Reduced crew

[Inverted25]

We are already flooded with resumes due to our reputation/pay/equipment. Makes no difference. Our HR partner just trashes any that come in. If we do need to hire due to retirement they have to post the job to meet certain HR requirements but those apps all go into the trash as well and we hire a known entity. I’m sure there are 135 and 91 operations that would use an influx of pilots on the street to force their pilots to take lower pay but not the good ones.

It’s really a different world. The cost to operate the flight department is pennies on the balance sheet but what we allow the company to do is significant. Cost isn’t a factor. We do everything we can to operate efficiently but the cost isn’t a driving factor. We often fly two planes to one location when it can be done with one but insurnace dictates that certain executives can’t be on same plane together for continuity in case of a loss. We have offered to operate the department at lower staffing levels when retirements have come up because we felt that we could maintain the same level of service with less pilots but the company insisted we kept the same number because they want pilots to have good QOL and stay. Last two pilots to leave lefts after 40+ and 30+ years respectively.

The threat of single pilot airplanes is already there on the corporate side. Netjets operates a large fleet that they could already fly with one pilot but don’t. There are different driving factors on the corporate side. The airlines I’m sure will do single pilot as soon as they can to cut cost. We could already do that on the corporate jet side but very few actually fly any of the single pilot jets with one pilot. Those are mostly owner flown when they are single pilot.


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Now with all that said I would not recommend young kids get into flying. I was invited to a career day for a local 141 operation and I laid out the risk of single pilot and no pilot operations during the next 40 years and told them they most likely won’t make it to retirement. The school wasn’t happy with me


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[Autothrust Blue]

Imagine thinking you're magically immune from this.

 

[jhugz]

This is one the reasons I stayed corporate during this hiring boom. I have 25 years left and I don’t see two pilots in the cockpit for airliners lasting that long. I don’t see single pilot happening in 5 years but it will at some point assuming they can bypass the security issues it presents. On the corporate side at least for the family I fly for, they have made it clear they would never set foot on a plane that doesn’t have two people in the front invested in the safe outcome. Single pilot jets like the phenom 300 have existed for along time yet they are rarely actually flown single pilot in the corporate world


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This take is pure copium.

If anyone has the resources to fight against large plane manufacturers, it's the largest pilot union in the world.

Single pilot flight decks won't start in the airline industry, it will start overseas in Europe or in the less regulated/unionized segments of the industry like cargo/charter/corporate.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

If anyone has the resources to fight against large plane manufacturers, it's the largest pilot union in the world.

Holding my nose and adjusting my PAC contribution upwards, etc.

 

[ppragman]

Imagine thinking you're magically immune from this.

literally no job on the earth is, the crisis of meaning is going to be a big deal.

 

[Autothrust Blue]

literally no job on the earth is, the crisis of meaning is going to be a big deal.

What, more than it already is? Oh, you mean collectively, not individually/midlife mode, got it.

 

[Lawman]

This take is pure copium.

If anyone has the resources to fight against large plane manufacturers, it's the largest pilot union in the world.

Single pilot flight decks won't start in the airline industry, it will start overseas in Europe or in the less regulated/unionized segments of the industry like cargo/charter/corporate.

Sure, and I’ll bet a whole lot of ships stewards and skilled sailors said the same thing about the time these loud noisy impersonal airship things started hauling people around. Every other transportation sector union is losing the fight to automation. What makes you so damn special? Again 2-5 years…. Fully automated semi trucks running cargo as a normal thing. They are already playing with them in load areas and shipping yards.

“We’re too important/powerful/influential/etc” is the single worst way to approach this problem.

And no you’re not alone in things technology is working to make obsolete. We have experiments for point of injury drone medevac ongoing. How long do you think Air Methods or some other is gonna look at single pilot air med with a nurse in the back and go “well I definitely don’t need the body up front to do this.”
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[Boris Badenov]

literally no job on the earth is, the crisis of meaning is going to be a big deal.

Isn't it already? The various manifestations of this problem may still be less than totally obvious to the, what, polity-at-large? But we've been sailing into the land of physical, practical labor being irrelevant for maybe a century or two? If we don't kill ourselves off, first, we've going to have to figure out what the hell to do with our endless, numbered days.

 

[Boris Badenov]

How long do you think Air Methods or some other is gonna look at single pilot air med with a nurse in the back and go “well I definitely don’t need the body up front to do this.

'Bout as long as it took for the Jetsons to become real. I have a robotic vacuum cleaner, but it doesn't sass me and it still misses some stuff, here and there. More to the point, the societal view of what's desirable has changed far more radically than the technology which was meant to render these views irrelevant. You're not wrong that the capability is increasing exponentially, and you're also not wrong that there's some point along the hockey-stick at which it starts happening REALLY quickly (and then even MORE quickly, kinda like bankruptcy "very slowly and then all at once"). But the X factor is how humans react to it, attempt to constrain it, etc. And my magic 8 ball is telling me to "ask again later". I don't think there's any way to know.

