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“The real problem the industry is facing is young people aren’t making the decision to become an airline pilot,” said Capt. Tim Canoll, a Delta pilot and president of the Air Line Pilots Association. “It takes a very motivated person to meet the physical, emotional and intellectual challenge of becoming a pilot, and that same motivated person does the math looking at what it takes and the return on investment, and it just doesn’t add up,” particularly when training costs alone can reach $150,000.
The military has always been the training for future ATP's. Any private training has always been way to expensive.
For some interesting reason the only young pilots from the private sector that have shown an interest to continue into the aviation professions seem to have a lack of understanding of what it takes make it. They have a lackadaisical attitude to the physical requirements as far as drinking, drugs, and how being over weight will limit their chances.
After spending $100,000 plus on training it could all be for nothing if they develop any physical difficulties.
The pay isn't that great compared to equivalent professions requiring the same expense in training.
I don't see future improvements in interest in pilot training because of this.
correct...nothing new here. My dream was to become a pilot. Several years ago, I became a Flight Attendant to see if I would like the lifestyle and to have the chance to meet and ask pilots questions. I was shocked to here first officer (co pilot) pay was around $16,000; after spending $150,000 on training. I said "no thanks". I am grateful that I had the opportunity to get a glimpse into the life style and the "real deal" before diving in.
Last edited by leadingedge04; 04-23-2016 at 07:39 PM..
It is sad, and you have retiring pilots along with the new FAA rules required for Pilots to fly a certain amount of hours. When the Pilots are over hours, that leads to cancelled flights.
The military has always been the training for future ATP's. Any private training has always been way to expensive.
(snip)
My understanding is that it's been many decades since "the military" has been the training ground for civilian ATP aviation ... that era ended by the late 1960's/early 1970's.
simply due to the expense of the training and maintaining proficiency for the military type flying requirements, the "military" can't afford to let $mil+ training costs walk out the door with a minimal time active duty in the service.
hence, they raised the compensation for pilots to retain them in the service. And for many of them, there's no comparable equipment in the civilian sector in terms of performance or mission profiles ... which can be a big factor in the attraction of military flying.
even as early as the late 1960's, my Naval ROTC unit advisor was a Lt Commander who'd spent years as a single-seat fighter pilot who then moved on to teaching new naval pilots single-seat fighter tactics. He was still young enough and physically fit enough to have gone on to a career in civilian aviation. He didn't, he finished out his naval career teaching history or celestial navigation classes in an ROTC unit with the added responsibility of "flight familiarization" for all of the ROTC unit. It was a more regular teaching job and duty than he'd ever get in civilian aviation starting out at the low pay scales and multiple short flights/bid lines he'd have had as a low number on the seniority chart for years before ever matching what he was earning in the Navy. He'd head out to Olathe KS, pick up a T-34, and bring it back to a nearby airstrip a couple times per semester until all the cadets had received 1 hour flights in the back seat of a T-34 that year. Of course, he'd shake out the rivets of the T-34 ... for many of us with little or no GA experience, it was pretty intimidating and you were required to clean up the plane interior after the flight if you lost your lunch there. Many guys did just that.
I think you'll find that most ATP's of recent decades worked their way up the ladder by the common civilian routes ... private tickets through to CFI jobs, then flying whatever they could to build hours until an opportunity and training got them into a regional carrier. From there, into the majors when they'd gotten the hours and had the connections and ability to get and pass the hiring barrier. Places like Embry-Riddle have been sizable contributors to the civilian ATP pool.
Thanks to the latest hour requirements for ATP's, the aviation industry is heading for a severe cutback in qualified pilots. There will be a reckoning. The allure of aviation isn't enough to offset the high costs of 1,500 hours of flight time and low initial compensation for the first few years. My bet is the majors will have to make a commitment to new hires early in their flight training to help pay for the training costs and flight time as a qualified would-be pro progresses towards that 1,500 hours. Gotta' be a quid pro pro somewhere along the line where an individual makes steady progress towards the requirements and gets reimbursed along the way with a decent paying job waiting at the end of the training.
To be certain, there is a shortage at the FFD ('regional') airlines, but not at the majors. They still have resumes of many, many thousands of qualified pilots well above and beyond positions available, and will for some time even through the retirement flushes that are going to ramp up soon. Now, the FFD airlines could be in serious long-term trouble, however. They made their bed long ago with their ridiculous business plans which relied upon a steady supply of underpaid labor. The word got out, people chose different industries, and it's time to pay for that. Currently, it makes virtually no sense at all to enter this profession via the civilian path with what it costs to make it to the 'big leagues', if one even makes it that far to begin with. And the military certainly cannot provide the number of pilots needed.
