Who wants to be an airline pilot?

[zahc]

Yes, old people who blame the youngsters for not having a work ethic often fail to take into account that the market forces are different now than they were 20 or 40 years ago. And companies are in this denial too. They are unprepared for motivated individuals who no longer simply show up and do the job in a loyal fashion, because they have caught on that it is not the optimal strategy and won't get them anywhere. Even for "knowledge workers", its just as likely that their job will be outsourced after ten years than it is that ten years on the job will make them a candidate for promotion. Then companies complain they cant find qualified workers, while young people avoid comitting to the field because the conditions are crap. Companies could increase pay and improve working conditions by not running thier employees so lean, but they say employees arent worth paying to retain or develop because they arent loyal. It's a chicken-egg spiral.

Go to to any industrial area and compare it to what it looked like decades ago. Compare true wages to what they were; compare cost of living; compare retirement prospects, compare education requirements, compare cost of that education. There is no single thing to point the finger at, but the point is you can't always blame individuals for playing their cards how they see fit. Or put another way, people didn't get certifications and stick to careers "back then" because they were harder working. They did it because they assessed the value proposition and decided it paid off. I personally think the single largest shift is the labor bubble from women in the workplace, and the resulting cost of living increases from those dual-income families bidding up prices of goods. Second to that is the education bubble, both costs AND requirements going up, and the related minimum wage, healthcare, and other government tariffs on W-2 labor increasing entry barriers for laborers, deliberately or accidentally attempting to prop up those falling labor prices.

Or, $50,000/year is still crap! This is what we pay pilots? You gotta be kidding me.

[AJ Dual]

I'd argue that it's not that students aren't willing to work, much less 'want' to work at starbucks.  It's just that, well, which would you do:  Work at starbucks for $10/hour+tips, or spend even more money to get a pilot's license and earn $20k/year and no tips?  A good starbucks coffee maker who rakes in the tips can earn over $40k/year.

Yeah, and the boobs of someone earning that much in tips might get in the way of handling the yoke anyway.

[KD5NRH]

I'd argue that it's not that students aren't willing to work, much less 'want' to work at starbucks.  It's just that, well, which would you do:  Work at starbucks for $10/hour+tips, or spend even more money to get a pilot's license and earn $20k/year and no tips?  A good starbucks coffee maker who rakes in the tips can earn over $40k/year.

So put a tip jar in the plane.  I've been through a couple of landings I'd have dropped in a few bucks for.

[Jocassee]

Friend of mine put himself through school and paid for the ratings necessary to fly a twin prop charter. After the school bill payments he was barely keeping soul and body together. He tried to get on with a regional airline, but had to have a certain number of ours in a certain rating, and he was right on the line but didn't get in after a year or so of flying charters. Luckily he got a gig with Liberty U instructing but that still doesn't pay much.

[roo_ster]

Yes, old people who blame the youngsters for not having a work ethic often fail to take into account that the market forces are different now than they were 20 or 40 years ago. And companies are in this denial too.

Heck, this was the deal when I went to HS back in the late 1980s. 

My dad, in the late 1950s & early 1960s worked construction in the summer and paid for his private university education and had plenty of spending money (mom & pop provided room & board).  He was a member of two unions while doing do.  When he got hs double major in business admin & econ, he took a pay cut to work in the corporate world. 

I followed my dad's advice and busted my hump (landscaping, tree removal, irrigation, etc.), saving almost all my dough throughout HS & college.  Could not come near to paying for what my dad paid for.

...the resulting cost of living increases from those dual-income families bidding up prices of goods...

Another effect is that opening up the workforce to women drove up the supply in labor, driving the clearinghouse price (wages/salary) down.  Good for businesses, bad for families.

[MillCreek]

^^^I continue to thank my lucky stars that I was able to work my way through undergrad, grad and professional school on a pay as you go basis and incurred no educational debt.  This was back in the early and mid-80's.  My kids worked but could not come near to covering the cost, so loans, scholarships and the Bank of the Parents did the rest. It is indeed a different time.

[just Warren]

So put a tip jar in the plane.  I've been through a couple of landings I'd have dropped in a few bucks for.

I sense misaligned incentives.

[Fly320s]

Or, $50,000/year is still crap! This is what we pay pilots? You gotta be kidding me.

Or, that is starting pay at one regional airline that is hurting for pilots.  That pay rate is much higher than standard.  First year pay is usually pretty low, but increases quickly in the second year and upon upgrading to captain.

The pay rates have always been low for entry level flying jobs because there are many more qualified pilots than job openings.  These days, that ratio has basically reversed.

The major airlines still can be picky.  For example, my company received 3,000 applications during the last hiring window.  They interviewed 800 and hired 200. 

[RevDisk]

To be fair, there's been a few changes over the years.  It's just plain harder to become a pilot today.  They used to not require so many hours.  The physical requirements were a bit easier.  You had a much larger military spitting out qualified pilots.

As this can be blamed on the businesses running high on the hog and not keeping up their apprenticeship and training programs, I can't say I'm all that sympathetic for them.

