Scott Says Pilot Shortage Looming
06-26-2021, 03:22 PM
#52
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2006
Position: B737 CAPT IAH
Posts: 1,130
United Airlines Pilot contracts.....
Contract 2000 "Moonshot" under Clinton
Contract 2003 "Bankrupt POS" under Bush
Contract 2012 "Cha Ching $$$" under Obama
Extension 2016 "me too $$$" under Obama
Pandemic Relief "half my pay LOA" under Trump
Contract 2022? "Winning- Again" under Smokin Joe Biden
Just some historic perspective. All coincidental I'm sure.
Contract 2000 "Moonshot" under Clinton
Contract 2003 "Bankrupt POS" under Bush
Contract 2012 "Cha Ching $$$" under Obama
Extension 2016 "me too $$$" under Obama
Pandemic Relief "half my pay LOA" under Trump
Contract 2022? "Winning- Again" under Smokin Joe Biden
Just some historic perspective. All coincidental I'm sure.
But believe what you do. We had energy independence under Trump. Why have I ferried 10k of fuel to land just below MLW at DEN twice on this trip I completed today.
Economic trends which are not owned by one POTUS but likely the prior are what they are. That said, we had energy independence under Trump. I lived thru the OPEC embargo years. Destroyed the economy country wide. Covid obviously added a whole new variable to the normal equation. Shut the economies of states and the world……
Hopefully NEVER again.
Go tilt at your wind turbine and explain how that works in ice/snow………. Or whatever you’re trying to say.
Personally I can’t believe we are going down the track you are. My F150 has a 36 gallon gas tank. I can go 750 plus miles on one tank. F150 lightening can go 300 with a tailwind on a good day. That’s not loaded…….
Maybe 100 with a trailer for a lightening. We ain’t there. Also takes 24 hours to recharge….. Useful on a 1200 mile trip with trailer????
Best contract is what we can get when planes are full and people are flying……that takes economic growth not folks getting payouts from the government.
Pray for a competent POTUS and not one that whispers to us like he’s my grandfather. He’s gone IMO and that scares me……
This country is going to hit a wall regarding tolerance for “woke” etc. I for one fear that time. Hello Rome 2021
06-26-2021, 03:40 PM
#53
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2016
Position: B777 CA
Posts: 149
Airline management classes that teach from a management point of view agree with your position. However, unionists do not. A union pilot, particularly one affected by the implosion in the 2 decades that followed the act would take strong exception. In particular, those employed at legacy carriers. And, in particular: Legacy CAL and legacy UAL. But, great for SouthWest, and the regionals.
Question: Did the Deregulation Act really lower airfare? I priced a SW ticket 5 months in advance to Boston and back. 800 bucks round trip.
It takes disposable income to buy a ticket. I want lots of citizens with disposable income to spare. i want them buying first class tickets on my airline. Gotta have economic boom times. Disposable cash means not taxed to the stone age. Economic growth, a stable economy, and a stable global security landscape is what we need.
06-26-2021, 03:52 PM
#54
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Joined APC: Aug 2013
Posts: 2,159
Absent the DRA, the legacy carriers would have kept growing. Funny, the scholars now say we are right back to where we were in in 1977/78. All of the pixie dust and unicorn farts are gone. The industry has "re-consolidated." If the DRA was so great, then why are the major airlines all back to the pre DRA status quo? It's about 70% back to where it was structurally speaking.
06-26-2021, 04:43 PM
#55
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2016
Position: B777 CA
Posts: 149
Legacy Carriers lose high paying union jobs
From the "academics" US Centennial of Flight Commission:Until 1978, the U.S. government, through the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB), regulated many areas of commercial aviation such as fares, routes, and schedules. The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, however, removed many of these controls, thus changing the face of civil aviation in the United States. After deregulation, unfettered free competition ushered in a new era in passenger air travel.
