How to solve the US pilot shortage

Groundpounder said:
I took a pretty significant pay cut to go from corporate to the airlines, but it will be equal in a year or two, and the lifetime earnings plus the retirement benefits will eclipse what I would have made by millions.
Click to expand...
Of which your two ex-wives will enjoy. :)
 
MauleSkinner said:
Who’s gonna watch him? The 1500-hour captain can barely watch himself.
Click to expand...

You pretty much summed up the Colgan Air crew. They’re what brought in the ATP rule change.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Fracpilot said:
You pretty much summed up the Colgan Air crew. They’re what brought in the ATP rule change.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Let’s not forget the rest bit and the bum home lifestyle that makes one into a regional zombi
 
Fracpilot said:
You pretty much summed up the Colgan Air crew. They’re what brought in the ATP rule change.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
“Captain Renslow was hired in September 2005 and had accumulated 3,379 total flight hours, with 111 hours as captain on the Q400.[3]: 6–11  First Officer Shaw was hired in January 2008, and had 2,244 hours, 774 of them in turbine aircraft, including the Q400”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407

There’s still nothing in FAR 117 that says you can’t commute in on a red eye
 
jordane93 said:
“Captain Renslow was hired in September 2005 and had accumulated 3,379 total flight hours, with 111 hours as captain on the Q400.[3]: 6–11  First Officer Shaw was hired in January 2008, and had 2,244 hours, 774 of them in turbine aircraft, including the Q400”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407

There’s still nothing in FAR 117 that says you can’t commute in on a red eye
Click to expand...


Well

043a041ce61868582da68b40f7f84200.jpg
 
OneCharlieTango said:
My son is a first-year FO with a major. His pay doubled when he went from FO to Captain at the regional, went up something like 50% going from regional captain to major FO, will double after he completes his first year as FO, and double again when he’s promoted to captain.[QUOTE}

Hmm, Regional FO starts at $40K (see post above yours).

Double to regional Capt = $80K

50% to go to FO major = $120K

Double after 1 year = $240K

Double to Capt = $480K

Hmm, sources say top pay at Delta is $257K
Click to expand...
 
tspear said:
I disagree that the airlines cannot restructure the majority of flights to be out and back; out of a hub.
This could be done to attract the next generation of pilots as part of a work/life balance. Which is becoming a larger factor in employment and employee retention.
However, this is only a belief on my part. I am not in the industry, so....

Tim
Click to expand...

Where do you park all the planes?

A BIG reason for crews overnighting is that is where the airplane can be parked overnight.

It also helps for early flights from the outlying airports TO the hub, to catch flights OUT of the hub.
 
jordane93 said:
257K is definitely NOT top of pay scale
Click to expand...

It's funny how everyone has 'sources' or 'friends' that somehow makes folks want to talk with authority about our industry. ;)
 
It’s not all rainbows and unicorns for part 135 either. 15 days on the road! :( There’s no perfect flying job. If you're able to be home every night with a flying job, then you ain’t making good money. If you’re making good money, then you’re putting up with sacrifices. Like being gone close to 6 months out of the year.

 
Velocity173 said:
It’s not all rainbows and unicorns for part 135 either. 15 days on the road! :( There’s no perfect flying job. If you're able to be home every night with a flying job, then you ain’t making good money. If you’re making good money, then you’re putting up with sacrifices. Like being gone close to 6 months out of the year.
Click to expand...

There just isn't a 9-5, Monday through Friday, 40 hours a week, flying job. There just isn't by the very nature of what aviation does. If someone is looking for that, you probably need to work in a different industry.
 
There are some flying jobs up north where you are home almost every night, and they pay well to.
 
midwestpa24 said:
There just isn't a 9-5, Monday through Friday, 40 hours a week, flying job. There just isn't by the very nature of what aviation does. If someone is looking for that, you probably need to work in a different industry.
Click to expand...

A CFI does that. A helicopter tour pilot does that. EMS does that. You’re not gonna get rich doing those jobs.

I’ll give you a perfect example. Guy came to my base a couple months ago because we had an opening. This is a guy that flys AW-139s for a popular overseas contractor (oil & gas). He said he was looking for an easy retirement job now and has gotten burnt out on the road. I asked what his schedule was like. Over 300 days he was on the road last year. Myself, 4 days for the simulator. He said he just flew 200 hrs in 6 weeks. Myself, 138 hrs for the entire year. His eyes lit up when I told him that. We didn’t compare salaries but I’d be willing to bet he makes twice what I do.

Work is about choices that revolve around priorities. With all the automation, it won’t be long before I can work from home. I mean, if Tesla employees can do it, why not pilots?:)
 
Whitney said:
Many predict pilotless planes in the future.
Click to expand...