To be certain, there is a shortage at the FFD ('regional') airlines, but not at the majors. They still have resumes of many, many thousands of qualified pilots well above and beyond positions available, and will for some time even through the retirement flushes that are going to ramp up soon. Now, the FFD airlines could be in serious long-term trouble, however. They made their bed long ago with their ridiculous business plans which relied upon a steady supply of underpaid labor. The word got out, people chose different industries, and it's time to pay for that. Currently, it makes virtually no sense at all to enter this profession via the civilian path with what it costs to make it to the 'big leagues', if one even makes it that far to begin with. And the military certainly cannot provide the number of pilots needed.
As a military pilot patiently saving up cash, putting my wife through nursing school, and generally watching all my co-workers get picked up left and right at mainlines, while the *contract feeders continue to snatch up anybody with ATP minimums and a pulse, I wholeheartedly agree with the above. There is no shortage at the mainline level, and there'll never be one. Also, the premise this kind of domestic capacity provided currently by the *contract jets (*I no longer use the term regionals, not when they're flying E190s doing mainline distance routes) is legitimately here to stay, also assumes facts not in evidence. The regionals would sooner shut down than establish a "career wage" structure. The FFD model is simply not built for that. Of course, this is all circular speak for the notion that said flying should have been brought in-house at the mainline carriers, and give the schmucks flying the E190 a mainline seniority number. But that's not gonna happen either.
Either way, I'm in agreement with 11thhour. If it hadn't been for my successful effort, medical luck, and resultant access onto military aviation, which to be clear I pursued as my primary goal, not as some conduit to some straight and level death-by-FMS airline job 10 years down the road ulterior motive, I would have simply re-trained from my engineering degrees into a medical profession of lucrative means and pursued my flying strictly on an avocational basis. No way was I gonna drudge it out at a regional during the lost decade (2001-2011) for the "love of flying", and endure the commuting/crashpad lifestyle on top of that. No thanks. Mad props and respect to the FFD slaves, but my labor value is worth more than that. I can do something worthy of a six figure paycheck for this society other than flying airplanes, if it came to it.
As it stands, the retirement numbers are gonna be doing all the work in the next 10 years. I'm in no hurry to be frank. I have learned a lot about this industry from watching my military predecessors lose big time during the lost decade and have to re-engage the military in order to finish out their military retirements in the Reserves (my current "career") in order to raise their families in the absence of a bona fide domestic flying industry for an entire decade of crickets wrt hiring. American Airlines didn't hire for 13 years, that's how much excess capacity they shed and re-shuffled through recalls and re-furloughs, same as United. What a joke. And I'm supposed to put my life on hold in my 30s because I'm competing with a 64 year old for the same job? Jesus Christ on an Airbus, it ain't that critical to my life to "do airplanes for money".
Sure, seniority is king and all that jazz, but I'm not gonna trip over myself for a job that has historically demonstrated it's fickle nature. If it's still a decent job when my family is in a position to tolerate its impositions (2 years away or so), then I'll take a crack at it. From the looks of it the retirements at the main 3 look retarded by the end of this decade. Even with the wholly owned flows, demographic that's no spring chicken themselves mind you, American will be the last to resume meaningful off the street hiring, but when they do, watch out brother. Like I said, this is one instance where waiting around won't hurt much on a long term career basis. And if it doesn't pan out, then no skin off my back. But life's too short to be "hoping" it's a good run while you're stuck making JCPenney junior branch manager money for 10 years with 10x the debt load at the age of 35 with a wife and kid who keep asking if they can stop moving already. I got 99 problems in my military so-called career, but struggling to pay the bills and save for the retirement I want to have, is not one of them. Good luck to the new aspirants. I'd still not recommend new entrants enter into any significant debt load in order to position themselves for this rickety career. I'd say do it the cheapest way possible, even if it's the slowest. As long as you're under 40, you got little opportunity cost to taking your time and thus insulating yourself economically from the next time this industry stops hiring, and that WILL happen again. Caveat emptor.
Due to the facts already mentioned, the airlines are hiring older pilots (meaning ones closer to the mandatory retirement age) which they might not have considered if there were enough younger pilots that had all the FAA min. requirements.
My wife and I were halibut fishing with two retired pilots from American who told us that so many students from other countries were enrolled in private schools that airlines were designing planes around them. Since these individuals lacked the "thinking out of the box" skills planes were being produced to be "idiot proof".
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