Pilot Shortage...huh?? What????

I'm no mathematician, but even I can see there is the potential for a very large pilot shortage in the next 10 years. All the numbers crunched down below are very rough estimates. I know I've left airlines off of both lists, but I think my numbers are in the ballpark. Granted I've been hearing about pilot shortages for years and admit I bought into the hype, but I think the next shortage will be for real. Here's why.....

At the regional level, where the major airlines get most of their new hires these days, we have roughly 21,500 pilots in the pipeline as Part 121 airline pilots. In recent years, the majors had been on a hiring spree because the age 65 rule had not been passed yet. They were hiring to offset pilots getting forced out at 60. Most of their new hires were from the regional level because the military does not put out the numbers of pilots they used to. The regionals were expanding and getting bigger, while their pilots were moving on to the majors. This created a shortage of pilots at the entry level jobs at regionals. The airlines started out with minimums in the thousands of hours, only to find themselves running out of pilots with thousands of hours, so they dropped their minimums. The minimums continued to drop all the way to as low as it could possibly go, a wet commercial ticket and 200 hours. With the passage of the age 65 rule, the recession, ultra high gas prices of 2008 and the Colgan crash, everything has ground to a halt. The airlines are shrinking, pilots are getting furloughed, capacity is being cut, airframes are being retired faster and the industry has started going backward. Right now, we are in the valley, 2 years ago the industry was on a peak. In 5-7 years, we will again be reaching for a peak, this time twice as high as the one in 2007. This is where the potential for a pilot shortage is going to play a major role in pilot economics.

Regionals -

Air Wis - 700
ASA- 1700
Colgan - 400
Comair - 1450
Compass - 350
Eagle - 2700
Expressjet - 2700
Go Jet - 250
Great Lakes - 325
Horizon - 700
Lynx - 100
Mesa = 1400
Mesaba - 1150
Piedmont - 450
Pinnacle - 1300
PSA - 500
Republic et al - 2000
Skywest - 2800
Trans States - 450
TOTAL - 21,500 Ballpark


Majors -

Air Tran - 1600
Alaska - 1400
American - 11,600
Continental - 4800
Delta/NW - 12,300
Fed Ex - 4800
Southwest - 5900
United - 6400
UPS - 2900
US Air - 5200
TOTAL - 57,000 Give or take a few thousand

As you can see from the numbers above, there are roughly 21,000+ Part 121 regional airline pilots flying today. There are nearly triple that number at the major level. In roughly 2 years, all those OLD pilots that stayed in after turning 60, will start hitting 65. My guess is that roughly 35-40% of the current major airline pilot group will be retiring in the next 10 years. That is a lot of seats to fill. With the recent passage of the new 1500 hour with ATP license as a minimum to become an airline pilot, the new pilots coming through the ranks just got dealt a huge blow. This in turn is going to thin out the ranks of people aspiring to become airline pilots due to the extremely high barrier of entry. I'm guessing the enactment of this new law will cause a significant drop in the number of potential airline pilots. Besides, who in their right mind would drop $100,000 plus on a career that is going to start off paying you less than $20,000 to start. Something is going to have to change. Pilot pay, especially at the regionals, is something that will need to be addressed. The simple fact is that you are not going to attract the best and brightest applicants to this career with the profession being dragged through the mud by airline management. I think the last 10 months have shone a lot of light on the fact that an airline pilot career is not as glamorous as it is portrayed to be. The dark side of the career has reared its ugly head and the masses are slowly starting ot realize that the dream that was to be an airline pilot has evaporated in the last 10 years. Captain Sullenberger has graciously used his fame as a platform to inform the public what the airline career has spiraled into. I think the publics eye's are opening and this will deter future pilots.

So when the majors start hiring again, (5 years is my guess) and they start to drain the regional pool, what pool are the regionals going to hire from? Flight instruction is down across the board, the aviation colleges are going to have a pretty tough sell on the airline career nowadays. Who is going to want to drop the big bucks on an aviation degree only to go out and have to scrounge up 1500 hours after graduation. If you went the college way, you'd be 24-25 before getting your 1500 putting you way behind the career curve. Besides, once all those seats get filled in at the majors, they will stop hiring for quite some time. A high school freshman that is looking into an airline career this very day can look forward to possibly being a regional pilot for life. Its going to be a game of musical chairs for a few years. When the music stops and you are not lucky enough to be at the major of your dreams, good luck getting in.

