jwp_145
GhostRider in the Sky
So I was talking with some of my crashpad buddies this week about how my company wants to hire 400 and has had less than 10 take the offer.
We know that the pool for regional airline talent is low, especially now for the 1500 hour rul going into effect. Now with the news about the relaxed Chinese PPL standards (frightening), the CFI route just became even more difficult.
Here's what I think will have to happen:
The regional airlines (or their Capacity Purchase Partners) will have to establish ab-initio flight schools. Think of the Lufthansa school in Goodyear, or the old SABENA flight school. The airline will conduct a thorough screening process, and once it comes to terms with an applicant, will sign him/her up to a training contract...basically indentured servitude.
The academy will hire the initial group of instructors to get the machine into motion with the agreement that at 1500TT they are to be transferred into the line pilot side of the operation.
The applicants are taken from zero to CFI in however many months, and as per the terms of their agreement, they become CFIs at the school once they graduate, to instruct to 1500TT until they feed up to the airline.
I know it sounds assenine when I type it out, but if you think about it that is the only way that regional airlines will be able to halfway control their supply of pilots in the coming decade.
Yes I know you could simply "pay a decent wage" that "keeps you off of food stamps", but even if all the regionals upped the pay scale to begin at 40K yearly, it would exhaust the available pilot supply in a short while.
Thoughts on my theory?
Other theories?
We know that the pool for regional airline talent is low, especially now for the 1500 hour rul going into effect. Now with the news about the relaxed Chinese PPL standards (frightening), the CFI route just became even more difficult.
Here's what I think will have to happen:
The regional airlines (or their Capacity Purchase Partners) will have to establish ab-initio flight schools. Think of the Lufthansa school in Goodyear, or the old SABENA flight school. The airline will conduct a thorough screening process, and once it comes to terms with an applicant, will sign him/her up to a training contract...basically indentured servitude.
The academy will hire the initial group of instructors to get the machine into motion with the agreement that at 1500TT they are to be transferred into the line pilot side of the operation.
The applicants are taken from zero to CFI in however many months, and as per the terms of their agreement, they become CFIs at the school once they graduate, to instruct to 1500TT until they feed up to the airline.
I know it sounds assenine when I type it out, but if you think about it that is the only way that regional airlines will be able to halfway control their supply of pilots in the coming decade.
Yes I know you could simply "pay a decent wage" that "keeps you off of food stamps", but even if all the regionals upped the pay scale to begin at 40K yearly, it would exhaust the available pilot supply in a short while.
Thoughts on my theory?
Other theories?