TO BE GOLD!
 
wheelsup said:
You can mostly blame the pilot unions and the FAA.

The unions negotiated these top heavy contracts with little regard for the new hire pay (save for UPS, I would be proud to work there). Then when companies want to raise new hire pay they say no, we want more for our guys making $100/hr too.

In a sane rational world new hire pay would've never been in the $20k range. Senior captain pay would've never been $100k. The two would've been a lot more evened, maybe $40k to start rising to $80k.

Now throw in the 1,500 hour rule when the feds limited the ability to hire guys just as we were coming out of a recession with limited enrollment in the first place and soaring retirement numbers.

The feds should've exempted smaller turboprop operators from the 1,500 rule (ie Saabs and B1900s) and reduced the 135 IFR mins to commercial pilot holders. This would've created a better career flow that ensures what they wanted in the first place - better more well rounded pilots entering flight decks of larger turbojet aircraft.
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Nope. There's not a union in the world that would say no if the company proposal was "eliminate the bottom 5 years of the payscale." If a compressed payscale was desired, it could be had. The problem is that the company proposal is always "eliminate the top 5 years of the payscale."

I'm also not buying your sob story about the ATP rule. It was the fixing of a glitch. So you want to fly a Transport-Category airplane for an Airline? Hmmm... which of these certificates seems most fitting for a person qualified to do that job... if only we had one that was named for that exact situation...

Airline management had a 5 year grace period to fix the problem. The retirement age change gave them 5 years of zero required attrition. That should have been the planning period. The time used to set up a system with which they could attract people to start flight training, and secure a stream of applicants when the old guys start walking out the door. Did they use their time wisely? Nah. More stock buy-backs!!!




I really wish AAG would get it's act together. This isn't sustainable. Many other regional airlines are still able to compete for pilots. Sure, record profits are still a quarterly tradition, but you can't screw your customers over this badly and expect there to be no consequences. If management doesn't roll up their sleeves and get to work soon, I'm slightly concerned about the long-term financial viability of the airline. And I don't just mean Horizon.
 
pete2800 said:
Nope. There's not a union in the world that would say no if the company proposal was "eliminate the bottom 5 years of the payscale." If a compressed payscale was desired, it could be had. The problem is that the company proposal is always "eliminate the top 5 years of the payscale."

I'm also not buying your sob story about the ATP rule. It was the fixing of a glitch. So you want to fly a Transport-Category airplane for an Airline? Hmmm... which of these certificates seems most fitting for a person qualified to do that job... if only we had one that was named for that exact situation...

Airline management had a 5 year grace period to fix the problem. The retirement age change gave them 5 years of zero required attrition. That should have been the planning period. The time used to set up a system with which they could attract people to start flight training, and secure a stream of applicants when the old guys start walking out the door. Did they use their time wisely? Nah. More stock buy-backs!!!




I really wish AAG would get it's act together. This isn't sustainable. Many other regional airlines are still able to compete for pilots. Sure, record profits are still a quarterly tradition, but you can't screw your customers over this badly and expect there to be no consequences. If management doesn't roll up their sleeves and get to work soon, I'm slightly concerned about the long-term financial viability of the airline. And I don't just mean Horizon.
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I don't disagree about putting profit back into recruiting. That is the reason for all these new hire bonuses. The unions want the senior guys who are financially secure to obtain more of the spoils. Yet the new guys are the ones who need it the most.

There is no defined career path nowadays. Higher total time requirements and less jobs available for low time pilots, what did you think would happen?
 
pete2800 said:
A surplus of CFI's who have to stick around for more than 3 months before bailing to a regional?
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CFI wages were never a valid career path but it worked when hiring was slower. Coming out making $12k/yr but only having to work six months had lots of guys signing up, now that figure is more like 18-24 months. Which I did (unfortunately) as did other back then but there just wasn't nearly as much hiring going on.

Plus it still didn't fix the experience issue. C172 dual time really isn't that great of an experience builder when compared to IFR single pilot or two pilot operations.

A better career bath, if the FAA was truly concerned about experience, would've been to drop 135 mins from 1200 hours, get CFIs into those jobs, and have the airlines hiring from there after spending a year or two doing that vs. instructing.
 
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