The CAB had three main functions: to award routes to airlines, to limit the entry of air carriers into new markets, and to regulate fares for passengers. Much of the established practices of commercial passenger travel within the United States, however, went back even farther, to the policies of Walter Folger Brown, the U.S. postmaster general in the 1920s and early 1930s in the administration of President Herbert Hoover. Brown had changed the mail payments system to encourage the manufacture of passenger aircraft instead of mail-carrying aircraft. His influence was crucial in awarding contracts so as to create four major domestic airlines: United, American, Eastern, and Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA). Similarly, Brown had also helped give Pan American a monopoly on international routes.
Among the CAB's functions, one of the most important was to pick airlines from the available pool for a particular route rather than let the market decide which airline should fly that route. Established carriers already serving a route would usually evaluate new applicants and often found that the applicant lacked some requirement for flying an already-covered route. Thus, new entrants into the business were at a great disadvantage and were often shut out of key routes since the established airlines did not want new competition. Fare-setting also involved a similarly long process. In the airline industry, there was a general level of discontent about the laws that regulated civil aviation. Furthermore, discussions in Congress highlighted the fact that fares for routes within states were often much lower than fares between states, even if the actual routes were the exact same distance. This was partly because national routes were regulated to a much stricter degree then flights within states.
The push to deregulate, or at least to reform the existing laws governing passenger carriers, was accelerated by President Jimmy Carter, who appointed economist and former professor Alfred Kahn, a vocal supporter of deregulation, to head the CAB. A second force to deregulate emerged from abroad. In 1977, Freddie Laker, a British entrepreneur who owned Laker Airways, created the Skytrain service, which offered extraordinarily cheap fares for transatlantic flights. Laker's offerings coincided with a boom in low-cost domestic flights as the CAB eased some limitations on charter flights, i.e., flights offered by companies that do not actually own planes but leased them from the major airlines. The big air carriers responded by proposing their own lower fares. For example, American Airlines, the country's second largest airline, obtained CAB approval for “SuperSaver” tickets.
All of these events proved to be favorable for large-scale deregulation. In November 1977, Congress formally deregulated air cargo. In late 1978, Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, legislation that had been principally authored by Senators Edward Kennedy and Howard Cannon. There was stiff opposition to the bill—from the major airlines who feared free competition, from labor unions who feared nonunion employees, and from safety advocates who feared that safety would be sacrificed. Public support was, however, strong enough to pass the Act. The Act appeased the major airlines by offering generous subsidies and it pleased workers by offering high unemployment benefits if they lost their jobs as a result. The most important effect of the Act, whose laws were slowly phased in, was on the passenger market. For the first time in 40 years, airlines could enter the market or (from 1981) expand their routes as they saw fit. Airlines (from 1982) also had full freedom to set their fares. In 1984, the CAB was finally abolished since its primary duty, that of regulating the airline industry, was no longer necessary.
What effect did deregulation have in the short term? First, many airlines abandoned less profitable routes that took passengers to smaller cities. For example, until 1978, United Airlines had flown to Bakersfield, California, a booming oil town of 225,000 people. With deregulation, United pulled out of Bakersfield, depriving the city of any flights to bigger cities such as San Francisco or Las Vegas. A second and related effect was the growth of “hub-and-spoke” routes. The major airlines “adopted” key cities as centers for their operations; these key cities served as stops for most flights, even if they were not on a direct route between two other end points. Delta Air Lines had a major hub at Atlanta while Eastern ran its hub operations from Miami. Both airlines ran many daily roundtrip flights from their hubs, thus keeping planes in the air for more hours each day and filling more seats. For example, the number of daily nonstop flights between New York and West Palm Beach, Florida, jumped from five to 23.
