Emerald

The funny part is, the airlines created this mess and now they are crying about it.

DirkDiggler

We have to beat them at their own game. Crying on the forum only goes so far. Time to take action. I blast these clowns with emails pretty much weekly: [email protected] and the general email is [email protected]

Jet175

Do you have a sample email that you've been sending that you can share? I agree we should all let the voice be heard and this is a good start.

hotbreeze

The airlines (through inadequate pay, commuting, and ignoring the fatigue protocols), the cutback by the military, and this incident created this mess:

NTSB: Pilot Error to Blame in Colgan Air Flight 3407 Crash - ABC News

Now, we have airlines that hire pilots that wash out of other airline's training programs. The conditions are ripe for something like this to occur again. We would be better off with lowering the FO ATP requirements, so the best young pilots become FO's, and tightening up on the CA standards.

HighFlight

Why do you say conditions are ripe for more accidents?

JamesNoBrakes

Naw, Air Methods provides service to most of those places. Otherwise, you can drive in a car/take a shuttle. It's not like Sky West is flying to Fort Yukon, AK.

We will survive this airline surplus...

DirkDiggler

I personally think we should all try to make it as individual as possible. So that if they actually read them, it won't appear as if it were some robot mailer. But generally you would want to have a short sob story, 3 paragraphs max (these people don't have all day). Just explain what your situation is and why you feel keeping the 1,500 rule is the right choice. And most importantly that it's all about the moolah.

jshoneycutt

I like the increased training requirements for first officers, but I did not like the increased TT. 600 hours in a C172 compared to 1,500? Personally, I want the industry to find ways to get pilots quality flight time without paying $300,000 for it.

RemoveB4Flight

It's not necessary to get 1,500 hours in a C172. There are plenty of other operations such as charter and others that will help build that quality flight time.

sweetholyjesus

Childs said prospective pilots need financial assistance. “We need some loan programs for pilots,” he told lawmakers.

This has got to be some sort of joke. How do you support yourself with $25,000/year and pay a huge loan at the same time? Forcing people to live like rats won't bring any more pilots into the industry. If there aren't enough people training to work at your airline, pay for the training yourself. Or, make the wages worthwhile enough to make people want to seek the training on their own.. Begging the taxpayer to bail you out while further punishing pilots is super greedy and shameless. Aren't the airlines making record profits?

Russell "Chip" Childs has the same level of education as many of his pilots, in some cases even less than his pilots. He gets $330,000 in salary alone, plus about $1.4 million in bonuses. Meanwhile, his pilots start at $33,000. But somehow he doesn't understand why people don't want to join his airline and make such little money after paying so much for their education and training?