Hope it happens

[Nick]

That "attitude" right there is why pay at regionals sucks.

Until people realise there are no more regionals (they're almost all national/mainline/flag carriers at this point) they pay will stay low.

I agree with you there. But I am convinced that there are still way to many people out there who think they are still regional airlines like they were years ago, flying just turboprops.

I make the argument with some friends of mine and some say "well there'll always be regional airlines, and their pay has never really been that high." My response to that is upon taking over a mainline carrier's routes on long distances and sometimes between two large cities or even hubs, the airline is no longer a step down from the mainline carrier. It's basically right up there doing a lot of the same flying and that is not what the turboprops were doing in the past.

And of course the ensuing scope argument begins and some will argue that a 90 seat CRJ should be mainline, but a 50 seat should not. I say they all should be.

 

[joel_MQY]

WRONG!! That is a suppplemental income that can help pay off debts quicker. Always look at the bright side

Wrong. There is a strong potential to create bad blood and animosity for the existence of debt. A wife or husband should not be thought of as a source of income.

 

[fender_jag]

It can definitely put strain on a marriage, but the guys I know that are married have spouses who work and can help to pay the minimum monthly loan payment while their husbands earn $19,000/year...wait, why do we want to do this again?

 

[flyover]

And of course the ensuing scope argument begins and some will argue that a 90 seat CRJ should be mainline, but a 50 seat should not. I say they all should be.

The funny thing about it is when this whole scope thing started most of the majors had only gotten rid of their twin-engine props a few years before. I flew with a lot of guys that had flown Convairs and F-27s.

It is all the same work, same job. Before scope it was a basic union principle that everyone doing the same job for a company worked under the same contract and same seniority list. But they thought they could wall off the "little airplane" flying from the "BIG JETS" flying and avoid those little paychecks. Oops.

The intention was to not invite the "little airplane" pilots into ALPA. It was a little amusing when the realization hit of what a mistake had been made and it was time to start talking nice to the former "trash haulers".

 

[TaterSalad]

I don't see how changing the minimums for a part 121 FO to 135 minimums would change pilot pay.

All it would do is postpone the hiring of the same pilots that were applying a year or two prior back when they had several hundred hours. It might improve safety but I do not know how pilot pay would change.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think it's valid. I think requiring higher minimums (ie: 135 mins) would raise pay. I say this, because I don't think everyone would stick it out to the minimums required. People say everyone would just instruct longer, and then jump at the regional job, still for low pay. Thing is, how many people do we see who say they don't want to instruct, at all? If those guys knew they'd have to instruct for a year or more to meet the mins at a regional, how many of them would even start this career? Second, all these CFI's who are "burnt out" instructing after 400 hrs dual given (rolls eyes), may well just give up because they don't have the motivation to struggle through the hard times. Make the entry requirements high enough, and only a fraction of the people who start will actually make it to the airlines. Those who make it to the mins are clearly the ones willing to work hard for something, and if the pay isn't there at the airlines, those are the same types of people who could be successful doing something else for better pay. Of course, this will never happen, because it's not in the airline's best interests. They have far more political clout, in the form of lobbying in Washington, than any pilot group currently has. Barring a tragic accident, with all aboard lost, attributed solely to a low-time crew, that gets the public in an uproar enough that the politicians have to listen to their constituents, of course. I truly hope that never happens, but I foresee an accident of this sort occurring sooner rather than later.

On a related tangent, I've seen the arguments that airline opps have never been safer, despite the low time pilots being hired.........I say this is only because the aircraft most of these low time pilots are flying are damn near foolproof. It's when something goes horribly wrong, and they've got no more than 200-300 hrs flying something that isn't completely automated, that we'll see the aforementioned accident.

 

[flyover]

On a related tangent, I've seen the arguments that airline opps have never been safer, despite the low time pilots being hired.........I say this is only because the aircraft most of these low time pilots are flying are damn near foolproof. It's when something goes horribly wrong, and they've got no more than 200-300 hrs flying something that isn't completely automated, that we'll see the aforementioned accident.

Can't argue with your last comment, but here's this:

When I started in this business there was a heavy emphasis on experience to handle emergencies. This was especially true at my company. Turned out this was a flawed approach and it really showed up as new jets with the need for new procedures came on line.