Third, deregulation allowed new start-up airlines to enter the market without having to agree to the demands of the larger established airlines. One of these was People's Express, founded by Donald Burr, a shrewd entrepreneur who introduced unconventional methods of management such as low salaries, fewer managers, employees who could perform multiple jobs, and equitable stock ownership by all employees. Burr ran an extremely tight operation where passengers had to pay for meals on planes and were charged for checked-in baggage. Fares were so low that they were comparable to intercity bus lines. People's Express revenues increased dramatically through the early 1980s, reaching a billion dollars by 1985. Eventually, though, People's couldn't compete with established airlines that also cut their prices but offered significantly better service. The older airlines, being linked with travel agents, also offered the option of advance ticket purchases. Within a year of reaching its peak, in 1986, Burr had to sell People's Express in the wake of rising losses and passenger dissatisfaction.
In general, freed from the rules of the CAB, regional and major airlines inaugurated new routes in droves. Airlines competed in a no holds-barred competition for passenger business. As a result, fares dropped dramatically and total operating revenues for the major national and international airlines rose to a high in 1979. The same year was also the peak year for passengers: an unprecedented 317 million passengers flew through American skies.
Unfortunately for the airline industry, fuel costs, economic recession, and wanton overexpansion in the wake of deregulation began to have serious negative consequences. The airlines recorded a net operating loss of $421 million as early as 1981, when the number of passengers fell to 286 million. The problems were worsened by the nationwide strike of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) in 1981. One airline, Braniff, collapsed completely in 1982 (although the airline operated from 1984 under new ownership before entering bankruptcy once again in 1989). Other airlines continued to expand in the face of economic problems, putting them at great risk.
Analysts continue to debate the long-term effects of deregulation. The climate in the post-deregulation era was extremely unstable as illustrated by the fates of both Continental and Eastern Airlines, two major domestic carriers. Both airlines suffered through severe financial crises, which were made worse by mismanagement and bad relationships with the labor unions. Both ended up bankrupt by 1989. The most important international carrier for the United States, Pan American, suffered the same fate. Without the cover of regulation on international flights, Pan Am suddenly had to compete with new entrants such as Laker and People's Express. By the end of 1991, after a dramatic downfall through the 1980s, Pan Am was history. The number of major carriers in the United States fell from six in 1978—United, American, Delta, Eastern, TWA, and Pan Am—to three by 1991—United, American, and Delta. Ultimately, most of the big airlines suffered some sort of loss in the 1980s—either facing complete bankruptcy or with less financial growth than hoped.
There were some positive consequences of deregulation. The average airfare, for example, dropped by more than one-third between 1977 and 1992 (adjusting for inflation). It is estimated that ticket buyers saved as much as $100 billion on fares alone. Deregulation also allowed the proliferation of smaller airlines that took over the shorter routes that were no longer profitable for the big carriers. In sum, the major airlines probably suffered the negative consequences of deregulation the most. New smaller airlines and the millions of passengers flying gained the most.
—Asif Siddiqi
References:
Bilstein, Roger. Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts, Rev. ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Davies, R.E.G. Airlines of the United States Since 1914. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1972.
Heppenheimer, T. A. Turbulent Skies: The History of Commercial Aviation. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995.
On-Line References:
“Aviation Resource – History – 1950-Present,” http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...0_present.html.
Additional References:
Bailey, Elizabeth E., Graham, David R., and Kaplan, Daniel P. Deregulating the Airlines. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1985.
Banks, Howard. The Rise and Fall of Freddie Laker. London: Faber & Faber, 1982.
Brenner, Melvin A., Leet, James O., and Schott, Elihu. Airline Deregulation. Westport, Conn.: Eno Foundation for Transportation, Inc. 1985.
Dempsey, Paul. The Social and Economic Consequences of Deregulation. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1989.
O'Connor, William E. An Introduction to Airline Economics, Fifth Edition. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995.
Wyckoff, D. Daryl, and Maister, David H. The Domestic Airline Industry. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1977.
The CAB had three main functions: to award routes to airlines, to limit the entry of air carriers into new markets, and to regulate fares for passengers. Much of the established practices of commercial passenger travel within the United States, however, went back even farther, to the policies of Walter Folger Brown, the U.S. postmaster general in the 1920s and early 1930s in the administration of President Herbert Hoover. Brown had changed the mail payments system to encourage the manufacture of passenger aircraft instead of mail-carrying aircraft. His influence was crucial in awarding contracts so as to create four major domestic airlines: United, American, Eastern, and Transcontinental and Western Air (TWA). Similarly, Brown had also helped give Pan American a monopoly on international routes.