Fly, is it still true that the regionals pay nearly minimum wage, once you figure in the whole 'We only pay while the doors are closed' policy, making flight checks and such unpaid?

The shortage can probably be largely attributed to that.  Flight training is expensive, and people who can pass it have better options today.  You simply don't have the population of ex-military pilots compared with expansions on the civil side.

This. It's harder to become a pilot. Unless military, it's very hard to go to flight school and rack up enough hours to qualify for an ATP.  Minimum of 1,500 hours of total flight time, 500 hours of cross-country flight time, 100 hours of night time (or 75 hours with a minimum of 45 night landings) and 75 hours of instrument time (25 of which can be in a simulator) in order to qualify for the ATP. For the captain's seat, they also need to accumulate 1,000 hours as copilots with ATP. If you fail the medical at any point, all of that is down the toilet but any school costs remain. Previously, entry level positions paid very very low.

As much as it's fun to bag on "Kids these days!", I looked into the pilot thing myself. It just wasn't worth it except as a hobby or passion. The high end is very good pay. But it's a very very long road to get there. IT paid better, with better job security and significantly more opportunities. Airlines have always offered some kind of compensation thing for school costs, but mostly wanted former military.

Essentially this is a failure to have a good progression path. Being able to realistically get folks in the door and moved along a career in an orderly path. Discontinuity along that path means the folks with heads on their shoulders see those pitfalls and don't go into the field. Or cause people in that field to get out. I know plenty of IT people looking to get out of the field because of the stress and long hours involved. The pay is good, for values of good, but not staggering. Wages across the board have not been keeping pace with inflation. The solution to pretty much any labor shortage is always pretty simple. Either have a good training program and a logical progression path (ie grow your own talent) or pay more.

Guarantee rather than grow their own talent or pay substantially more, the answer will be higher H1B visa and similar programs.

[roo_ster]

Guarantee rather than grow their own talent or pay substantially more, the answer will be higher H1B visa and similar programs.

Flipping Apu with his cert from Bombay Flight in a Curry School.

[Firethorn]

Friend of mine put himself through school and paid for the ratings necessary to fly a twin prop charter.

For nearly any job, you will find a few rare individuals that just love the job so much that they don't care about the pay.  Flying, making coffee, programming, teaching, you could probably even find a few garbage workers willing to clean up just for the access to the scrap and stuff. 

The problem is, most people aren't that dedicated.  So they have to be incentivized, lured in.  It's why a number of office jobs, despite requiring more education, actually paid less than, say, garbage man. 

Flying is one of those jobs where the dedicated at least used to be nearly enough for supply.  People like it, yes, but it has a huge entry barrier.  Same with jobs that require a STEM degree.  So to get people over that hump, you have to treat them better.

Or, $50,000/year is still crap! This is what we pay pilots? You gotta be kidding me.

$50k/year is no longer crap, but the young people can still look at the history and see the pay as low as $24k as recently as 2013.  Plus, consider that it takes time to get pilots qualified at the various levels.  Consider this:  To be a commercial airline pilot requires 1500 hours of flight experience.  Getting a commercial license can be 'fast tracked', but it's my understanding that it being a 4 year degree is common.  You're restricted to 1k hours/year. 

In short, the 'pipeline' to create an airline pilot is approximately 5-6 years.  But wait!  You need 1k hours as a first officer before you can be a captain.  So add another 2 years.  You're now looking at a reasonable minimum of 8 years from graduating high school to being a flight captain for a passenger airline. Source.

[zahc]

Did you interpret my surprise as an indicator that I think 50,000 is high pay? I was expression astonishment that someone could be a pilot of any sort and make so little. Heck, you can make more driving truck. Am I wrong?

Clearly I am spoiled since I think I am underpaid at 90k. Now, 90k is good money for even unpleasant work, but I'm one of those aforementioned "enthusiasts"...even 90k is not compelling enough for someone to target their career into the semiconductor engineering field and hope there is still a domestic semiconductor industry that needs entry level engineers in 10 years when they get out of grad school. People only end up in the industry accidentally. Then again the industry is shrinking so they may have plenty of engineers. If I ever hear a company make a peep about a shortage of new semiconductor engineers I'm going to put them in the clueless bucket with the airlines.

[Firethorn]

Did you interpret my surprise as an indicator that I think 50,000 is high pay? I was expression astonishment that someone could be a pilot of any sort and make so little. Heck, you can make more driving truck. Am I wrong?

Oh, sorry, no, my point was that $50k as starting pay is a good start to get more pilots into the pipeline, compared to what it was earlier, but that the pipeline is still freaking long, so it takes time from the increased pay until you start getting more pilots.

This is one of the reasons why the military is often willing to kick out experienced personnel, retire people early, while still recruiting new people - they're trying to avoid such a glut.

even 90k is not compelling enough for someone to target their career into the semiconductor engineering field and hope there is still a domestic semiconductor industry that needs entry level engineers in 10 years when they get out of grad school. People only end up in the industry accidentally. Then again the industry is shrinking so they may have plenty of engineers. If I ever hear a company make a peep about a shortage of new semiconductor engineers I'm going to put them in the clueless bucket with the airlines.

