

Airlines Face Acute Shortage of Pilots - skennedy
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203937004578079391643223634.html

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michael_miller
I'm a student pilot, and based on conversations I've had with my CFI
(certified flight instructor), this article seems accurate.

Basically, it's really expensive to learn to fly. Think $112/hr for an
extremely basic 2 seat plane, and around $65/hr for the instructor, at least
in the NY area. Even assuming you do all the bookwork on your own without an
instructor, that's around $7-8k for a private license(40-50h). After that, you
need to get an instrument rating(40h), for around the same price.

Then, at 250 hours, you can get a commercial rating which lets you fly people
around for money (you can't solicit passengers though). At this point, pilots
usually go for a CFI rating, which lets them teach students. Most flight
schools are happy to have the cheap labor, and the pilots want to get more
hours so they can apply to regional airlines. The pay is pretty horrible
(maybe $20-$30/h when you start), but it's the only way to build hours for
most pilots. After doing this for a while (could be up to 600-700h), pilots
either manage to find a gig flying businesspeople around on a corporate jet,
an odd job like ferrying cargo around on a small plane, or go to a regional
carrier. Regional carriers pay even worse than being a CFI, around $20k-$30k
starting, but the tradeoff is that you're building time in a "serious"
turboprop/jet plane, which the big airlines require before even hiring you as
a first officer.

You have to take on a massive amount of debt to become a pilot, then get paid
terrible wages once you start. Even when you hit the top and become a captain
at a major airline you're still only making around $100-$110k, and very few
pilots achieve this.

Raising the number of hours required to be hired as a pilot will cause less
people to become pilots. It means CFIs will be instructors for much longer,
making it harder for newly minted CFIs to find a job to pay off their debt.

The fundamental problem is that avgas costs a ton (up to $6-$7 in NY). If it
was free, or at least much cheaper, to fly a plane, the hour requirements
would not be a problem - pilots could just train for longer. I think the
solution is going to be electric trainer planes. I see the most promising
company in this area as beyond aviation (<http://www.beyond-aviation.com/>).
They're developing an electric version of the Cessna 172, the most popular
plane produced to date(43k+). Their president was the COO at Cessna for 6
years, so I'm really hopeful they can achieve their goal.

An electric plane has three major benefits: no avgas needed, air inlets can be
reduced significantly (no oxygen-hogging combustion reactions) for reduced
drag, and significantly reduced TBO. Background: on piston engine planes, a
mechanic needs to disassemble the engine every ~2k hours of flying, replace
bad parts, and reassemble it. This costs around $15k, contributing a
nontrivial amount of money to cost of flying. On an electric planes, the
engines last much longer (think 20k-30k hours), so this cost all but vanishes.

~~~
raverbashing
Not to mention in the US there are a lot of pilots that came from a "free
flying school" called USAF

That's probably one of the causes of distortion. They skip some steps
(compared to an all-civilian air course) and have several flight hours

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danielschonfeld
As a Captain myself with over 5000 hours, I can say every single word of the
linked blog is true and accurate with no exaggeration.

The thing thats astounding in all of this, is how both the FAA and the
airlines sat for 5 years since they mandated age 65 and did absolutely
nothing. Now, everybody is begging for forgiveness and leeway.

~~~
jcoby
How do they expect future ATP to get 1500 hours? Cargo and CFI time? Sims?
Even circling around in a Cessna 150 at $50/hour that's $75k and it's not even
useful time.

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toomuchtodo
Congress upped the minimum flight time requirements, without thinking about
the consequences.

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mc32
I imagine the effect on Junior pilot salary by senior pilots[1] could have
some influence on the attractiveness of the profession.

From what I've read, people have mentioned that senior pilots who have great
influence on union decisions, take a somewhat expectedly selfish attitude when
it comes to negotiating salaries whereby junior pilots are left holding the
bag. This gets repeated by junior pilots when they become senior pilots.

[1]<http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines>

~~~
jseliger
I was just going to post something along these lines: from what I've read, the
aviation industry's possible "pilot shortage," actually translates to
"airlines don't want to pay the market rate, or pay enough to encourage people
to become pilots."

Which is usually the case in industries that claim a shortage of workers.