Among the CAB's functions, one of the most important was to pick airlines from the available pool for a particular route rather than let the market decide which airline should fly that route. Established carriers already serving a route would usually evaluate new applicants and often found that the applicant lacked some requirement for flying an already-covered route. Thus, new entrants into the business were at a great disadvantage and were often shut out of key routes since the established airlines did not want new competition. Fare-setting also involved a similarly long process. In the airline industry, there was a general level of discontent about the laws that regulated civil aviation. Furthermore, discussions in Congress highlighted the fact that fares for routes within states were often much lower than fares between states, even if the actual routes were the exact same distance. This was partly because national routes were regulated to a much stricter degree then flights within states.
The push to deregulate, or at least to reform the existing laws governing passenger carriers, was accelerated by President Jimmy Carter, who appointed economist and former professor Alfred Kahn, a vocal supporter of deregulation, to head the CAB. A second force to deregulate emerged from abroad. In 1977, Freddie Laker, a British entrepreneur who owned Laker Airways, created the Skytrain service, which offered extraordinarily cheap fares for transatlantic flights. Laker's offerings coincided with a boom in low-cost domestic flights as the CAB eased some limitations on charter flights, i.e., flights offered by companies that do not actually own planes but leased them from the major airlines. The big air carriers responded by proposing their own lower fares. For example, American Airlines, the country's second largest airline, obtained CAB approval for “SuperSaver” tickets.
All of these events proved to be favorable for large-scale deregulation. In November 1977, Congress formally deregulated air cargo. In late 1978, Congress passed the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978, legislation that had been principally authored by Senators Edward Kennedy and Howard Cannon. There was stiff opposition to the bill—from the major airlines who feared free competition, from labor unions who feared nonunion employees, and from safety advocates who feared that safety would be sacrificed. Public support was, however, strong enough to pass the Act. The Act appeased the major airlines by offering generous subsidies and it pleased workers by offering high unemployment benefits if they lost their jobs as a result. The most important effect of the Act, whose laws were slowly phased in, was on the passenger market. For the first time in 40 years, airlines could enter the market or (from 1981) expand their routes as they saw fit. Airlines (from 1982) also had full freedom to set their fares. In 1984, the CAB was finally abolished since its primary duty, that of regulating the airline industry, was no longer necessary.
What effect did deregulation have in the short term? First, many airlines abandoned less profitable routes that took passengers to smaller cities. For example, until 1978, United Airlines had flown to Bakersfield, California, a booming oil town of 225,000 people. With deregulation, United pulled out of Bakersfield, depriving the city of any flights to bigger cities such as San Francisco or Las Vegas. A second and related effect was the growth of “hub-and-spoke” routes. The major airlines “adopted” key cities as centers for their operations; these key cities served as stops for most flights, even if they were not on a direct route between two other end points. Delta Air Lines had a major hub at Atlanta while Eastern ran its hub operations from Miami. Both airlines ran many daily roundtrip flights from their hubs, thus keeping planes in the air for more hours each day and filling more seats. For example, the number of daily nonstop flights between New York and West Palm Beach, Florida, jumped from five to 23.
Third, deregulation allowed new start-up airlines to enter the market without having to agree to the demands of the larger established airlines. One of these was People's Express, founded by Donald Burr, a shrewd entrepreneur who introduced unconventional methods of management such as low salaries, fewer managers, employees who could perform multiple jobs, and equitable stock ownership by all employees. Burr ran an extremely tight operation where passengers had to pay for meals on planes and were charged for checked-in baggage. Fares were so low that they were comparable to intercity bus lines. People's Express revenues increased dramatically through the early 1980s, reaching a billion dollars by 1985. Eventually, though, People's couldn't compete with established airlines that also cut their prices but offered significantly better service. The older airlines, being linked with travel agents, also offered the option of advance ticket purchases. Within a year of reaching its peak, in 1986, Burr had to sell People's Express in the wake of rising losses and passenger dissatisfaction.
