Want A Job
Must know how to Text !
Must know how to use an I-Phone & I-Pad
Also be Twitter Savy
and do Facebook stuff
Must know how to use Techno' Devices / Never mind reading actual Aero-Nautical maps and Charts of the paper kind !!!
Must know how to VFR & IFR , as well as CPR !
Last requirement : must know something about Flying
and Flight Regulations of some type
Apply here : http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/the-great-american-pilot-shortage/ar-BBhGErw
As if flying weren’t irritating enough already – with rising airfares and stringent security policies – now there’s a shortage of commercial pilots on the horizon, which could result in air service shutdowns at smaller regional airports.
More than 20,000 cockpit seats are expected to be available at U.S. airlines over the next seven years due to FAA-mandated age-65 retirements, Aviation Week reported Monday.
Regional pilots, who tend to have lower wages, typically take the cockpit seats at major U.S. airlines for significantly higher salaries. Newly graduated pilots in turn replace them. Here’s the problem with this picture, said Aviation Week: Too few are choosing careers in the cockpit.
The shortage is already affecting regional airlines, with fewer flight options for travelers.
American airports of all sizes have been suffering flight cuts in recent years due to the growing pilot shortage, the Regional Airline Association said in a September press release. Some cuts have been as high as 81 percent.
Some cities already down 10 percent or more of their scheduled airline departures include Cleveland, Memphis, Louisville and Tallahassee. But the impact might lead to some smaller U.S. cities losing air service altogether, according to Aviation Week.
Reasons for the pilot plight vary. One is that fewer military pilots are joining commercial airlines after their military service: The compensation is less attractive and work schedules are busier. The military has also dramatically reduced its need for pilots and pilot training – except for drone pilots, who are in high demand.
“Transport pilots and helicopter pilots stay in the military for 20 years to hit retirement so they have something secure before considering the airlines – which they view as not secure because of what airlines have done to pilots’ retirement accounts in almost every round of bankruptcy filings,” said Mary Schiavo, former inspector general for the Dept. of Transportation and today an attorney
Fewer people are also joining pilot school, deterred by lower starting salaries and pension cuts.
As the Air Line Pilots Association put it in an article last year, “There is … a shortage of qualified pilots willing to fly for substandard wages and inadequate benefits.”
Schiavo also noted that many pilots are taking work in other countries at a premium.
To address the pilot shortage, some have suggested the FAA reassess its strict 1,500-hour flying requirement to become a pilot. Others say college graduates could acquire hours as flight instructors on an airline’s payroll – or that regional and major airlines could partner to offer scholarships in return for service commitments to flying for them both.
For now, Americans will have to get used to fewer options when traveling and most likely longer layovers. They can also start dreaming of a pilotless plane.
Comments from readers on the article :
Simple solution is to pay the regional pilots more money. Low pay is discouraging folks from becoming pilots.
Its really no more complicated than that.
Dave: 9/11 made liability insurance for flight-school hours too expensive. Same math required to do pre-flight calculations, can also figure out that chump-change wages won't pay-off student-loans. What few ex-military stay on flight-decks, do so with UPS/FedEx. Not near the hassle with boxes.
well it can be attributed to that or the fact that there CEOs and investors aren't willing to take a cut to pay there pilots decently... nope this is a greed issue. The should just hold out like every other line of work dose...see how much corporate America is making when the working class pilots stop working for change and there are zero flights. I bet they would lose a hell of a lot more money with no business then to pay there pilots more... but that's just me I'm not really a business major... or they could just remove the seats, and fit twice the amount of people on! this way they would pay there pilots better AND make a nice little profit increase:):)! OH YEAH! <----- this is more likely to happen the a pay increase on merit alone LOL. Ahh those greedy corporations are never going to learn, but hey they don't have to we will just foot the bill for em:)
stop cheating the men and women in this profession and pay them what they are really worth. Greed of Airline companies is the root to this problem.
What are they really worth? Ask 100 people and I bet you get 100 different numbers. What should a starting regional pilots salary be?
Very true, my pilot buddies have spent a fortune to become a commercial pilot only to struggle with student loans and no life schedules. But the knew this going into it.
I can tell you first hand as an airline transport pilot, the U.S. airlines did this to themselves. They exploit the very passion that drives the dedication of a professional pilot for their own benefit. At first glance, this article would make one who aspires to become an airline pilot one day, feel confident that career opportunities are quite promising due to supply and demand principle. However, the unfortunate reality is that articles like this, are only pathetic attempts to ensure the pipeline stays full of young naive soon to be pilots feeding the new "indentured servitude" concept created by colleges and universities.
Might sound bitter, but it's the raw truth.
Hours hours hours...........biggest fallacy in all of aviation still believed by most. Of course it is necessary to accumulate a lot of PIC and SIC(pilot in command-second in command, ie: pilot and co-pilot) but is it not the quality and the type/kind of training along with many various kinds of experiences that the student pilot has had rather than just having accumulated 1,500hrs? Yes, there are the requirements for so many hours of multi-engine time factored in along with jet time hours and type ratings, etc. For example one may have 500hrs in a piper cub spotting fish, 500 hrs towing banners and 250+250 hours twin and single engine jet time flying local one and two hour instructor flights along with PIC and SIC cargo flights of 300-500 mile distances, etc. Training for emergencies in a simulator is getting better but can't really duplicate the live in-airplane happening. Of utmost importance is learning how to recognize and deal with all kinds of weather as it pertains to the particular airplane one may be PIC of at any given time. For years the FAA and airline companies have and have had many requirements for frequent testing and for recurrent training of pilots but most of that is in simulators which are state of the art but cannot duplicate many of the situations that occur in a real live situation. Should there be more comprehensive realistic live in real airplane training in how to cope with more kinds of possible incidents? Prime example: very high hour airline pilots hit the end of the runway with their Boeing 777 on landing at San Francisco in good weather attempting a visual approach/landing. Obviously they did not have the proper training and/or the correct kind of recent training to successfully perform the approach and landing. Question is why were they not properly prepared even though they had many thousands of hours?
People Eating Tasty Animals.
