The dark side of the pilot shortage.

[gliderboy]

Prior to the shortage that has improved so many of our lives, most small operaters were staffed by a cadre of skilled pilots who stayed on at those low-paying jobs because it was the best flying gig they could get. Now that most have been snapped up by the airlines, it seems like many under-trained, low-time pilots are being rushed into the vacant left seats, with predictable results.
Or is it just my imagination?

 

[Cherokee_Cruiser]

FOs have to have 1500 hrs/ATP or a restricted ATP with slightly less hours. They cannot upgrade until they have 1,000 hrs in a Part 121 environment. The days you refer to, there were 250 hr FOs and guys who were walking into direct entry Captain positions at Part 121 Airlines with 0 time in a 121 airline. I don’t know about “predictable results” but experience requirements for regional are better today than they were 10-15 years ago.

 

[z987k]

FOs have to have 1500 hrs/ATP or a restricted ATP with slightly less hours. They cannot upgrade until they have 1,000 hrs in a Part 121 environment. The days you refer to, there were 250 hr FOs and guys who were walking into direct entry Captain positions at Part 121 Airlines with 0 time in a 121 airline. I don’t know about “predictable results” but experience requirements for regional are better today than they were 10-15 years ago.

Huh. I didn't know 135 and 91 stopped existing this year.

 

[NickH]

Yeah, a 250 hour 121 FO is less worrying to me than a 700 hour 135 Captain...

 

[Inverted]

I’m not gonna shed a single tear for the plight of 91 and 135 companies. I hope they completely revamp or cease to exist. Bottom feeder 135s will get the bottom of the barrel crap pilots with a child porn charge and a DUI because that’s the bed they made, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

I think back to just a short time ago at my first 135 carrier making 28k, being told that if I don’t kiss their shoes for the opportunity to fly a crappy turboprops, they would happily kick my butt to the curb and find somebody else. Now, watching how the only way, literally the only way they get people through the door, is with a 500 hour FO program that locks them in until they can fly as a captain, or captains with shady records, makes me so happy.

Call it the dark side all you want, but those subsets of the industry created the problem they are in. The entire industry relies on economic downturns to create a frenzy of qualified pilots on the market to feed the companies that would otherwise be desperate for pilots. And that isn’t unique to 91 and 135, 121 feels it as well. Hell the only reason the regionals have stepped it up as dramatically as they have, is because the economy is good and they can’t staff. Just wait until it dips and there are pilots on the street, the benefits, hiring bonuses and smiling faces by recruiters will stop overnight, and we will be back to Envoy kicking 10,000 hour airline captains out of the interview because they were off by .1 in their logbook.

 

[Murdoughnut]

I’m not gonna shed a single tear for the plight of 91 and 135 companies. I hope they completely revamp or cease to exist. Bottom feeder 135s will get the bottom of the barrel crap pilots with a child porn charge and a DUI because that’s the bed they made, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

I think back to just a short time ago at my first 135 carrier making 28k, being told that if I don’t kiss their shoes for the opportunity to fly a crappy turboprops, they would happily kick my butt to the curb and find somebody else. Now, watching how the only way, literally the only way they get people through the door, is with a 500 hour FO program that locks them in until they can fly as a captain, or captains with shady records, makes me so happy.

Call it the dark side all you want, but those subsets of the industry created the problem they are in. The entire industry relies on economic downturns to create a frenzy of qualified pilots on the market to feed the companies that would otherwise be desperate for pilots. And that isn’t unique to 91 and 135, 121 feels it as well. Hell the only reason the regionals have stepped it up as dramatically as they have, is because the economy is good and they can’t staff. Just wait until it dips and there are pilots on the street, the benefits, hiring bonuses and smiling faces by recruiters will stop overnight, and we will be back to Envoy kicking 10,000 hour airline captains out of the interview because they were off by .1 in their logbook.

Not just aviation, even. I laugh when I hear fellow business leaders sit on panels and say "we need to do more to attract millennial talent our region" No, you need millennials because you run an ad agency, and can't get experienced professionals to work 60 hours a week + for $32k anymore.

#letitburn

 

[Inverted]

Not just aviation, even. I laugh when I hear fellow business leaders sit on panels and say "we need to do more to attract millennial talent our region" No, you need millennials because you run an ad agency, and can't get experienced professionals to work 60 hours a week + for $32k anymore.

