Re: Recent Talk About Regionals / Pilot Shortage

I wouldn't say this is related to dispatching. However they are very good nailing the point on this article. I know too many good friends who are over $100k in debt and barely getting by at the regionals. Something is going to have to be done or the air transportation system is going to be crippled. As ready as I was to get out of my regional job, they still do serve a huge role in the lubrication of the system. It is going to leave many small to medium sized markets with no air transportation and at times a 5-6 hour drive to an airport that is served. This means less passengers flowing into the hubs for the mainline. Without the regionals I think the whole thing seizes up. Either the majors are going to have to subsidize the regionals by eliminating the cutthroat competition and accepting more expensive contracts, or it will all have to brought in house.

This just proves how dispatch is the best value for your dollar in this industry. A roughly $6000 investment pays over six digits at top out. Not too shabby!
 
I think that blaming CHQ's reduction in 27 EMB145's on a pilot shortage is somewhat simplistic. While it is certainly a major factor as they were having flight crew staffing issues, most of their contracts were already ending this year or in the next few years due to the fact that most Majors are working to replace a significant portion of 50 seat jets with 70 seat ERJ's or CRJ's. In fact a good portion of that CHQ flying was for "American Connection". This capacity is already being replaced by E175's that Republic began to operate for Republic last year. A similar story is found in their United contracts which are ending. United put orders in for E170s for SkyWest and Mesa last year instead of extending some of their ERJ145 contracts.

Also, United blaming the closing of their CLE hub due to pilot shortage also seems simplistic. Their CLE hub has not been profitable for a while and I see it more to do with the longer term effects of the United-Continental merger. We've seen similar effects with Delta-Northwest closing hubs in the years after their merger. I think United is trying to partially blame the loss of jobs on an external issue rather than wanting to admit that it is their business decision (I have to say that I can't fault United for this decision, but rather am questioning their supposed reasons behind it).

There is no doubt that many regionals are struggling hiring enough pilots, especially with FAR117 having come into effect. Crew cancellations and many airlines have increased since the beginning of the year with FAR117 and the continuing difficulty of finding pilots and that will obviously have an impact on regional airlines and the flying that Major airlines will give them. But it is not the only major change we are seeing among US airlines.
 
MT said:
I wouldn't say this is related to dispatching. However they are very good nailing the point on this article. I know too many good friends who are over $100k in debt and barely getting by at the regionals. Something is going to have to be done or the air transportation system is going to be crippled. As ready as I was to get out of my regional job, they still do serve a huge role in the lubrication of the system. It is going to leave many small to medium sized markets with no air transportation and at times a 5-6 hour drive to an airport that is served. This means less passengers flowing into the hubs for the mainline. Without the regionals I think the whole thing seizes up. Either the majors are going to have to subsidize the regionals by eliminating the cutthroat competition and accepting more expensive contracts, or it will all have to brought in house.

This just proves how dispatch is the best value for your dollar in this industry. A roughly $6000 investment pays over six digits at top out. Not too shabby!
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Absolutely!..Add to that its is a short investment in time as well. There is no certification that I know of out there that can be obtained in 5 to 6 weeks. Wish I had known about dispatch when I started in aviation.
 
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womanpilot73 said:
I only posted this because of the recent chatter on this forum about regionals and their future "survivability".
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Regionals will likely always be around. I don't know if the pilot pay will increase now that FAR 117 is in effect although it seems likely - they may get smaller, but there will always be markets the majors don't fly to regularly. While I'm glad that I no longer work at a regional, I did get good experience at all the ones I worked at.
 
manniax said:
Regionals will likely always be around. I don't know if the pilot pay will increase now that FAR 117 is in effect although it seems likely - they may get smaller, but there will always be markets the majors don't fly to regularly.
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I agree... I find it interesting to read everyone's opinions on this subject.
 
This whole issue of pilot shortage at large is getting lots of mileage in & out of aviation proper.

I remain a skeptic and for admittedly unscientific reasons. I say there are too many pieces to the puzzle and too many of these pieces are undefined. Without agreed upon definitions, all participants to the discussion might as well be speaking different languages.

A "shortage" of what ? And in what segment of the industry ? Ideal candidates, employable but minimally experienced candidates ? Just not enough bodies of any kind ? Or not enough willing to work for pathetic regional wages ?

[I know womanpilot73 started this thread referencing regionals but they're all intertwined with each other and the legacies.]