 

[Inverted25]

This take is pure copium.

If anyone has the resources to fight against large plane manufacturers, it's the largest pilot union in the world.

Single pilot flight decks won't start in the airline industry, it will start overseas in Europe or in the less regulated/unionized segments of the industry like cargo/charter/corporate.

It’s a matter of economics. The airlines don’t want you there if they don’t absolutely have to have you there. Airbus and I am sure Boeing as well is working to make that a reality. I think the airline union will have some traction initially. But I would bet that it will be the pushback from the union that will cause the switch from single to no pilot to happen faster. You have no power to negotiate if they don’t need you at all.

There’s no it will start. It is already a possibility on the corporate jet side. There are more than a handful of single pilot jets out there. It’s just that the good operators still but two pilots up front. I don’t see the airlines having that same motivation. You guys will be gone as soon as the regulators approve it.


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[NovemberEcho]

I know it’s popular to • on AI but building ATC sequences is exactly the kind of thing computers would be good at.

Only if you take the VFR’s out of the picture

 

[Wardogg]

Plugging in a point A to B flight plan and expecting an aircraft to meet time on target is perfectly achievable.

Are airlines going to trust AI to find the smooth air in November when the jet stream runs from Nevada to North Carolina and the rides are rough from 280 to 410?

 

[ASpilot2be]

Are airlines going to trust AI to find the smooth air in November when the jet stream runs from Nevada to North Carolina and the rides are rough from 280 to 410?

In a way they already do with the gift planning software. But in the moment decisions, I bet they will if it saves then a dollar.

 

[Lawman]

'Bout as long as it took for the Jetsons to become real. I have a robotic vacuum cleaner, but it doesn't sass me and it still misses some stuff, here and there. More to the point, the societal view of what's desirable has changed far more radically than the technology which was meant to render these views irrelevant. You're not wrong that the capability is increasing exponentially, and you're also not wrong that there's some point along the hockey-stick at which it starts happening REALLY quickly (and then even MORE quickly, kinda like bankruptcy "very slowly and then all at once"). But the X factor is how humans react to it, attempt to constrain it, etc. And my magic 8 ball is telling me to "ask again later". I don't think there's any way to know.

How much give a crap does a society buried in its smart phones care about what is at the front of an airplane that it never interacts with.

You did this to yourselves in a way by being so safe and so benign. Over 3 decades you have essentially fooled people into thinking that the airplane was always safe and nothing ever happened. The people that really believe nobody would do this or there will be some mass protest are deluding themselves. You’ve become a 500 mph elevator, and we don’t miss those guys or their fancy uniforms either.

If the outfit cost to make an automated airliner is a million dollars… ask yourselves what is the combined cost per year of the flight deck you are currently sitting in for payroll.

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[Wardogg]

In a way they already do with the gift planning software. But in the moment decisions, I bet they will if it saves then a dollar.

Well that’s kind of my point. How often is that software wrong? I hear it all the time. Pilots asking for ride reports because the altitude the software gave them sucks.

 

[Hiboglossi]

Well, having a job was nice while it lasted.

 

[Hiboglossi]

This is one the reasons I stayed corporate during this hiring boom. I have 25 years left and I don’t see two pilots in the cockpit for airliners lasting that long. I don’t see single pilot happening in 5 years but it will at some point assuming they can bypass the security issues it presents. On the corporate side at least for the family I fly for, they have made it clear they would never set foot on a plane that doesn’t have two people in the front invested in the safe outcome. Single pilot jets like the phenom 300 have existed for along time yet they are rarely actually flown single pilot in the corporate world


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Nice to see that you now recognize that technological unemployment is a distinct possibility, growing closer and closer to an inevitability by the day. I remember you used to say I was nuts when I said it was likely to happen.

 

[Inverted25]

Nice to see that you now recognize that technological unemployment is a distinct possibility, growing closer and closer to an inevitability by the day. I remember you used to say I was nuts when I said it was likely to happen.

It’s still not likely in my career. But I do believe airlines will go single pilot soon as the regulators allow it.


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[Roger Roger]

This take is pure copium.

If anyone has the resources to fight against large plane manufacturers, it's the largest pilot union in the world.

Single pilot flight decks won't start in the airline industry, it will start overseas in Europe or in the less regulated/unionized segments of the industry like cargo/charter/corporate.

Sure, the ultra rich for whom their own personal pilots are both a status symbol and a drop in the bucket of costs, may keep pilots on for a while. But that’s a tiny minority of corporate jobs. Does anyone seriously think that joe influencer booking a 135 charter through a brokerage is going to give 2 •s, as long as it’s cheap enough?

 

[Roger Roger]

If you want my real opinion? There is no grand plan for technological unemployment because the ultra rich and powerful are too busy raiding everything they can for when whichever climate change/biosphere collapse domino falls first. They realize it’s probably far too late to avoid, now.