nealsapilot

Hi, i'm a commercial, cfi with about 600 hrs of total time. I began flying airplanes when i was 14 yrs old...so let's just say i've got a very strong passion for it (as most of us do). The reason why i'm posting this is because i see a very big problem with our industry and only see it getting worse. I by no means want to implement a negetive opinion about it... in fact i am a very positive person.
Why would we want to live on poverty wages as a cfi or whatever for half of our life trying to land an entry level airline job that pays about the same. I have dumped thousands of dollars into training, prob. about the size of a house and i think all of us can relate to this. At the same time we read about those pilots that have thousands of hours of flight time that work for airlines are getting pushed around too. Wage cuts, furloughing, you name it...
My question is this... what do we need to do? This is not right. I do have some opinions or ideas which may seem out of the question... but i got to try.
I think the first thing that needs to be done is to form an organization of CFI's.... think about it. I do see a demand for pilots. the airlines know this and we know this. The airlines are getting away with hiring us to cheaply. They know that they can find some low time pilot out there and give him a so called job for little or nothing. just because they know they just want the flight time.
I beleive us flight instructors have the upper hand here, but don't realize it. Without us there would be no one to meet the demands for pilots. Flight instructors don't make squat and are expected to be professionals and it needs to change. CFI's need benifits and "living" wages to support this industry. 10 dollars a flight hour just doesn't cut it. We are loosing our respect. We set our standards to low.
To sum it up... i think that cfi's should form a union. There is absolutley nothing to stop us from doing it, and believe that, in time, it would make our industry a better place. There are only 80 some thousand cfi's in the U.S. Think what would happen if we all went on strike and demanded better conditions. We have got to stop working for nothing.
Any insights to this please let me know!

UConnQB14

good thought, but not all airline pilots are CFI's... that basically leaves the military guys and those lucky enough to have 135 experience to get pushed around by the airlines.. good thought tho

FutureATP

I think what he was trying to say is if all or most of the CFIs in the U.S. went on strike, then very little pilots would be trained, hence no new pilots to fill voids at the airlines. The something would have to give. It's a novel idea on the surface, but I'd like to see it from all angles...i.e. legal, economical, practical, nation-wide support.

Rich

Before I begin, let me say I'm just getting started on my PPC, so I recognize I have a lot to learn. Take what I say with a grain of salt.

If CFI's got better pay I think people would either have to invest even more into their training (because the increased rates would be passed to the consumer, not absorbed by the flight school) or people would say its too expensive, I'm not going to get certificates/ratings.

If they opt to not get certs/ratings, CFI's have less students, meaning less hours they're training people, meaning less money. If they do get training then they'll start out as a CFI even more broke than most, cause they had the burden of more costly training.

So what? A CFI can afford to be broke (so to speak) cause now they're making more money? No. They have less students now. If you could increase rates and keep all the clients you would have a viable solution, but that is unlikely.

I think competition among flight schools will keep the CFI salaries down. Unions can't solve everything. Regional pilots have unions, and those guys don't make much. There are unions at majors, and those pilots dont make much either starting out.

TankerDriver

As much as I agree with most of what you are saying, I think you're exaggerating a little bit here. Poverty wages for half of your life? Come on man. Depending on where you're CFI'ing, you can build 700-1000 hours a year. There are large regionals out there hiring right now with 1200TT. So, figure, a year and a half to two years of CFI'ing at $20,000 +/- a year. Unfortunately, profit margins for most small flight schools is just too small to pay CFI's a salary and provide them with benefits. Do you know how much it costs to maintain aircraft? It's unbelievably expensive. Thousands of dollars a year. Not to mention AVGAS being $3.50-4.00 per gallon. Flight instructing for most people is a stepping stone and they know that. It's not a "career" for most.