I started flying in the mid-60s and there was talk of a pilot shortage. The subject resurfaced periodically over the next several decades and is one of the more interesting issues I've seen. We now have access to data not available back when, but what we read today may or may not be accurate. The one thing NOT in short supply is opinions. :biggrin:

However, I remain one of the blind men and suspect most others are too:

http://www.constitution.org/col/blind_men.htm

[And yes, I've seen the age-65 retirement numbers for the legacy carriers. Impressive to say the least but they may or may not tell the whole story. The legacies remain puzzlingly mute on what they think these numbers will mean for them. Delta, for example, will age out 68% of the current seniority list in the next 15 years+/- yet has said very little about what they intend to do about that. Sure is fun to watch, though.]
 
It seems the solution is already in place, though it may be moving slower than it should: majors and regionals alike are up-gauging their fleet sizes. That means fewer pilots/ground crew/dispatchers/mechanics/etc. are needed to fly the same or greater number of passengers. Where 20 years ago you could fly on a Saab 340 and connect onto a 737-200 today you're on an EMB175 connecting to an A321. Sure, there are less flights overall, but at the end of the day the same number of people got moved.

When they talk about the "economics" of 50 seat aircraft being undesirable they're not saying they cost too much to fly - if that were the case the airlines would just raise the ticket prices by a few dollars to compensate. What is really meant is that it doesn't make sense to pay all the personnel to fly into a place 3 times a day on a -145 when you could send a CRJ900 in there just twice a day and carry the same number of people. Regional payrolls end up shrinking along with those at the majors and even though you dole out some raises you end up paying less overall for labor owing to the smaller workforces. Why does United need over 120 employees per airframe when Southwest can make it work with under 70?

"Capacity discipline" has been a major selling point for airlines since the 2008 fuel crisis forced mergers amongst the majors and it will continue to be: make sure your employees are flying the most people they possibly can. FAR 117 is just another minor speed bump on the road.
 
Baloney.....There is NO pilot shortage ! The U.S. will do what it always does whenever it does not have enough of a given resource.....It will TAKE what it needs from wherever in the world that resource exists. There IS NO pilot shortage.
 
LTDXER said:
Baloney.....There is NO pilot shortage ! The U.S. will do what it always does whenever it does not have enough of a given resource.....It will TAKE what it needs from wherever in the world that resource exists. There IS NO pilot shortage.
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Agreed, there is no pilot shortage. If these regionals would offer a fair contract with fair pay, pilots would be coming out of the wood works. However, nobody is going to go work at the likes of Mesa, Republic, PSA for basically minimum wage and crappy work rules.
 
Right..."up-gauging"...That makes basic economic sense. It was just a matter of waiting for the right a/c to be built and figuring out just which cities will get service.

But riddle me this...Assuming most regionals retain 90% of their routes...Will a CRJ900 make it in and out of these places the way a -Q400 or CRJ200 would?
Or would we see more wx related delays and alternates? Please excuse me, I dont know the performance numbers for a -900. Is bigger always better?
 
LTDXER said:
The U.S. will do what it always does whenever it does not have enough of a given resource.....It will TAKE what it needs from wherever in the world that resource exists.
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I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that possibility but it assumes the world has that resource to give and it'd come here (licensing and visa issues come to mind for individuals) in numbers large enough to do any good. Pilot supply outside the USA is a different matter for which I've seen no data beyond some rather large numbers of pilots required over time put out by Boeing. My source at Boeing says they're very concerned because insufficient pilot supply may translate to lower aircraft sales.

My agnosticism continues unabated.
 
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TaxiBack said:
Right..."up-gauging"...That makes basic economic sense. It was just a matter of waiting for the right a/c to be built and figuring out just which cities will get service.

But riddle me this...Assuming most regionals retain 90% of their routes...Will a CRJ900 make it in and out of these places the way a -Q400 or CRJ200 would?
Or would we see more wx related delays and alternates? Please excuse me, I dont know the performance numbers for a -900. Is bigger always better?
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Nope. Case in point is DVL. The Saab 340 got in there with the displaced threshold no problem. When DL pulled the plug on the Saabs they tried to put a CRJ2 in there with about a 30% completion factor. So it went to GLA, and now nothing.
 
LTDXER said:
Baloney.....There is NO pilot shortage ! The U.S. will do what it always does whenever it does not have enough of a given resource.....It will TAKE what it needs from wherever in the world that resource exists. There IS NO pilot shortage.
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That's cabotage...
 
Krieger said:
That's cabotage...
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I had the impression LTDXER was referring more to US carriers hiring foreign nationals to fill crew spots at US carriers vs foreign carriers coming into the US and flying around. That'd still be a tall order here...but other countries sure do a lot of it.
 
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