Projected retirements at AA

JOEFRIDAY2, yes, it is most certainly a few thousand when you add up retirements from all of the carriers. Look at the peak years in about 5-10 years. It looks something like this:

DAL - 800
UAL - 800
AMR - 800
LCC - 500
SWA - 200
ALA/SPA/JBU - 100

Total - 3,200

That's not 3,200 total, that's 3,200 per year in the peak years. The non-peak years are still high, with around 2,000 per year. Go add up the total number of regional pilots, and you'll see that it doesn't take too many years to run out of the current crop of RJ drivers. And this is all based on nothing more than a stagnant fleet. Add even a slight bit of growth, and the numbers skyrocket. Each narrowbody airframe represents about 12 pilot jobs, and each widebody airframe anywhere between 15-25, depending on aircraft type and work rules. The floodgates are going to open.
 
jtrain609 said:
As soon as I accepted that I was in control, and my success or failure rested on MY shoulders, I become really motivated to make life work and not just sit back. .
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Wait, I thought the only way to get a job in aviation was by knowing someone and networking not being competent and qualified?
So confused!
 
ATN_Pilot said:
JOEFRIDAY2, yes, it is most certainly a few thousand when you add up retirements from all of the carriers. Look at the peak years in about 5-10 years. It looks something like this:

DAL - 800
UAL - 800
AMR - 800
LCC - 500
SWA - 200
ALA/SPA/JBU - 100

Total - 3,200

That's not 3,200 total, that's 3,200 per year in the peak years. The non-peak years are still high, with around 2,000 per year. Go add up the total number of regional pilots, and you'll see that it doesn't take too many years to run out of the current crop of RJ drivers. And this is all based on nothing more than a stagnant fleet. Add even a slight bit of growth, and the numbers skyrocket. Each narrowbody airframe represents about 12 pilot jobs, and each widebody airframe anywhere between 15-25, depending on aircraft type and work rules. The floodgates are going to open.
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what if mainline just starts flying bigger planes to require less trips
 
Inverted25 said:
what if mainline just starts flying bigger planes to require less trips
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Frequency is the name of the game in the airline business, which is one of the reasons why mainline carriers wanted to start using RJs in the first place. The more flights you have, the more of a percentage of the market share that you can typically retain. Passengers (especially high yield business travelers) want lots of frequency. When you take away frequency and increase gauge to keep the number of seats the same, the high yield passengers flee to the competition who still has frequency.
 
Those "old geezers" only pushed for it because in many cases they no longer could afford retirement. And, lo and behold, Congress and the airlines did them the supreme "favor" of extending the age to retirement just to, "Help them out."

Save for the bankruptcies and the elimination of the retirement plans and negotiated wage contracts, y'all don't really believe that there would be any great push originating from within the cockpit to raise the retirement age, do you?
 
ATN_Pilot said:
JOEFRIDAY2, yes, it is most certainly a few thousand when you add up retirements from all of the carriers. Look at the peak years in about 5-10 years. It looks something like this:

DAL - 800
UAL - 800
AMR - 800
LCC - 500
SWA - 200
ALA/SPA/JBU - 100

Total - 3,200

That's not 3,200 total, that's 3,200 per year in the peak years. The non-peak years are still high, with around 2,000 per year. Go add up the total number of regional pilots, and you'll see that it doesn't take too many years to run out of the current crop of RJ drivers. And this is all based on nothing more than a stagnant fleet. Add even a slight bit of growth, and the numbers skyrocket. Each narrowbody airframe represents about 12 pilot jobs, and each widebody airframe anywhere between 15-25, depending on aircraft type and work rules. The floodgates are going to open.
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What YEAR are your above figures from? From the figures posted at the beginning of this thread, DELTA does not hit 800 pilots retiring per year until 2021. American NEVER hits 800 pilots retiring per year according to the figures posted in this thread.