I don't see the majors ever really having a problem finding pilots. I believe the industry is not done contracting and will only get smaller in the future. This will create less jobs at the majors. But when they do hire, and hire they will, who is going to take that sub $20,000 regional job? Looking back, knowing what I do now, I would have chosen another career. Maby the people looking at this job for a career now are having second thoughts......

I still cant make up my mind

I love flying. My current job has turned flying into a job, but I'm dumb enough to still love it. Question is, do I love it enough to stick it out for the long term? Right now I'm teetering on the verge of not flying anymore. I still cannot make up my mind as to whether I want to jump ship and head over to ATC or stay the course and keep on flying.

Pros of jumping ship -

Money....and lots of it. A hell of a lot more than I will make as a pilot for at least the next 7-10 years.

Stability-...Lets face it, being a pilot is a very unstable job.

Retirement...Currently I'm in charge of my own retirement. By the time I'm old enough to collect social security, it'll be long gone. At my current employer's rate of a measly 3% match, I'll literally have to fly 1000 hours a year till I'm 65 to have a decent retirement, only to die 2 years after I retire, because I worked till I was 65.

Schedule...A semi-sorta 9-5 where I can be home every night vs. being gone for at least 3 days in a row, mostly 4.


Cons -

Schedule.....I am really getting used to being home with the boys. I have been averaging 14 days off a month for the last few months. Sept and Oct I have had 17 days off. My schedule has been commutable, so I have been spending a lot of time at home lately and have been getting used to it. Do I really want to give that up to work a "9-5"

Travel benefits - with ATC, I will have none. At leas now, Erin, the boys and I have some bennies.

Commuting.... . Hmmmmm. 45min flight on planes that are increasingly full and not on a very good schedule vs. a 2 hour drive each way.......almost a toss up.


I've been weighing the pros and cons for a few months now and still cannot come up with a decision. I like my schedule as it is now and like the travel benefits, but HATE the pay and hate commuting. What should I do with my life for the next 30 years.......thats the $6,000,000 question.

The glass wall

In the corporate world there is a saying out there that a glass ceiling is in place for women and minorities that keeps them from climbing the corporate ladder past a certain position. While that may be true yet extremely hard to prove, there IS a "Glass Wall" in aviation.

The glass wall I am referring to pertains to pilot hiring. It can sometimes be very difficult to find a corporate aviation job after being an airline pilot. Airline pilots get labeled with the "Airline Stink", that means that once an airline job is on your resume' it will stink it up and drop your application into the circular file (garbage can).

The glass wall didn't get erected due to the pilots having poor skills or lack of ability, it was put into place to protect employers from less than ethical pilots. When the airlines hit rough times, the first thing to go are the "highly paid, under worked" pilots. These out-of-work pilots need jobs, so they scour the corporate companies to find jobs. Those that are lucky enough to find a possible job usually have to be trained in on the plane they they are going to be flying. Training costs the companies money. Lots of money. For example, a type rating on a Gulfstream V can run upwards of $30,000. That's a lot of money to invest in an employee. These pilots would get hired on at their new company, complete their training, fly for a month or two then get recalled by their airline. These less than ethical pilots would then jump ship back to their airline leaving the company in the dust eating all those training costs they just paid for. This scenario has played out many times at many different companies, hence the erecting of the glass wall. Being a furloughed airline pilot is a big black mark on your record in most corporate aviation circles.

I'm beginning to wonder if the airline stink is going to apply to me in the future? I've never ruled out a nice corporate job as a career job, but is being an airline pilot now going to hinder my job prospects in the future? I guess time will tell.

On a side note. Life is good. I'm getting used to being poor, yet having 15-17 days off a month. Commuting is getting tough due to all the cutbacks, but we're managing. Thanks to Obama-hood spreading the wealth around, we bought a house and put the $8000 tax credit to good work paying off the wifes car and replenishing our savings. Its awesome to finally be a home owner. Hopefully soon I'll get to some line flying stories, but the flying has been pretty boring lately.