#letitburn

My wife is going through this right now. She took a job at a trendy hip California Bay Area company and although the money is good, she’s probably going to quit because of the culture. Some work 7 days a week because of the culture there, and they are having trouble filling lots of positions because of it. It’s so weird that when you can pick and choose, people choose to not work like a slave...

 

[Soul Brotha']

My wife is going through this right now. She took a job at a trendy hip California Bay Area company and although the money is good, she’s probably going to quit because of the culture. Some work 7 days a week because of the culture there, and they are having trouble filling lots of positions because of it. It’s so weird that when you can pick and choose, people choose to not work like a slave...

I laugh anytime a company talks about culture(my present employer included). Good luck paying your mortgage in culture.

 

[pete2800]

I’m not gonna shed a single tear for the plight of 91 and 135 companies. I hope they completely revamp or cease to exist. Bottom feeder 135s will get the bottom of the barrel crap pilots with a child porn charge and a DUI because that’s the bed they made, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

I think back to just a short time ago at my first 135 carrier making 28k, being told that if I don’t kiss their shoes for the opportunity to fly a crappy turboprops, they would happily kick my butt to the curb and find somebody else. Now, watching how the only way, literally the only way they get people through the door, is with a 500 hour FO program that locks them in until they can fly as a captain, or captains with shady records, makes me so happy.

Call it the dark side all you want, but those subsets of the industry created the problem they are in. The entire industry relies on economic downturns to create a frenzy of qualified pilots on the market to feed the companies that would otherwise be desperate for pilots. And that isn’t unique to 91 and 135, 121 feels it as well. Hell the only reason the regionals have stepped it up as dramatically as they have, is because the economy is good and they can’t staff. Just wait until it dips and there are pilots on the street, the benefits, hiring bonuses and smiling faces by recruiters will stop overnight, and we will be back to Envoy kicking 10,000 hour airline captains out of the interview because they were off by .1 in their logbook.

Absolutely nailed it.

May the garbage companies die, and die quickly.

This whole "pilot shortage" thing is a result of their own behavior. When you make an industry abusive for a long time, people eventually quit showing up to do it. Combine that with any sort of economic growth or retirement attrition, and you get some predictable results. Re-motivating an entire generation to go be pilots is not going to be easy. They're going to have to make this a GOOD job, from the bottom up. It's still true that a college student with a paid internship at Boeing makes more money than a Horizon FO. Another 10 bucks an hour won't do it. 50 might.

 

[z987k]

I’m not gonna shed a single tear for the plight of 91 and 135 companies. I hope they completely revamp or cease to exist. Bottom feeder 135s will get the bottom of the barrel crap pilots with a child porn charge and a DUI because that’s the bed they made, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

I think back to just a short time ago at my first 135 carrier making 28k, being told that if I don’t kiss their shoes for the opportunity to fly a crappy turboprops, they would happily kick my butt to the curb and find somebody else. Now, watching how the only way, literally the only way they get people through the door, is with a 500 hour FO program that locks them in until they can fly as a captain, or captains with shady records, makes me so happy.

Call it the dark side all you want, but those subsets of the industry created the problem they are in. The entire industry relies on economic downturns to create a frenzy of qualified pilots on the market to feed the companies that would otherwise be desperate for pilots. And that isn’t unique to 91 and 135, 121 feels it as well. Hell the only reason the regionals have stepped it up as dramatically as they have, is because the economy is good and they can’t staff. Just wait until it dips and there are pilots on the street, the benefits, hiring bonuses and smiling faces by recruiters will stop overnight, and we will be back to Envoy kicking 10,000 hour airline captains out of the interview because they were off by .1 in their logbook.

With any luck we'll have burned most of these places to the ground before the next down turn.

 

[Inverted]

Horizon is a great example of being really late to the party in the 121 world. They gotta step it up.

Even NetJets, which is the top 135/91 operator on the planet, is so behind the eight ball and their heads are so far up their butts, they don’t even know what they have done to themselves yet.

Also, the industry landscape has changed, and has continued to change. Think about how much consolidation has occurred in the airline industry in the last 10 years. Attrition, retirements and growth are all steady and will continue to be. Airline loads are all maxed out, we literally can’t shrink and sustain the demand. Short of another 9/11, I don’t think the airline industry will see massive furloughs and layoffs like it has in the past. Doesn’t mean there won’t be rough patches that’s for darn sure. I think the lower tier companies will continue to suffer, which again, I won’t lose sleep over.