Our numbers show that for the next 5 years, pilot retirements combined for all of the domestic airlines do not exceed 1000 pilots per year. Again it is not a large number and it will not be the driving force for hiring new pilots. We will not be looking at 3000+ pilots retiring, on a yearly basis, for many, many years.

Where are you getting your numbers from?

Joe
 
JOEFRIDAY2 said:
What YEAR are your above figures from? From the figures posted at the beginning of this thread, DELTA does not hit 800 pilots retiring per year until 2021. American NEVER hits 800 pilots retiring per year according to the figures posted in this thread.

Our numbers show that for the next 5 years, pilot retirements combined for all of the domestic airlines do not exceed 1000 pilots per year. Again it is not a large number and it will not be the driving force for hiring new pilots. We will not be looking at 3000+ pilots retiring, on a yearly basis, for many, many years.

Where are you getting your numbers from?

Joe
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I thought I made it pretty clear. My numbers are all in the next 5-10 years. It varies by airline as to when they hit their peak. Delta's peak, as you point out, is in 9 years. AMR's peak starts in 10 years. UAL's numbers peak earlier. LCC's also. AMR's numbers have been deflated a bit, but only because hundreds of those pilots who were going to be retiring from AMR over the next 10 years took early outs late last year before the bankruptcy. You might have seen the headlines about AMR's problems staffing the 777 fleet as a result. That's lowered the numbers somewhat, which is why you see slightly lower numbers posted at the beginning of this thread.

Also, you state that "for the next 5 years, pilot retirements combined for all of the domestic airlines do not exceed 1000 pilots per year." I'm on the road right now, so I can't look at the numbers to verify, but I'll assume that your numbers are correct. Do you not think that, say, 800 retirements per year is a big number? Of course it is! It certainly doesn't compare to the peak, but it's still a massive number of retirements at career carriers. Again, you need to do the math on how many regional pilots are waiting in the wings. There are only about 10,000 total regional captains at all of the regionals combined. That includes even the smaller regionals like Great Lakes and Commutair. Within the next 15 years, approximately 25,000 pilots will retire from the legacy carriers (I include Alaska, Hawaiian, and Southwest in the legacy carriers). That is 250% of the total number of regional captains that currently exist. In other words, if you currently have a regional job, even as a junior FO, you're pretty much guarantee a job at a legacy carrier. The military pilots just don't exist like they used to. A small number of these jobs will go to them, but the vast majority of it is going to go to current regional pilots.

How you can say that this isn't going to be the driving force for pilot hiring, I just don't understand. Sure, growth is a factor, but growth is all speculation. Retirements are a hard number.
 
ATN,

I really don't think 800 pilots retiring each year for the next five years is a big number when you compare the tens of thousands of pilots that will be hired (because of the new work rules) within the next 3 years.

Now I do realize that no one seems to know the real exact number of new pilots needed, within 3 years, because of the new work rules, but I have heard numbers ranging from 17,000 new pilots to 44,000 new pilots. These numbers are coming from airline HR folks. The real number is probably somewhere between the high and low number stated. That is an effective 100% pilot turnover at the regionals. Keep in mind that the airlines are in new territory here and have never experienced a pilot shortage prior to now.

If AA were to go out, that could provide a large number of pilots that could fill the pilot shortage at low starting wages. However, I don't believe anyone thinks AA is going out. Merger yes, but out of business very unlikely unless politics rears its ugly head and decides to sacrifice AA so that other airlines will have a supply of experienced pilots.

This does not include any hiring of additional pilots for the projected passenger growth which the FAA seems to think will be double the current number of passengers over the next 20 years.

So here is my opinion on what is going to drive pilot hiring over the next 10 years. (in order of new pilots hired)

1. Workrule changes.
2. Passenger growth.
3. Pilot retirements.

Keep in mind that the work rule changes are something new and are a game changer that the airlines did not plan for nor thought would happen.

Passenger growth is to be expected, but this industry does not seem to plan more than about 90 days in advance and most haven't factored this growth into real numbers. When planes get parked for crew shortages that seems to get their attention after a bit.