In general, freed from the rules of the CAB, regional and major airlines inaugurated new routes in droves. Airlines competed in a no holds-barred competition for passenger business. As a result, fares dropped dramatically and total operating revenues for the major national and international airlines rose to a high in 1979. The same year was also the peak year for passengers: an unprecedented 317 million passengers flew through American skies.
Unfortunately for the airline industry, fuel costs, economic recession, and wanton overexpansion in the wake of deregulation began to have serious negative consequences. The airlines recorded a net operating loss of $421 million as early as 1981, when the number of passengers fell to 286 million. The problems were worsened by the nationwide strike of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) in 1981. One airline, Braniff, collapsed completely in 1982 (although the airline operated from 1984 under new ownership before entering bankruptcy once again in 1989). Other airlines continued to expand in the face of economic problems, putting them at great risk.
Analysts continue to debate the long-term effects of deregulation. The climate in the post-deregulation era was extremely unstable as illustrated by the fates of both Continental and Eastern Airlines, two major domestic carriers. Both airlines suffered through severe financial crises, which were made worse by mismanagement and bad relationships with the labor unions. Both ended up bankrupt by 1989. The most important international carrier for the United States, Pan American, suffered the same fate. Without the cover of regulation on international flights, Pan Am suddenly had to compete with new entrants such as Laker and People's Express. By the end of 1991, after a dramatic downfall through the 1980s, Pan Am was history. The number of major carriers in the United States fell from six in 1978—United, American, Delta, Eastern, TWA, and Pan Am—to three by 1991—United, American, and Delta. Ultimately, most of the big airlines suffered some sort of loss in the 1980s—either facing complete bankruptcy or with less financial growth than hoped.
There were some positive consequences of deregulation. The average airfare, for example, dropped by more than one-third between 1977 and 1992 (adjusting for inflation). It is estimated that ticket buyers saved as much as $100 billion on fares alone. Deregulation also allowed the proliferation of smaller airlines that took over the shorter routes that were no longer profitable for the big carriers. In sum, the major airlines probably suffered the negative consequences of deregulation the most. New smaller airlines and the millions of passengers flying gained the most.
—Asif Siddiqi
References:
Bilstein, Roger. Flight in America: From the Wrights to the Astronauts, Rev. ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.
Davies, R.E.G. Airlines of the United States Since 1914. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1972.
Heppenheimer, T. A. Turbulent Skies: The History of Commercial Aviation. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1995.
On-Line References:
“Aviation Resource – History – 1950-Present,” http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...0_present.html.
Additional References:
Bailey, Elizabeth E., Graham, David R., and Kaplan, Daniel P. Deregulating the Airlines. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1985.
Banks, Howard. The Rise and Fall of Freddie Laker. London: Faber & Faber, 1982.
Brenner, Melvin A., Leet, James O., and Schott, Elihu. Airline Deregulation. Westport, Conn.: Eno Foundation for Transportation, Inc. 1985.
Dempsey, Paul. The Social and Economic Consequences of Deregulation. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books, 1989.
O'Connor, William E. An Introduction to Airline Economics, Fifth Edition. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995.
Wyckoff, D. Daryl, and Maister, David H. The Domestic Airline Industry. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath and Co., 1977.
06-27-2021, 05:50 AM
#57
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Mar 2008
Posts: 1,083
Deregulation no doubt killed some legacy airlines and depressed wages. It also created an explosion in air travel. The ‘75-‘85 timeframe saw the most growth in passengers we’ve ever seen over a ten year period. That means more pilot jobs, many at majors. In the mid-70s, CAL, TI and United probably didn’t have much over 3,000 pilots combined. Today, we’ve got 4 1/2 times that. Some carriers fell by the wayside, but overall we’ve got more good paying jobs now and the job is achievable for pilots who wouldn’t have made it in the 70’s. Were there growing pains and did it kill some careers? Absolutely! Are the contracts today as good for a chosen few? Not quite. Are there a hell of a lot more pilots making good money today than the 70s? Yes.
