Outlook

86BravoPapa

86BravoPapa

Well-Known Member
As a commercial pilot slowly closing in on 1500TT and eyeing the airlines, I'm always curious about where the industry is at. The pilot shortage debate seems mindnumbing, at times, but the main takeaway seems that it's more smoke than fire.

So my question is; has the "sweet spot" for hiring and flowing/progressing to the majors passed? Lately, it seems talk of quick upgrades and plans of flowing/progressing are less and less barring those hired in 2015-2017ish. I could also be completely mistaken.

I know there are a lot of unknowns and major events that could change everything but I'm just trying to get a grasp of what to reasonably expect in the not too distant future and a sense of where the industry is actually at.

Thanks.
 
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No one had a crystal ball of course, but indications look a lot better than they did when I started at an airline late 2007: Age 65 followed by the 2008-2010 recession.

If you’re looking at your first regional airline, I’d heavily consider Envoy/Piedmont/PSA. You can always wait there for a call at the legacy airline you want, or take the flow to AA. Civilian hires are overwhelming majority from the wholly owned carriers at AA.

To answer the last part, the movement is just starting. For Age 65 alone, the big 3 Airlines start retiring tons of those guys starting 2020-forward. The numbers are ridiculous! And especially ridiculous at AA, which goes back to my point of going to Envoy/PSA/Piedmont.
 
86BravoPapa said:
As a commercial pilot slowly closing in on 1500TT and eyeing the airlines, I'm always curious about where the industry is at. The pilot shortage debate seems mindnumbing, at times, but the main takeaway seems that it's more smoke than fire.

So my question is; has the "sweet spot" for hiring and flowing/progressing to the majors passed? Lately, it seems talk of quick upgrades and plans of flowing/progressing are less and less barring those hired in 2015-2017ish. I could also be completely mistaken.

I know there are a lot of unknowns and major events that could change everything but I'm just trying to get a grasp of what to reasonably expect in the not too distant future and a sense of where the industry is actually at.

Thanks.
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I'm just another commercial pilot waiting for my time, but I don't think the "sweet spot" as you say is going to be past for awhile to come. A lot of people talk about 2025ish being the end of the extraordinary period. That may be just because extrapolating out that far is sorta hard. I think what people who think there's some huge shortage have a hard time conceptualizing is that there is a lot of territory between 'Lost Decade' and 'everybody gets hired no matter what.' That terroritory is what the rest of the world refers to as Normal. The past 3 years has been Normalization, especially at the regionals. Like I said, I'm just another commercial pilot waiting for his time, but I'm part of some groups where members do some crazy data crunching, and unless Lost Decade 2.0 happens, I don't think you have anything to worry about, even if growth is zero.
 
Flyinthrew said:
I'm just another commercial pilot waiting for my time, but I don't think the "sweet spot" as you say is going to be past for awhile to come. A lot of people talk about 2025ish being the end of the extraordinary period. That may be just because extrapolating out that far is sorta hard. I think what people who think there's some huge shortage have a hard time conceptualizing is that there is a lot of territory between 'Lost Decade' and 'everybody gets hired no matter what.' That terroritory is what the rest of the world refers to as Normal. The past 3 years has been Normalization, especially at the regionals. Like I said, I'm just another commercial pilot waiting for his time, but I'm part of some groups where members do some crazy data crunching, and unless Lost Decade 2.0 happens, I don't think you have anything to worry about, even if growth is zero.
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Mind if I ask what group? Happy to PM if you prefer.
 
Things are looking good for anyone pursuing an airline career today. There are thousands upon thousands of retirements looming. I will say that if you aren’t already at a regional airline and you’re pursuing the civilian path to a legacy airline, you most likely don’t stand to benefit the same way from the retirements as those who are under 35 and stand to get hired in the next couple of years.

Someone hired at AA in the next couple years will see a relative meteoric rise up the seniority list there. Almost 50% by the year 2030. A buddy of mine is 32 years old and can hold LGA 73 CA at AA already. He’ll be able to hold widebody CA by about 2027. Think about that for a second. He has about 20+ years of mainline widebody CA pay to look forward to. And he isn’t the only one with a story like this.