As you say, it's shrinking, people end up in it 'accidentally'.  Plus, with it shrinking, it's probably shrinking more from retirements and such.  You end up with an extremely skilled workforce, but one that's incredibly hard to replace.

[zahc]

Had to revive the thread to share a relevant experience.

I just interviewed at a raw materials manufacturing plant in BFE, NC. I declined the offer because while it was probably sky-high for BFE, NC, it was less than I make now, plus the commute would be murder.

Anyway, the plant has a small staff, and almost everyone there has worked there 20-30 years. The chief engineer and the plant manager have both worked there over 30 years and want to retire soon. But there is nobody to take their place; no junior engineers or anything (because that would be staffing inefficiency and redundancy!). So they have a personnel crisis of the "mature workforce" variety.

They understand the pickle they are in. The HR manager said they considered hiring somebody fresh out of college, but they know it would take 4+ years, bare minimum, for them to be ready to be a chief engineer, and that's IF they "worked out" and didn't decide engineering was too hard for them, didn't turn out to be stupid or a slacker, etc. etc., and they need a replacement in more like 2 years, and have apparently been looking for a while.

So here I walk in with a degree in Materials Science, past experience with ceramics manufacturing, 6 years of strong accomplishments in lean manufacturing, I live within driving distance of BFE, NC, mid-career looking for growth, aced the interviews, "best candidate they have interviewed so far", and they offer me 5% less than what I told them up front that I make now. Sure, the prospect (but not promise!) of more-or-less automatically becoming the plant manager is attractive, vs. my current dead-end job, but I can't take a 5% paycut plus switch from an 8-minute commute to a 1-hour commute.

I don't think they are going to get out of their crisis until they realize they aren't in a buyer's market right now. When you need a specific type of skillset, in a limited geographic region, and you need it fast, it's not really a buyer's market for you. So I wish them luck.

I don't envy the folks at the plant, but I also mock the business-school upper manager that probably got bonuses for "leaning out" the workforce and has probably moved to another company by now.

[French G.]

Interesting stuff... But I think I'll keep aviation as a hobby

although I do plan to work towards my A&P as an "exit strategy" from the IT world someday

Why? Hop into a world of contract jobs, low pay for the experience, and relocating for work. Three lucrative places for aviation work. Overseas where it is hot and sandy, on a government contract working for Dyncorp or similar contractor, or working as a union stiff for a major carrier. The only aviation job I have seriously thought about is moving to Charleston to work for Boeing. Locally there are some aviation jobs, I build food packaging equipment because the pay, management, and stability is better.

[Fly320s]

Latest word on the street is that some regional carriers are paying off college loans for new-hires.

[T.O.M.]

Got a cousin who pilots for Delta...ex Navy airdale.  He likes the life, and honsetly he likes being away from home a few days a wee week. Think he's making somewhere in the six figures.

Got friend who flies for FedEx. Another ex Navy airdale.  Doesn't get paid as much, but works a schedule that keeps him home more.  Still makes enough to put a Rolex on his rich and a beater Ferrari in his pole barn that he is restoring.

Thing is, both used the military to cover training and experience.  Both also got out after around 10-12 years in the Navy, so plenty young enough to have long flying careers in the private sector.

[HankB]

Commercial airline pilot / fright engineer pay seems to vary a lot . . . I'd guess it's experienced jumbo jet pilots on international routes that are at the top of the scale.

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Airline_Pilot%2c_Copilot%2c_or_Flight_Engineer/Salary

[Fly320s]

Commercial airline pilot / fright engineer pay seems to vary a lot . . . I'd guess it's experienced jumbo jet pilots on international routes that are at the top of the scale.

http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Airline_Pilot%2c_Copilot%2c_or_Flight_Engineer/Salary

Sure, if you look at entry level regional airline all the way to senior widebody captain at AmeriDeltaNited.  For a given position on a given aircraft, the pay is similar across all US airlines.

[Jamisjockey]

Latest word on the street is that some regional carriers are paying off college loans for new-hires.

Except for Riddle grads....everyone hates those aholes.

[BobR]

fright engineer

I am not sure why that is even a job that is included anymore. A few cargo carriers still fly 3 man cockpits but even those are getting scarce. And then the practice of putting a 3rd pilot in that position was always popular. I do know of a P3 Flight Engineer who busted his hump and did a lot of things right who got hired on by Kalitta as a 747 FE. He built up flight time on his own and the company moved him up into the co-pilot seat so at least his job is a little more stable now.

If I were to do it all over again I would have gotten my commercial ticket for multi-engine turboprop FE while on active duty and used the flying clubs to build flight time so I would have had a 1/10,000 chance of continuing to fly into retirement.

bob

[Boomhauer]

Except for Riddle grads....everyone hates those aholes.

 

[Boomhauer]

fright engineer

FE is damn near non existent these days. The old jets that required it have long since retired from passenger service and are now being retired from freight service.

[Fly320s]

Except for Riddle grads....everyone hates those aholes.

Too true.

[RocketMan]

Except for Riddle grads....everyone hates those aholes.

Why is that, out of curiosity?