Paid2fly

Cessna downsized after the recession because their sales plummeted, and had no need for the 8000. The airlines are flying full airplanes with record profits, and losing or dropping oversold flights would only cost them money/profits(which is kinda the reason they're in business)!

Cubdriver

The Wichita analogy still applies because it's shareholder profits which are the bottom line. If you are not clear on that you should be. To make the picture to shareholders looks rosy management will do anything to make it happen, be it tripling pilot pay on down to firing everyone on the premises.

Paid2fly

You're missing the point, the "Wichita analogy" does not apply. In Wichita they laid off employees because they weren't selling any airplanes. A regional airline with written contracts that have penalties for poor performance and cancellations will not just throw their hands in the air and start parking dozens of aircraft, rather than raise inadequate compensation to attract and retain pilots. Parking the airplanes would cost them, and their precious shareholders far more than any raises for flight crews.

CBreezy

So if people stop doing the nothing jobs and/or are vacuumed up from those jobs to staff the good jobs, what happens in 25 years when this current generation starts retiring?

Cubdriver

It might or it might not, we do not know what their long term outlook says for them to do. Paying pilots more may sound like a good idea but not be in the long run. As a pilot I hope they decide we need to be paid like lawyers, but we can't be certain of that. We certainly know that for the last several decades we have seen mostly shrinking pilot wages and the supply of active ATPs is not dwindling.

Cubdriver

What makes you think the next generation is not getting ready now? This whole pilot shortage thing is like believing in Santa Claus- just because you can cook up some happy fairy tale does not mean it ever existed or ever will, or that by repeating it enough times you can make it materialize. There is strong analysis around telling us there is no shortage now and there will not be one for the next 20 years.

NewPil0t

The current pilot pipeline will dry eventually, there just aren't enough pilot starts.

The FAA will fold to pressure from the majors and create the MPL license like it exists in other places. Those pilots will be paid $15k a year!

CBreezy

There's this link:Pilot Shortage Update « Robert Chapin

I'd take it with a grain of salt but it's more than just stomping your feet and plugging your ears like most people do here.

block30

Yeah, management is by their own admission is vigorously fighting for this if they can't repeal the ATP law. This is a shame because there is nothing in the ATP law saying an airline can't do a number of things to attract pilots.....like buy or contract out to a flight school to fly a Cessna 150 and or a Piper Apache with an auto fuel STC to create their own pilot pipe line. As if the majors couldn't afford that investment in their future.

But nope, they just don't wanna change.

Cubdriver

Seems like an honest opinion but that guy appears more worried about his student supply than anything else. I had some trouble getting his charts to open on my browser but I can see the supply of ATPs is and will continue to remain steady with time, which is something I already knew.

The thing about myths is, they are very hard to put aside when they pay so much in terms of immediate pleasure. The pilot shortage myth is just like crack cocaine- once you start doing it you see only ways to get more dope. You filter out anything that tells you it is a mirage and your viewpoint is contaminated. But if you want to see the real situation you will begin to gather the real facts. One of them is that airlines attract too any applicants. That in turn drives down pilot wages. It's always been like that and for the foreseeable future it will remain so. Flying airliners is an unusually competitive profession. Wages will not go up very much, and pilots will remain in oversupply.