On the Mythical Pilot Shortage, Airline Pilots on Food Stamps, and Jumping to Conclusions about Buffalo

Last week's blog about the controversial crisis in pilot hiring and flight training elicited some of the most emotional, most strongly worded, and articulate responses to any piece I've written in my nearly-15 years at Flying. To refresh your memory, in my blog I recounted the ideas floated around the table at a conference held by Delta Connection Academy about what many attendees saw as a coming crisis in flight training. Many there blamed the crisis on the credit crunch for students looking for loans to foot the training bill. Every issue was on the table at the get together, from low starting salaries, to difficult working conditions for regional pilots to the advisability of even choosing airline flying as a career.

While responses to my piece ran the gamut, the lion's share of the opinion was that there is no crisis in flight training, because there's no shortage of pilots.

One commenter wrote, "The reason pilot wages are low is because of simple economics- PILOT SUPPLY FAR EXCEEDS DEMAND so employers can easily pay a low wage to fill their pilot employment needs. This supply and demand metric will continue to be out of our (i.e. pilot's) favor well into the foreseeable future."

Another commenter disagreed, "Do the flippin' math! There will be a pilot shortage in the next few years. The military guys are not going civilian anymore. Many of the older guys that were furloughed with families will not return to aviation. Student starts are near zero! CFI's are not earning hours. Where are we going to get the new crop of pilots from?"

But there was little disagreement that pay has to increase for starting pilots. My modest suggestion that there should be a starting minimum salary of $30,000 was widely criticized . . . for being too low. I agree and argue only that I was trying to be realistic. Will an industry, the Regional Airlines, whose members feel justified in paying pilots indefensible starting salaries, ever be willing to pay more?

And my suggestion that the airlines start footing the bill for training was dismissed by some, not as being bad policy but for being naive: "Sadly, the simple fact of the matter is that pay will never increase," one commenter wrote, "and the airlines will never take on the financial burden of training it's own as long as $99.00 coast to coast fares remain an American birth right. A monster the airlines themselves created."

One reader sent me a link to a piece in which the author met the pilots of an RJ he'd been flying on and learned that he had been on and off of food stamps while fully employed as an airline pilot. Both pilots had part time jobs, one as a substitute teacher. The quality of life/safety nexus is hard to ignore. And while no one brought up issues associated with new, poor pilots commuting long hours to their assigned base, at the conference it was a topic of great concern. 

A representative of the Regional Airline Association said that we should not jump to conclusions about the Buffalo crash of a Colgan Air RJ that left 49 dead. But reading the transcript of the cockpit voice recorders leaves one with an inescapable impression that the flight was conducted in a non-professional manner by pilots who admitted on tape their lack of appropriate experience and discussed their commuting woes.

And our readers agreed. One weighed in on that "The Colgan crash never would have happened if they used a furloughed United pilot as a F/O. But then no United F/O would be working for such low pay. Pay has everything to do with safety."

One poster pointed out a parallel: "Deregulation has historically created these types of issues. We saw it in the trucking industry as well. The carriers kept undercutting one another until the poor driver didn't stand a chance."

A father of a young man who has been a professional pilot for a few years weighed in young people becoming pilots. "For the young prospective pilots.....I hate to say it like this but hear it goes.....find another profession. most people do not have the money it takes to become marketable. The pay is too low to make up any ground. Don't waste your time.

Finally, one poster hit the nail on the head as to why there will always be prospects for that new-hire right seat job: "My passion for flying will not even come close to being consumed by this negative attitude! Of course education costs money and a Master's in Aeronautical Science and all the ratings do not come cheap. Flying as a profession is a very personal choice and I hold it very dear to my heart. I can't see my life without it. So whatever it takes..I'll be in the cockpit..."

Comments

[rafguy]

If Express Jet airline plot can't even express himself adequately in decent English, I don't want to fly Express Jet.

[matt]

I am glad Southwest is your favorite airline. The pilots don't strike there because (gasp!) they're actually better paid than most "major" airline pilots and their company treats them like valued employees instead of a necessary evil. So there's some proof that you can pay your employees well AND have a profitable company.

Many pilots would love to quit, but can't because

a) if you get another flying job, you start over again at $20k/yr
b) there's nowhere to go anyway, unless you feel like Asia or the Middle East

[Jawad Sultan]

I too was once the pilot that would do anything to be in the cockpit. I've been a professional pilot since 2006 and have worked my way from 250 hours to the 1,500 hours. Anyone that says that it will be too expensive and costly and un-realistic doesn't know a thing about aviation. I flight instructed and did corporate flying the entire time and am doing fine. I've had tons of opportunities to get on with a regional airline and passed because of the conditions. Pilot shortage is a thing made up by the flights schools and persons in training roles to get people to want to train, expecting something in the end. When an airline CEO comes up to me and tells me there is a pilot shortage, then maybe I'll believe it then.

I, as well as thousands of other professional pilots, are out there. We just simply wont work for an airline and make ultimately below minimum wage.

I hate to say it, but anyone that tells me they'd love to become an airline pilot gets told otherwise because I've seen the conditions. I've seen what it's like. I too will do almost anything to be in an airliner, but living on a minimum wage salary is not one of them.

I 100% support the minimum ATP rule because if nothing else, this will get rid of those individuals that will take the $18K salary just to get to fly a jet. Those are the ones that truly are bringing this industry down. Once people have an ATP, they will be in the industry long enough to know what it's really like and God willing, we will actually have a pilot shortage!

[tom s.]

A pilot shortage with close to 10,000 major airline pilots laid off?
Lets not forget how many folks are laid off by the "regionals" and even the fractionals. Pilot shortage my left cheek!!

[Pat]

I have worked in the aviation industry for 26 years. I must say that there will NEVER be a qualified pilot shortage ever. Pilots are their own worst enemy. Until all these low pay regional airlines are completely out of pilots and they go out of business, then there is a pilot shortage. It wont ever happen. Too many people have either the financial means or the utmost desire to fly at any cost. I was one of them with the desire. The pilot training companies were calling for the "greatest pilot shortage about to happen" in the 80s and early 90s when you needed 3000+ hours 500multi to fly a metro for 16$ an hour or a Caravan for 3 cents a mile. If anyone asks me about a airline career I regretfully have to say go be anything else.

[John Bauman]

My name is John Bauman

[John Bauman]

People call me John Bauman