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    Default Pilot shortage? Is this real?

    I always thought being a pilot was a pretty attractive job, but the competition meant that airlines had low pay.
    What, the fuck, is up?
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    Sure don't trust the federales to do anything useful about this. They probably shouldn't either.
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    You realize you are talking to the guy who made his own furniture out of salad bowls right?

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    Wasn't it Bowling For Columbine where Michael Moore went on a tangent about how little $ American pilots made?
    Maybe it was more likely Fahrenheit 911?
    At any rate, it sounded like they made the square root of fuck all for a highly trained job of incredible importance and those movies are getting to be OldBalls.
    I had assumed the problem went away because I never heard much more about it. Sort of like that Darfur thing in Sudan. They must've just got together and worked out their differences...

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    Beyond has a couple of pilots, hoping they chime in.
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    You realize you are talking to the guy who made his own furniture out of salad bowls right?

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    I’ve always been under the impression it was a pretty low paid thankless job except for a few select routes and equipment that the most senior officers get.

    Something about thousands of former US military pilots flooding the employment market after doing their time in the Air Force or the Navy?
    Originally posted by Thales of Miletus

    If you think I have been trying to present myself as intellectually superior, then you truly are a dimwit.
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    fact.
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    guessing who I might be, psychologizing me with your non existent degree.

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    Quote Originally Posted by ExtraSlow View Post
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    Beyond has a couple of pilots, hoping they chime in.
    PAGING:
    @95EagleAWD

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    So if rhe pay sucks, and there is an excess of qualified applicants, that doesn't sound like a training issue.
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    You realize you are talking to the guy who made his own furniture out of salad bowls right?

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    Quote Originally Posted by killramos View Post
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    I’ve always been under the impression it was a pretty low paid thankless job except for a few select routes and equipment that the most senior officers get.

    Something about thousands of former US military pilots flooding the employment market after doing their time in the Air Force or the Navy?
    I thought they got paid a lot more reasonable now but it's a job about passion to a certain extent so it's hard to say.
    I'm not here to check pay stubs, I'd just like to know about the alleged shortage.

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    Quote Originally Posted by killramos View Post
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    I’ve always been under the impression it was a pretty low paid thankless job except for a few select routes and equipment that the most senior officers get.

    Something about thousands of former US military pilots flooding the employment market after doing their time in the Air Force or the Navy?
    Well, the position is basically a bus driver. Jobs that can be described as equipment operators don't typically make as much compared to ones involving managing people, designing and constructing equipment / buildings. Like stated above me, I think pilots fly because they love to, not because it's a good paycheque.

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    I don't want to get into any discussion of how difficult or important the job is. Just trying to figure out 1) if there's a shortage of qualified pilots and 2) if there is, does anything need to be done about that?

    The low pay, to me, is an indicator that there couldn't be a shortage. But I'm pretty simple minded about supply/demand type things.
    Quote Originally Posted by killramos View Post
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    You realize you are talking to the guy who made his own furniture out of salad bowls right?

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    I've heard as well that there is a shortage of young pilots. The pilot shortage is going to get worse before it gets better

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    Its thankless, low paying, long hours, and terrible shifts (of course Im generalizing, theres some good jobs, but mostly not). Add to that the millenial attitude of the next generation, and you have good people leaving for other careers when they realize theyll be earning minimum wage for the next decade before their career really takes off.

    IMO the pilot shortage is the least of the problems with aviation though.

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    What a bullshit article. There is a shortage of EXPERIENCED pilots, but there is no shortage of pilots in training. What a complete waste of tax dollars that would be.

    I started flying in 2000, and have been rather fortunate in my career progression despite the downturn of the early 2000’s. I flew for small cargo operators, I flew Medevac in the Arctic, I ran crew changes into the Uranium mines up north, I flew corporate charter, and most everything in between. I love working at Air Canada now, but some of the most fun I ever had in an airplane were those small operators up north.

    Now let’s address the pay. There is a HUGE pay discrepancy between the wages for airline pilots in Canada and the USA. After the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo NY, the FAA determined that there was a lack of experience in the flight deck, and lobbied Congress to institute a “1500 hour rule” for first officers starting at regional airlines, and an ATP licence. I digress for a minute, but for those who aren’t familiar with the various licences, there is a Private pilot licence, a commercial pilot licence, and an airline transport pilot licence (ATPL) which requires a minimum of 1500 hours of a specific type of flight experience to obtain.

    In order to become a captain or first officer in the United States at even a regional airline, you require this licence. In Canada however, only the captain is required to have this licence at a regional airline, the first officer is legally allowed to fly with a Commercial licence and as little as 500 hours of flight experience. (Think back to the Colgan Aor crash.) Now, for the “majors” like Air Canada and westjet, the first officer AND captain must not only both have their ATPL, but you won’t even get your foot in the door with less than about 3500-4000 hours anyways.

    The European and Asian systems also put very inexperienced pilots into the first officer seat of major airlines as well, but that’s another story.