06-27-2021, 06:39 AM
#58
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Joined APC: Feb 2014
Position: Semi-Retired...
Posts: 3,260
Ronnie "fire em all" Reagan schooled Lorenzo and Ferris on how to handle those pesky unions when he fired the striking controllers. Talk about a lost decade! Jeez-um. The Reagan area was disastrous for labor. And not just airline labor. But we don't have to argue. Just continue to enjoy our 2012/2016 Obama era contract.... and look forward to Contract 2022.... Ridin with Biden. Watch and see. 
06-27-2021, 02:55 PM
#59
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Joined APC: Aug 2016
Position: B777 CA
Posts: 149
comparing govt employee and private sector employee unions is not really a fair comparison. One has to generate a profit to pay employees and shareholders, the other has no such fiscal obligation and holds the power to raise your taxes to "give" more to employees. Public employee labor unions didn't exist when I was young. It was a new change, (kinda like allowing Lawyers to advertise on TV).
06-27-2021, 03:19 PM
#60
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2016
Position: B777 CA
Posts: 149
Deregulation no doubt killed some legacy airlines and depressed wages. It also created an explosion in air travel. The ‘75-‘85 timeframe saw the most growth in passengers we’ve ever seen over a ten year period. That means more pilot jobs, many at majors. In the mid-70s, CAL, TI and United probably didn’t have much over 3,000 pilots combined. Today, we’ve got 4 1/2 times that. Some carriers fell by the wayside, but overall we’ve got more good paying jobs now and the job is achievable for pilots who wouldn’t have made it in the 70’s. Were there growing pains and did it kill some careers? Absolutely! Are the contracts today as good for a chosen few? Not quite. Are there a hell of a lot more pilots making good money today than the 70s? Yes.
The academic literature suggests: "Five to ten years after the Airline Deregulation Act passed, its biggest impact could be seen on airline– labor relations. Although industry leaders and labor groups argued for high wage rates, outsiders generally acknowledged that industry wages were above economically justifiable levels. The root of the high wage rates dated back to the early 1960s, when CAB allowed airlines to raise fares as wages rose. This reduced the incentive for management to negotiate aggressively with labor unions." (R. Peterson, 1990).
13 out of 17 US Airlines that were operational in 1978 were gone by 1986. I would say the DRA was very negative towards the profession of career professional airline pilots. Wages stagnated: bad. Wages went backwards; bad. Work rules reduced/eliminated: bad. Retirements stolen: bad. Airlines bankrupt: bad.
The growth of jobs in the low cost/discount sector is noted. However, the effect to the career professional pilot, of which I am one, was bad. One of the stated purposes and goals of deregulation was to take away power from pilot unions and give the economic advantage to managements. I would say that as an ALPA pilot....That is one goal I can never accept as a goal of my government. I pay taxes and union dues. Anyone wants to pick my pocket and I am paying their salary, I got a big problem with that. As far as I am concerned, Jimmy Carter, picked the airline pilots pockets with false promises to the public for cheaper air fare. Carter couldn't "mandate" any sort of pricing.
When United, AA and TWA next proposed discount fares, the CAB in early January 1975 promptly suspended all the discount fares because United had proposed them in all its markets. So Senator Cannon was already indignant with the CAB when he announced the hearings on this bill in his Aviation Subcommittee, shortly before Senator Kennedy actually started his hearings in February. (Senator Kennedy had announced the previous November that he was interested in studying airline regulation, which is what led to our working with his Subcommittee staff long before I actually testified.) (Find Law, 2018).
The interesting thing is this: Both PSA and SWA were NOT subject to regulation by the CAB and were therefore exempt from the airline deregulation act.
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