So that being said, if you’re hired on at a regional today I think you can expect at least 4 years to be competitive to be hired at a legacy. Minimum. 5-7 years and 1,000 TPIC / 5000 TT seems to be the standard from what I can tell. So if you figure 4-5 years to a legacy from right now, you will most likely be on the backside of the current hiring wave. That does not mean that you won’t have an excellent career though. From the looks of it right now you stand to have a much more stable and relatively “better” (it’s a subjective word) career than many who came before you in the past couple decades.
 
And just a follow up / word of caution about pursuing this career path. It is the same words of caution that have been spoken 1,000 times over for decades...

This industry is extremely volatile. It is very fickle and in many ways it is subject to the economic and national winds of change at any given moment. Things are great right now. But we are also at what I think is the peak or close to the peak of a very long-running period of good times. There will be an inevitable down-swing. Aircraft orders can be deferred and growth at the legacies can become anemic. The difference this time is that the amount of pilots retiring should help prevent the industry stagnation experienced post-9/11 and again in 2008 from happening in quite the same way again. Key word here being “should”. We are about to enter a couple of decades of intense technological and economic change. Change can be painful sometimes. Inertia from forces outside our industry may drive some changes no one currently expects or would want. But no one can plan for the unknown. All we can really do is to take the best info we have available to us right now and hope for the best.

I have seen many amazing pilots have terrible careers. And many lack-luster pilots have great careers. There is a lot of luck involved in this job field. There is no real pilot shortage in my opinion either. To quite the outgoing Emvoy MEC Chair’s Letter:

“I don't think there is going to be a massive pilot shortage. I think there's going to be only a minor and relatively short-lived pilot squeeze. Heresy you say?! Nah. Here's why: the entry level job of regional airline pilot had become so awful through years of downward economic pressure and bankruptcies that we were literally working for food-stamp wages and had little hope of career progression. Rightfully, nobody wanted to be an airline pilot anymore.

Fast forward to 2016 and Endeavor raises the compensation via bonuses. Envoy (and others) quickly matched. The market price for an entry level regional airline pilot was now set. Fast forward to today and those bonuses have now been integrated into pilot pay. An entry level regional pilot is no longer starving. Young men and women are realizing that this is a viable career path, and they're starting to enter the pipeline to become airline pilots.

It takes about two years to make an entry level airline pilot since it takes about two years to amass the hours required. Since the job only became viable in 2016, and since there's inertia – a natural tendency to say "is this for real? Is this durable?" – it stands to fashion that only now will we see sustainable numbers of folks wanting to be airline pilots. I think the industry is going to just fine long term.”

^^^That is a very succinct explanation but a good way to sum up what we’re seeing now. Classes are full all over the place. The regionals offering competitive pay and real career progression are having no issues filling classes. The job of legacy airline pilot will remain competitive. You have to work hard to make yourself stand out.
 
All depends on how ya look at it. I have 30 years left til 65. I think it will be single pilot or no pilot before then.
 
L-16B said:
All depends on how ya look at it. I have 30 years left til 65. I think it will be single pilot or no pilot before then.
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86BravoPapa said:
As a commercial pilot slowly closing in on 1500TT and eyeing the airlines, I'm always curious about where the industry is at. The pilot shortage debate seems mindnumbing, at times, but the main takeaway seems that it's more smoke than fire.

So my question is; has the "sweet spot" for hiring and flowing/progressing to the majors passed? Lately, it seems talk of quick upgrades and plans of flowing/progressing are less and less barring those hired in 2015-2017ish. I could also be completely mistaken.

I know there are a lot of unknowns and major events that could change everything but I'm just trying to get a grasp of what to reasonably expect in the not too distant future and a sense of where the industry is actually at.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Next five years is when the retirement surge happens at the legacy carriers. That will probably create a lot of movement at the regionals. I don't think you've missed the boat.
 
@86BravoPapa here is a chart of mandatory retirements through 2032. That is 14 years of numbers, if you get through training by 2022 you should be good. The tail end of the wave doesn’t mean you won’t get hired, it just means you won’t have that leap in seniority which is what an airline pilots qol relies on.
 

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Thanks for all the input. In my early 30's now and I feel pretty confident I'll be up against mandatory retirement before pilots are gone from the cockpit. After everything else, the public still has to get on board with one then none up front.
 
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