Yeah possibly one day. Of course my comment above was tongue in cheek. We were at work the other day and they had the story about Musk telling his employees no more remote working. I brought up the fact that 1) we’re essential service employees so we didn’t get off during pandemic. And 2) we work a job where it’s impossible to work remotely. Need to find another career!

Honestly though, I don’t think I could stand working from home either. I don’t want to spend my days traveling but I’d go stir crazy working from home as well.
 
Whitney said:
There are some flying jobs up north where you are home almost every night, and they pay well to.
Click to expand...
“Pay well”
So subjective. Whatever they pay, I bet it would be more if they were on the road. Universally in my 23 years as a pilot my boss considered schedule as part of my compensation if I was home every night.

I doubt that changes because the boss is from up north. Bosses are bosses.
 
Velocity173 said:
A CFI does that. A helicopter tour pilot does that. EMS does that. You’re not gonna get rich doing those jobs.
Click to expand...

A CFI doesn't even count as a 9-5, and I've done it. You still need to work nights (kind of required by FAR) and often weekends, when a lot of students are more available. You are not going to work and get paid for 5 - 8 hour days. To even get 8 hours of pay, you are probably putting in 10-12 hours per day. The only part that is right is you at least are home every night.

There's also the matter of steady pay. CFI is largely dependent on student schedules, weather, maintenance, etc. It doesn't take much to lose a week's pay.
 
midwestpa24 said:
A CFI doesn't even count as a 9-5, and I've done it. You still need to work nights (kind of required by FAR) and often weekends, when a lot of students are more available. You are not going to work and get paid for 5 - 8 hour days. To even get 8 hours of pay, you are probably putting in 10-12 hours per day. The only part that is right is you at least are home every night.

There's also the matter of steady pay. CFI is largely dependent on student schedules, weather, maintenance, etc. It doesn't take much to lose a week's pay.
Click to expand...

My original post was referring to being home every night, not working exactly 8 hrs a day. Yes, there are times where pilots may have to work over 8 hrs, work weekends and holidays, etc. But, those jobs that I listed aren’t on the road for 15 days at a stretch.
 
Piperonca said:
The top pay for a Delta Airlines Captain is approximately $205,000, but those flying a Boeing 777 can potentially earn $298,500 per year plus bonuses, or as much as $350,000 in one year, according to this: https://iflycoast.com/airline-pilots-earn-7-million-over-their-careers/
Another, sketchier source I can't find now said 487K in at least one instance. Who knows, but that sounds like a fine job if you can get it.
Click to expand...
The 205K number is BS and we don’t even have 777s anymore. Must be an old article or just a really bad writer who didn’t do any research.
 
jordane93 said:
The 205K number is BS and we don’t even have 777s anymore. Must be an old article or just a really bad writer who didn’t do any research.
Click to expand...
Well it's on the internet so you know it's true, at least within an order of magnitude, lol. So what's the real number? Got my curiosity up now.
 
Piperonca said:
Well it's on the internet so you know it's true, at least within an order of magnitude, lol. So what's the real number? Got my curiosity up now.
Click to expand...

They are a union shop with a CBA?
 
Read up on Alaska airlines recently if you want to see what the subtitles to “pilot shortage” means.
 
Piperonca said:
Well it's on the internet so you know it's true, at least within an order of magnitude, lol. So what's the real number? Got my curiosity up now.
Click to expand...

All our contracts are public knowledge, and airline pilots will generally be open to discussing what they earn with each other, how they utilized the contract to make it happen, and so on. APC is entertaining garbage when it comes to their forums, but for objective information like pay rates there's a lot of info there. Here is Delta's page with their pay rates:

https://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/legacy/delta_air_lines

They're hourly rates, so as you can imagine the yearly pay is mainly dependent on how much you want to work. But it's also more complicated than that, since a lot of 'credit' happens without actually doing any work at all. We call that 'soft time'. If you're willing to be flexible with when you work and the kinds of trips you're willing to fly, you can also grab 'premium' trips offered at 150-200%, depending on the airline. In today's understaffed environment there's as much premium available as anyone wants to fly, so a common technique for a hustling pilot is to drop his entire schedule (or as much as possible) and rebuild the month with only premium trips. So what would normally be a 14 day month for say, 90 hours of credit, becomes 180 hours of credit for the same amount of work.

Anyway, for a quick and dirty idea of the yearly pay you can take the hourly and multiply by 1000 to get the bare minimum, but my guess is the middle of the bell curve is somewhere in the 1200-1300 range. Guys that really hustle and use their contract to the fullest get into the 1500-2000 range, but up near 2000 (or even beyond) and you're really only talking about a tiny group of outliers.
 
jordane93 said:
Around $305,000 doing the bare minimum.
Click to expand...

Lest we draw that out, the amount of experience and BS you have gone through to get to that point far exceeded that of most FAA employees, and slightly exceeded that of non super high end doctors, etc

Plus a good bit of luck and networking
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top