The retirement numbers they knew about all along and these are the only numbers they have really planned for.

Joe
 
Honestly, I think the number of pilots hired because of the new work rules will be ZERO.

I'm not saying that the new work rules aren't good, or that they're not going to be effective.

I'm just saying, from what I have read, the various changes will increase and decrease the need for crews and end up about even to slightly higher demand in the sections of the industry that depend on having crews routinely do minimum rest layovers (shame on them).

17,000 to 44,000 new pilot jobs due to new rest rules alone, absolutely no way in hell.
 
Yeah, I don't know which crazy HR managers you're talking to, Joe, but those numbers are absolutely out of whack. We'll be lucky to see a few thousand new jobs created as a result of the new rules. The majors will see virtually no new jobs, since the rule changes are basically net equal. At the regional level, we'll see some new jobs created, but even that will only happen at some of the regionals, as some of the others already have more strict work rules in their CBAs. I'm a big proponent of the new rules, but they aren't going to create this huge mass of jobs that you expect. Retirements will be driving job creation, not rest rules.
 
I agree with ATN. Call me cynical, but I highly doubt that airlines (filled with management that is having the same discussion here) are going to be about to project far enough out to make fleet re-enlignmet long term and drawn out over 15 years AND continue to run all the businesses profitable. You know how this works...a handful of airlines will be happy as clams doing business one way with everybody trying to say something like "We fly old planes to the desert better than anybody else". Ticket prices will slowly rise and someone will decide that buying/leasing planes is not something they can afford. Retrofitting and older fleet will commence and a new gimmick will be developed. Pax will love it and said airline will want to take advantage of the savings and get more of those pax that love them. Other airlines will try to keep up but they'll be busy paying big fees for the new (cheaper to operate) aircraft. Cycle will alternate...rinse and repeat.
 
Current business models will pound salt, yes but people will still fly. If fuel goes up THAT much, one of 2 things will likely happen. Oil will be produced at a much smaller rate or States with oil production will fight amongst themselves to get companies to buy and prices will eventually level off.

I don't buy the theory that oil is expensive because there isn't enough available. It's expensive because we can't produce it fast enough and traders love playing the game of "let's see who much money we can make off oil production problems". If the world is ever able to meet the demand again, you will see less expensive gas.

But oil does play a huge role in short term economics, true. Long term? Depends on the thriftiness of the company.
 
Itchy said:
Orrrrr...........Fuel could be $13 a gallon, and we'll all be pounding salt.
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Unless we find a president that understand foreign policy and the ecomony we will see $13/gal in the not to distant future.

To borrow a bumer sticker:

I support cap and trade

Cap government spending and trade Obama
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Yeah, I don't know which crazy HR managers you're talking to, Joe, but those numbers are absolutely out of whack. We'll be lucky to see a few thousand new jobs created as a result of the new rules. The majors will see virtually no new jobs, since the rule changes are basically net equal. At the regional level, we'll see some new jobs created, but even that will only happen at some of the regionals, as some of the others already have more strict work rules in their CBAs. I'm a big proponent of the new rules, but they aren't going to create this huge mass of jobs that you expect. Retirements will be driving job creation, not rest rules.
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block30;1143113 said:
Here is what I tabulated based on what information I could scrounge. Airlines Included are Fed Ex, UPS, Delta, AA, US Air East and West, Alaska, Continental, United, Southwest, Air Tran, PinnaColAba, Skywest.

I solicited, but could not get data for other non-legacy carriers besides PinnaColaba and Skywest.
I know that retirements won't be as much as the legacies, but in total they could add up. So if anyone has information on that.... :)

Total Year

187..... 2012
1116..... 2013
1254..... 2014
1370..... 2015
1547..... 2016
1870..... 2017
1987..... 2018
2251..... 2019
2522..... 2020
2815..... 2021
2896..... 2022
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