I've been here to see many of the human factors things implemented that most of you take for granted today. CRM, standardization of procedures and training, training in proper use of automation, etc.

Additionally when I started there were two things that were causing frequent accidents. Ground icing and windshear encounters in the terminal area. All the experience that pilots had were leading them to believe they could takeoff with a little snow or ice on the airplane and they could takeoff or land through a thunderstorm. These accidents were vitrually annual events. They were stopped by taking judgment out of the equation. Experience was the enemy in these cases.

I can give you other examples where "experience" was a negative. Weather radar was one. It was something you were supposed to learn with experience. Most line pilots didn't know how to use it and what they thought they had learned from experience was actually wrong. You could easily train a 250 hour pilot to know much more about weather radar than the typical grizzled captain. (What you couldn't do is convince the captains they didn't know squat.)

And of course the airplanes today are better. More integrated. More powerful. Much better ergonomics. I've just finished training on a "classic" 1960s designed airplane after having spent several years in more modern glass cockpits. That really drove home just how far we have come in 30 or 40 years.

So things are safer, actually much safer, than when I came into this industry in the 70s. Good training can trump experience. The dirty truth is that many of those old captains whose experiences we all envy, were not as safe as today's well trained, well equipped regional pilots. Safety and experience are not synonyms. But I will hardily agree that good training combined with high experience levels is the optimum situation.

 

[DE727UPS]

"Experience was the enemy in these cases"

I see where you're coming from. For every "experienced" guy who pushed too hard, though, there had to be many, many, "experienced" guys who were smart enough not to. Rather than calling experience the enemy, I'd rather say the enemy was high time guys who had been pushing bad situations for years, and getting away with it (maybe with the airline's blessings) who finally ran out of luck.

"Good training can trump experience"

That's what the direct track programs putting 250 hour guys into RJ's say. I'll take the "old Captain" any day. Guess I haven't seen some of the things so far in my career that you did but I've seen very few situations in my 16 years where too much experience, as you mean it, has been a problem.

"I will hardily agree that good training combined with high experience levels is the optimum situation"

Agreed. Experience + Training = the best chance for a good pilot.

 

[Mr_Creepy]

I agree with you Don.

There is nothing like good training, but there is no substitute for experience!

 

[flyover]

"Experience was the enemy in these cases"

I see where you're coming from. For every "experienced" guy who pushed too hard, though, there had to be many, many, "experienced" guys who were smart enough not to. Rather than calling experience the enemy, I'd rather say the enemy was high time guys who had been pushing bad situations for years, and getting away with it (maybe with the airline's blessings) who finally ran out of luck.

In the case of the rash of windshear and ground icing accidents, everyone was doing it. We all had learned the wrong lessons. In fact, in the case of terminal area windshear accidents it is still proving hard to train pilots to not attempt takeoffs and landings in thunderstorms.

"Good training can trump experience"

That's what the direct track programs putting 250 hour guys into RJ's say. I'll take the "old Captain" any day. Guess I haven't seen some of the things so far in my career that you did but I've seen very few situations in my 16 years where too much experience, as you mean it, has been a problem.

Some of those "old captains" could scare the s""t out of you. The lack of desciplined training and strict adherence to procedure resulted in some wild and wooly operations. Stable approaches? Ha! If you were configured and on speed by 500' you were accused of "dragging it in". (In fact on speed back then was within 20 KIAS, roughly.) Nothing against any of those guys, they were fantastic sticks and I learned a ton from some of them. We just didn't know any better back then. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

"I will hardily agree that good training combined with high experience levels is the optimum situation"

Agreed. Experience + Training = the best chance for a good pilot.

I believe that the basic formula for judgment (the skill you most want in a pilot) is: training + experience (applying training) + information = judgment

Of those 3 components I believe experience is the least important. And worse if there is lots of experience doing unsafe things without adverse consequences, then you really have problems. It will actually counter good training. The "old dog" problem. We ran into that phenomonon trying to teach pilots about windshear avoidance.

Training is the foundation for all that follows. I'll take a well trained but inexperienced pilot any day over a poorly trained experienced one, but jmo.