~~~
Danieru
It's not the airline's fault if the pilot's union is optimizing for senior
pilots' salarys.

In total Airlines pay pilots plenty, too much even. The issue is that unions
have distorted the allocation. A fresh pilot will graduate with considerable
debt yet garner a wage far below their economic value. Once they become senior
they've "earned" the higher distorted wage. They may even still carry student
debt. The situation thus becomes re-enforcing.

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malandrew
Why don't junior pilots form their own union?

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philwelch
Who's going to contract with them? The existing pilots unions have the
airlines all tied up.

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Datonomics
Our wise leaders:

"Congress's 2010 vote to require 1,500 hours of experience in August 2013 came
in the wake of several regional-airline accidents, although none had been due
to pilots having fewer than 1,500 hours."

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pinaceae
the era of pilots seated in the plane is coming to an end, as so often, the
military (air force) leads the way. the f22/35 will be the last platform to
deploy with cockpits.

air space all around the world is becoming open for drones. cargo planes will
be the first to switch to drone operation. for the people pointing out that AI
is not there yet - drones are piloted by humans on the ground. BUT: you can
have multiple drones monitored by one person. only sticky situations need
human attention. the flight time over the atlantic at 35000ft does not need
humans on board, cause guess what, it is already being flown on auto.

think of the savings for DHL, UPS, FEDEX. no more pilots in the craft means
more room (no cockpit, no life support, etc). pilots on the ground can follow
different safety regulation for sleep periods. you can switch to _any_ pilot
during flight, not just the one in the plane. and liability is way cheaper,
you can actually decide to crash the plane into the sea in case of a failure.

i would not invest in being a driver of any kind as a long term thing. trains,
planes, automobiles - the writing is on the wall. subways already become
automated, trains are next.

~~~
jilebedev
Piloting machines (cars, busses, trains, jets) is a task that is fundamentally
fit better for a machine than a human.

~~~
webreac
takeoff, landing and cruise are nicely handled by autopilot. But I do not want
to be on a plane with remote pilot. If the plane has a technical problem
(which occurs very often, even if passengers are not aware of most of them), I
want the pilot to do his best to save his life.

~~~
pinaceae
well, the liability is still there. but, the operator on the ground can stay
clear headed. far less adrenaline rushing through you.

also do not forget that a lot of catastrophes are happening due to pilot
error. see the air france crash off of brazil. inexperienced co-pilot pulled
the stick through a stall.

smoke in the cockpit and other shit does not impair an operator. you can have
15 operators rotate in and out of a flight - but only the pilots you have
onboard. one medical issue with them and flight is over. operator? send
him/her home.

elevators used to have pilots too.

~~~
cpa
Is it possible to ensure a reliable connection to the plane, even when things
go wrong? Or are there some physical limiting factors, like electromagnetic
disturbances that could cut the link?

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pinaceae
that is a very good question - and thanks to the ongoing drone warfare by the
US, this is being answered right now.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_unmanned_aerial_vehi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_unmanned_aerial_vehicles)

the wikipedia article above is a good entry point. note how drones were
successfully used in the Vietnam war.

~~~
cpa
Indeed, but the specification for unmanned planes carrying 300+ people will
probably be much harsher than the spec for military drones... I think that
first thing we will witness is freight done by huge drones.

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Spooky23
Well, I suppose that after a decade or more of turning civil aviation into a
awful career this was bound to happen. Airlines have successfully stripped
pensions and frozen pilot wages for years.

At this point, a regional jet pilot is making less than a Starbucks barista or
Apple Store salesman. ( [http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2009/06/16/pilot-pay-
want-to...](http://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2009/06/16/pilot-pay-want-to-know-
how-much-your-captain-earns/) )

~~~
ekianjo
In case you did not read the article in depth, most of what is happening to
cause this shortage is due to more and more regulations. There will still be
people who want to fly even if their salary is cheap, because that is their
passion, just like there were writers and authors since the damn of
civilization even when they could not make a living out of it. Salaries are
not everything.

~~~
Spooky23
It's the Wall Street Journal, so of course they would say that regulations are
the root cause.

To put it in WSJ-speak: The present situation is evidence that we have
exhausted the marketplace of people willing to fly airplanes for poor pay,
eroding benefits and lousy job security.

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saosebastiao
Shortages and surpluses only exist when prices are mismatched. Pay up.