 

[wheelsup]

Just be careful what you wish for. Pay needed to go up but as costs rise demand is destroyed. What might have been an economical charter for six in a Navajo is longer feasible. Repeat this throughout the industry and you're probably going to see a destruction of overall piloting jobs.

I hope the demand remains robust for the lower end of the industry as work conditions improve. It would be nice to experience a sustained period of high enough demand that employers have to at least treat their pilots with some form of respect. I remember groveling for time and it's not something we should have to do.

 

[Inverted]

So are we to feel sorry for companies that undercut just to grab that Navajo charter for 6? Is it that they can’t keep up with paying pilots enough to keep and attract, or is it that they kept pay so low for so long because they could, that they created their own false economy?

There has to be a balance, but. These companies and CEOs were running to the bank with money coming out of their ears for so long that I cannot and will not feel sorry for operators that can’t operate in this industry properly.

My first jet charter company told me that they couldn’t survive unless they kept us on call 24/7. Am I supposed to feel bad for them because they can’t find pilots because it’s the only way they can sell charter in their crappy 1980s Lear 55s?

Cost of living and inflation can’t keep going up with salaries remaining the same. The gap is nowhere near closed. I hate to see honest mom and pop companies go out but as a business you have to adapt to the times or die. Aviation shouldn’t have to rest on the backs of pilots.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Just be careful what you wish for. Pay needed to go up but as costs rise demand is destroyed. What might have been an economical charter for six in a Navajo is longer feasible. Repeat this throughout the industry and you're probably going to see a destruction of overall piloting jobs.

Labor costs are a miniscule portion of the overall cost of a charter. The company that hangars my 421 for me also owns a King Air for charter. I had them price it for me recently in case my plane is ever down. What they're paying the pilots was a single digit percentage of the overall cost of the charter. You're paying primarily for fuel, engine and maintenance reserves, and management overhead. Labor is nothing. If you're going to drop $6k on a charter flight, you're not going to stop chartering and go back to airlining just because it goes up to $6,200 to throw labor a bone.

 

[Roger Roger]

Prior to the shortage that has improved so many of our lives, most small operaters were staffed by a cadre of skilled pilots who stayed on at those low-paying jobs because it was the best flying gig they could get. Now that most have been snapped up by the airlines, it seems like many under-trained, low-time pilots are being rushed into the vacant left seats, with predictable results.
Or is it just my imagination?

The bigger problem at the small operator level imho is that the chief pilots, DOs, etc are seeing spots opening up at LCCs and in some cases even majors that were inaccessible to them a few years ago and jumping on it. That’s leaving a lot of places with a leadership and experience vacuum at the top. In spite of the sour grapes that a few bitter 135 vets on here have at many places the CPs, DOs, ACPs are honest hardworking people who hold the operation together.

Not just aviation, even. I laugh when I hear fellow business leaders sit on panels and say "we need to do more to attract millennial talent our region" No, you need millennials because you run an ad agency, and can't get experienced professionals to work 60 hours a week + for $32k anymore.

#letitburn

If you work really hard doing 50 hour weeks May-September, next year you can be a check airman and work 60 hour weeks March-October!

Horizon is a great example of being really late to the party in the 121 world. They gotta step it up.

Even NetJets, which is the top 135/91 operator on the planet, is so behind the eight ball and their heads are so far up their butts, they don’t even know what they have done to themselves yet.

Also, the industry landscape has changed, and has continued to change. Think about how much consolidation has occurred in the airline industry in the last 10 years. Attrition, retirements and growth are all steady and will continue to be. Airline loads are all maxed out, we literally can’t shrink and sustain the demand. Short of another 9/11, I don’t think the airline industry will see massive furloughs and layoffs like it has in the past. Doesn’t mean there won’t be rough patches that’s for darn sure. I think the lower tier companies will continue to suffer, which again, I won’t lose sleep over.

You can only make so much revenue 9 seats at a time, the economics of making a PC-12 competitive comp-wise to even a Crash 8 (for the same operation) doesn’t work in the long run.

 

[Roger Roger]

Labor costs are a miniscule portion of the overall cost of a charter. The company that hangars my 421 for me also owns a King Air for charter. I had them price it for me recently in case my plane is ever down. What they're paying the pilots was a single digit percentage of the overall cost of the charter. You're paying primarily for fuel, engine and maintenance reserves, and management overhead. Labor is nothing. If you're going to drop $6k on a charter flight, you're not going to stop chartering and go back to airlining just because it goes up to $6,200 to throw labor a bone.