    Before I went to Air Canada I was a captain at their regional airline (Jazz) for a few years and I got to see the operation firsthand, and what it boils down to is that as long as there is no requirement to have a decent amount of experience to become a first officer at a regional airline, they will have an endless supply of labour to fill their cockpits, as they can just keep lowering the requirements for that entry level position. (Westjet and Encore already have.) supply and demand tells us, this keeps the wages for these guys low. Now let me get up on my soapbox for a minute here, when I went looking for some of the jobs I had earlier in my career, you couldn’t even get your resume looked at to fly a shitty clapped out plane in the arctic without at LEAST 2000 hours! Nowadays, 500 hours and a heartbeat will get you into a regional airline, and they get away with paying these new guys peanuts because they have an endless supply. Why would you go freeze your ass off up north in -45* for a couple years when you could live in Vancouver and fly a “big airplane” and walk through the terminal with your super sweet hat on?! Like I said above, I love my job, and while I wouldn’t necessarily go back, I loved my experience flying up north. I made some of my best friends up there, almost killed myself a couple times, saw some cool shit, but most importantly I gained experience flying in impossible weather conditions in planes that are nowhere near as well equipped as the ones I fly today. I think this latest generation of pilots is at a serious disadvantage because they’re getting hired directly into the regionals.

    If we had an “ATPL rule” like they do in the states, the industry would improve overnight. Unfortunately, the airlines are content with keeping costs low too much. Now, I want to add that even at the regional level, the training is really good. You can’t just be any geek off the street. There are still checks and balances in place as well as recurrent training (simulator training every 6 months) to ensure everyone is fully qualified. I’m by no means saying there is a lack of skill or qualification at the regional level, but rather experience perhaps.
    ...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Maxx Mazda View Post
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    There are still checks and balances in place as well as recurrent training (simulator training every 6 months) to ensure everyone is fully qualified. I’m by no means saying there is a lack of skill or qualification at the regional level, but rather experience perhaps.
    Those checks and balances are becoming a very, very, dark shade of grey. A major reason for leaving my last job is because I'm convinced the regional carrier is going to kill somebody due to the lack of re-training for the inexperienced pilots. They won't fire anyone because of the shortage of pilots, and I'm sorry, but twice-annual sim sessions aren't going to help anyone. The real training is in the flight deck and you need an experienced captain to train an inexperienced first officer, but when the captain only has a few hundred flight hours himself, this is an issue.

    The amount of "holy fuck, did the captain just do/say that", that I went through scared the shit out of me. Especially when one almost killed everybody onboard by decreasing thrust during a stall, and then the SMS report came out stating the exact opposite happened and blamed a mechanical failure (of which there was none), and the SMS wasn't even written by the captain, but by the chief pilot.

    Scary shit man. Of course this could just be one regional airline, but I suspect it's not isolated.
    Last edited by Tik-Tok; 01-01-2020 at 02:49 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tik-Tok View Post
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    Those checks and balances are becoming a very, very, dark shade of grey. A major reason for leaving my last job is because I'm convinced the regional carrier is going to kill somebody due to the lack of re-training for the inexperienced pilots. They won't fire anyone because of the shortage of pilots, and I'm sorry, but twice-annual sim sessions aren't going to help anyone. The real training is in the flight deck and you need an experienced captain to train an inexperienced first officer, but when the captain only has 300 flight hours himself, this is an issue.

    The amount of "holy fuck, did the captain just do/say that", that I went through scared the shit out of me. Especially when one almost killed everybody onboard by decreasing thrust during a stall, and then the SMS report came out stating the exact opposite happened and blamed a mechanical failure (of which there was none), and the SMS wasn't even written by the captain, but by the chief pilot.

    Scary shit man. Of course this could just be one regional airline, but I suspect it's not isolated.
    I wish I didn't read this and I hope I forget about it before my next flight.

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    Becoming a Pilot is very expensive. I have two friends that are pilots and both of them went to the MRU program for commercial pilot, 2 year diploma with flight time and it was 80-100k because of all of the flight hours. Also, just getting your license is expensive, probably 15-20k.

    And then you come out of school with a ton of debt and have a tough time finding a job. However, sounds like all of the pilots are retiring so there is a shortage.

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    Pilot shortage!!!!!

    Pilots: "I can't find a job"

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    Quote Originally Posted by Buster View Post
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    Pilot shortage!!!!!

    Pilots: "I can't find a job"
    Probably more of a "I can't find a job that pays a living wage" scenario. Lots of pilots early in their careers have a second job.

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    How many hours do pilots typically spend flying vs hours paid? In construction, 2000 hrs experience/yr isn’t too difficult to reach.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Buster View Post
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    Pilot shortage!!!!!

    Pilots: "I can't find a job"
    Should have picked a diff career? lol

    Srs tho, no one wants to pay their dues it seems
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tik-Tok View Post
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    Its thankless, low paying, long hours, and terrible shifts (of course Im generalizing, theres some good jobs, but mostly not). Add to that the millenial attitude of the next generation, and you have good people leaving for other careers when they realize theyll be earning minimum wage for the next decade before their career really takes off.

    IMO the pilot shortage is the least of the problems with aviation though.
    Are you referring to the maintenance debacle, race to the bottom?

    One thing that will happen within 10 years is the beginnings of a single pilot environment - plus a remote control 'backup' pilot on the ground.
    Boeing patented their BUAP system in the early 2000s. You will start seeing the cargo flights going to this, first.
    Rumours have it that the new Boeing NMA ship will have this as an option from the factory.

    This will mean that a pilot sitting at desk in North America can assist/fly a plane in SE Asia if need be. Suddenly the pilot shortage isnt so bad.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by max_boost View Post
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    Srs tho, no one wants to pay their dues it seems
    Thats exactly the problem with entitled kids. You have learned fuck all by not paying your dues in a difficult environment. Piloting a ship is no exception.

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