The Wall Street Journal Reported today the extensive Pilot Shortage about to hit the aviation industry. Already, the Pacific Rim and Asia have been training pilots in a furious attempt to keep their Airlines staffed. Most of the training is here in The United States because it is still less expensive to train here than overseas and the real world aviation theater is here too with all kinds of weather and traffic.
Several factors are driving this shortage and here they are. The government in a knee jerk reaction to a plane crash mandated that pilots who fly in the right seat or as co-pilot needs to have 1500 hours which is the required time for an ATP rating. I have some airline contacts that have said they have many co-pilots with thousands of hours flying 737-767-757-MD88 that have no ATP. Many have not even taken the ATP written! I was amazed by that but there are a lot of pilots that are now looking to get their ATP.
These hours are very expensive and hard to come by when 100LL aircraft fuel is about $6.00 a gallon and a lowly C-172 burns around 10 gallons an hour. A Sirrus and high performance aircraft will burn closer to 14 GPH and up. Then when you advance into a twin Seneca or Seminole you can almost double those numbers.
Cost. The expense of getting the flying time and training is horrendous due to the above. I remember feeling exuberant when I was able to buy avgas in Tucumcari and paid $1.33 a gallon in 1992 on a cross country flight. The cost to get an ATP now will take much longer and the ab-intro training will certainly more.
Pay. Pilots starting out in the aviation industry qualify for food stamps, welfare, section 8 subsidized housing and would be better off living at home with mom and dad until they were a couple years into the game or even in the left seat. A majority of these guys and gals have some kind of degree and many select to work in another avocation where they can stay home each night and and can afford to have a place to live and dump the airline life.
It is an odd situation. Many or most commuter airlines are represented by ALPA. These commuter pilots fly more routs, more crumby hours, closer to the ground, in dicey weather and into smaller airports and are paid a fraction of what the major pilots are paid. The commuter pilot is abused and the unions seems fine with that. I am amazed that these pilots flying similar and in many cases better and more complex equipment than legacy airline equipment but are treated like dirt.
I will say that the equipment side is clearly good although most commuter airplanes are ramped up executive jets.
I feel that there will need to be a compromise somewhere. Boeing had orders for over 900 737-800s and others on the books with no end in sight so flight crews are going to be needed like crazy.
If you have a wish to fly get busy now.