Maybe for the charter world, but in the scheduled service world payroll was our biggest expense by a yuuuuge margin. And other than senior managers pilots were by far the best compensated people in the company.

 

[SlumTodd_Millionaire]

Maybe for the charter world, but in the scheduled service world payroll was our biggest expense by a yuuuuge margin. And other than senior managers pilots were by far the best compensated people in the company.

A misleading statement that management always loves to use. Don't fall for it. An example:

Let's say payroll is your largest expense at 25% of total costs (pretty typical for a scheduled airline). At a typical airline, about half of that would be crew costs (both pilot and FA). So now we're down to 12.5% of total costs represent pilot and FA. FA wages don't have the same upward pressures on them right now that pilot wages do, so we can take them out of the equation and look primarily at pilot wages, so we'll bump that down to an estimated 10% of total costs going towards pilot payroll. And let's now say that we need a significant bump in pilot payroll to stem the tide. A 20% increase is generally considered a huge increase to total payroll (remember that only about 70% of payroll is wages, so to get to a 20% increase, you need really big pay rate increases). So by bumping up pilot payroll by 20%, we're impacting the total costs on the airline by...2%. That's it.

If your airline is collapsing because you can't find pilots, and you can't find a way to make a 2% increase in total expenditures work in order to save your airline, then you're a horrible manager, and you deserve to be out of business.

 

[Roger Roger]

A misleading statement that management always loves to use. Don't fall for it. An example:

Let's say payroll is your largest expense at 25% of total costs (pretty typical for a scheduled airline). At a typical airline, about half of that would be crew costs (both pilot and FA). So now we're down to 12.5% of total costs represent pilot and FA. FA wages don't have the same upward pressures on them right now that pilot wages do, so we can take them out of the equation and look primarily at pilot wages, so we'll bump that down to an estimated 10% of total costs going towards pilot payroll. And let's now say that we need a significant bump in pilot payroll to stem the tide. A 20% increase is generally considered a huge increase to total payroll (remember that only about 70% of payroll is wages, so to get to a 20% increase, you need really big pay rate increases). So by bumping up pilot payroll by 20%, we're impacting the total costs on the airline by...2%. That's it.

If your airline is collapsing because you can't find pilots, and you can't find a way to make a 2% increase in total expenditures work in order to save your airline, then you're a horrible manager, and you deserve to be out of business.

Yeah ok.

 

[86BravoPapa]

I think back to just a short time ago at my first 135 carrier making 28k, being told that if I don’t kiss their shoes for the opportunity to fly a crappy turboprops, they would happily kick my butt to the curb and find somebody else. Now, watching how the only way, literally the only way they get people through the door, is with a 500 hour FO program that locks them in until they can fly as a captain, or captains with shady records, makes me so happy.

As an aspiring Commercial pilot and realizing that, for many, these jobs are stepping stones along the way to 121, the idea of sharing a cockpit with an inept captain in the left seat while I'm trying to become comfortable and competent flying bigger, faster equipment and stay alive while doing so is a pretty scary thought.

 

[pete2800]

A misleading statement that management always loves to use. Don't fall for it. An example:

Let's say payroll is your largest expense at 25% of total costs (pretty typical for a scheduled airline). At a typical airline, about half of that would be crew costs (both pilot and FA). So now we're down to 12.5% of total costs represent pilot and FA. FA wages don't have the same upward pressures on them right now that pilot wages do, so we can take them out of the equation and look primarily at pilot wages, so we'll bump that down to an estimated 10% of total costs going towards pilot payroll. And let's now say that we need a significant bump in pilot payroll to stem the tide. A 20% increase is generally considered a huge increase to total payroll (remember that only about 70% of payroll is wages, so to get to a 20% increase, you need really big pay rate increases). So by bumping up pilot payroll by 20%, we're impacting the total costs on the airline by...2%. That's it.

If your airline is collapsing because you can't find pilots, and you can't find a way to make a 2% increase in total expenditures work in order to save your airline, then you're a horrible manager, and you deserve to be out of business.

If I could like this post 5 times I would.

I'm going to have a beer and victory cigar every time a regional dies. They and the mainlines that have facilitated them deserve every penny of cost increase that this whole mess generates.