CFI unions are a nice idea. They have their disadvantages though. Too much bureaucracy at times. I CFI'ed at ERAU for about a year and a half (left about 4 years ago). We had a CFI union there and I'm sure it's still alive and well today. I started at about $12.50 an hour and when I left I was making $15.50 an hour. We had full benefits (life and health insurance), disability (which saved my arse when I needed surgery and couldn't work for 6 weeks), tuition assistance and 401k. I was bringing in over $600 on a good week with 40-45 hours of pay. Do the math and you'll see that's about $30,000 a year. Definitely not a bad place to work, but again, it was hourly, so when the weather crapped out or I had a student cancel on me, no pay for me. It wasn't a consistant pay check (and the summer time sucked when I had 3 students to work with vs 8-10 students during fall/spring semesters).

This is not the airlines fault. There are people willing to fly for nothing. It's the nature of the job. "Will Fly for Food". For most, this "passion" you talk about drives us to enter the industry willing to work for very little money and supply exceeds demand. For every pilot willing to say, "up yours!" to a regional offering $22,000 a year to fly an RJ, there's two behind him/her willing to take the job, so what do you do? I can't say I can think of a solution to the problem.

SkyHigh

Neal,

CFI's have always been paid very little and will continue to do so. The airlines are flooded with experienced pilots and many more are on the way. Most Flying jobs don't really count as a real job anymore instead it is more of a working hobby. Kind of like a street musician or artist. A lot of people will wale away at thier chosen lifestyle but few will get rich at it and most are selling assets to keep it alive. Every profession has its life cycle. Like the blacksmith the respected and highly paid airline pilot is going away. In comparison firefighters were considered to be bottom rung of society and are now riasing in pay and status rapidly.

The best you can do is to strive to move through the CFI years as rapidly as possible and push any ideas of a middle class life out of your mind. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst. You never know things might go your way.

SkyHigh

SkyHigh

Plus CFI's would have to go on strike for most of a decade to cause a noticeable reduction in the pilot pool. There are enough laid off, furloughed and sidelined guys out there to last a long while.

SKyHigh

RedeyeAV8r

It is cyclical.............Although this is the worst downturn we have had in a while........
Remeber being an airline pilot in 1973? Oil prices doubled. Layoffs ensued.
1976 hiring rebounded somewhat
1979 Oil prices doubled, Deregulation was under way and more lay offs ensued.

1984 the Hiring Boom began..........1991 Gulf war 1 lay offs ensued.........

1995 Hiring resumed................Another hiring boom

Then 2001........911 slowing, economy higher oil prices,9/11, Gulf war #2.
Layoffs ensued.

The tide will come in again..............MGT has had the opportunity to Gut many hard fought for labor contracts and thousands of employees have suffered and paid a heavy price. Once all the restructuring is complete, yes unfortunately they may be another bankruptcy, or two. But the tide will change and the hiring boom will begin again........granted, the pay and benefits won't be what they once were. At that point there won't be enough qualified pilots.............just like in 1975, 1984 and 1995................seems to run in a 10 year cycle...............we are due for the upswing.

SkyHigh

I agree with what you have said but it has still been a continuous downward slide in benefits and pay. Hiring will pick up but is seems unlikely that we will regain any lost ground. Times are different in aviation then in the past. Today not only do we have the onslaught of regionals and LCC's hiring 600 hour wonders strait into the right seat of a modern jet but unlike any other time in aviation virtually anyone can throw down 100K and become a commercial pilot. It is common to see 40 year old job changers in flight school these days. In the 70's if you were past 30 it was to bad for you. Overweight or coke bottle glasses was also a disqualifier that is now gone. The industry is flooded with high jet time low experienced people who are here just for the personal satisfaction of the job. The results are a changed pilot group of low expectation aviation religion following door mats. Why would any company offer to pay any more when they have this growing ocean of desperate hopeful employees? The pay keeps dropping as the tide of new pilots keeps rising. I feel that in 10 years the decay will have reached every corner of the industry.

In my generation we flew because we enjoyed the job but also because we could earn a better income and have a better life than most. Back then is was very difficult to pay for the ratings as a civilian and then to acquire the basic experience needed to tempt a major. The military was much smaller and wasn't creating many new pilots. The airlines had strict hiring requirements that included age limits, weight and vision limits, two day medicals and psychological testing. Pilots had to know what they were doing and real pilot experience was valued. All that is gone and will likely never return. In kind I don't think the good times that we remember will ever return either.

SkyHigh

RedeyeAV8r

Won't argue with that