~~~
ekianjo
No, such things also exist when regulations restrict the market flow. Or when
trade unions protect their privileges in an excessive manner, preferring the
lead the company to bankruptcy than to accept any compromise. And you know
what, you have both phenomena in the aviation business. Hardly a coincidence
they face such difficulties.

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juanjobego
Why are they so surprised? They've been kicking the pilot´s butts for years...
"they are just drivers... my son plays better his gameboy... they don't
deserve their salary..." But then, what about having to pay more than $100.000
for a title that only grants you a $1000 pay job? What about not having a
single leave day when your family does? What about being so stressed that you
can barely sleep? and if you are not stressed, what about long haul flights,
where your sleep turns are so disturbed that you can't sleep back the way you
should? Or having to be always fit to pass the medical? Or being observed and
recorded on your activity to make you liable when you don't act as a robot?
Would any surgeon accept it? And many other things. It is worth it for a
while, but not forever. Do they thing pilost love to go the other side of the
world to work for a Gulf Airline? Or a chinese? Nope. But then the salaries
make it worth. When people loose their city connections, or when
"inexplicable" accidents occur, then they will pay more for their tickets, and
the balance will be back. Meanwhile, we still think that it makes sense "to
pay more for the taxi to the airport than for an airline ticket to a town two
hours away..." We got what we deserve.

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malandrew
Is there any chance that this shortage will prompt a more serious
consideration of having planes take off and land totally via AI?

~~~
jacquesm
You don't need AI for that:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland>

You'd need it very much if you wanted to deal with unforeseen situations. In
those cases pilots come in real handy:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Airways_Flight_1549>

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ern
_Flying around in empty airspace or towing banners doesn't give you the
training you need to fly a complex airplane._

I am no pilot, but two recent high profile crashes, the Colgan Air crash at
Buffalo and Air France 447 were caused by pilots not handling stalls
correctly.

Perhaps, there really _is_ a need for more basic flying experience?

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
I'll grant that Colgan Air raises serious questions about the pilots
abilities.

Air France 447 was more complex than you make it sound. The pilots lost their
spacial awareness due to weather and then made a number of mistakes which
caused their instruments to "malfunction" (the stall warning stopped even
though they were still technically stalling, and then came back on when they
tried to correct the stall).

Essentially Air France 447 is what happens when a pilot decides some of their
instruments aren't working correctly and aren't sure which (air speed was in
fact malfunctioning but everything else was fine). This wasn't helped by
things like Alternative Law turning on and disabling AoA protection (which the
pilots wouldn't know they were violating without a visible horizon line or one
that they trusted).

Now, yes, Air France 447 was caused by human error. But it wasn't simply "not
handling stalls correctly." They literally didn't know which was was up or
down, and the stall warning was starting and stopping at seemingly random
times.

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albumedia
Yea right. They've been saying this for years.

How is this possible when there are so many qualified pilots looking for a
job?

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brownbat
Here's to WSJ featuring labor shortage stories.

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salem
This sounds like a problem of the airlines own making, underpaying junior
pilots for years.

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marshallp
Airplanes should be fully automated, they probably already have the technology
to do this. They could start with cargo planes and then move to passenger once
the public fears are quelled.

~~~
hatcravat
No, they really shouldn't. Autopilots are very good at handling routine,
monotonous tasks and very bad at handling unusual or unexpected tasks. See,
for example, Air Canada 143, British Airways 38, Air France 447 (admittedly,
the crew human crew didn't handle that one so well, but only after the
automated system completely gave up), US Air 1549. The BA 38 flight in
particular highlights why you really, really want a human crew on board. The
pilots of that flight had to over-ride the autopilot, and turned what would
have been a complete disaster with everyone killed into a mere total write-off
with less than 50 injuries and no fatalities.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Wow, I hadn't heard about this before:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_38>

~~~
jacquesm
What impressed me most about that entry is how they managed to trace it back
to the root cause (besides, obviously managing to do as well as they did).

