Pilot Shortage

I have decided to make my final blog about something that I have lived for the last 15 years, and have watched many of my friends go choose paths that either paid off after lots of dues paying or led them into a lucrative career in anything but aviation.

The pilot shortage is real, and getting more and more real every day. The way that things are now it is unrecognizable to someone like me that has been around for the really awful times of 9/11/01, $140 a barrel oil,and all of the bankruptcies and mergers of the 2000s. That is a great thing for someone with some time and all of the licences I need. To give a little background on me, I was a kid whose dad was was in the aviation world, so I got to be around airports in the early 90s and got his pilots licence four months after 9/11 and I remember my commercial ground instructor coming in and asking us "so how does it feel to watch your careers go down the tubes?" And for the most part he was right.

I know that there are lots of articles about the cause of the current and future pilot shortage that we have, things like low starting pay, bad schedules, and the big one, the "1500 rule", and while, yes these things are all factors that have and will continue to make the problem worse, I have had a front row seat to the coming pilot shortage and I can tell you that things are going to get very out of control in the next few years.

Lets start with the numbers. The Rand Corporation did a study that said that the major airlines right now need around 3,000 pilots a year, and by 2020 that number will go to 4,000-5,000, while the same report said that the regionals and 135 operators will need 5,000 pilots a year, and that number will steadily rise until 2021 when the report says that they will need 8,000 new pilots a year, just to keep up with retirements. (Tallman, 2015) That means that if all of the available flight instructors go into commercial flying, and all of their students become flight instructors and leave for the airlines when they get 1500 hours, and so on... they will still only be able to fill 2/3 of the pilot slots needed in the next 5 years. (Levine-Weinberg, 2015) These numbers are insane and spell big trouble for not only the airlines but for businesses in the smaller cities that are going to lose airline service in the next 15 years. These numbers are only for the domestic carriers, with more than 40% of new airliners going to Asia in the next 20 years going to Asia,(Harrison, 2015) they are facing a pilot shortage that may pale in comparison to ours.

Now for the big fight, what caused it. There are numerous articles that are saying that the biggest cause for the pilot shortage is the so called "1500 Rule" that was instituted in 2014, that said that First officer must have an ATP licence, to fly a part 121 operation, where previously they only needed a  commercial pilots licence. This upped the required hours from 250 to 1500. (Fitzpatrick, 2015) Now in reality, no airlines were hiring at 250 hours but it was not uncommon to see people get hired with 500-600 hours.

The other big cause that is always pointed to is the low starting pay of regional pilots, and while I have to admit, $20,000 is not enough to live on, I do not think that that is as big a factor as they are making it out to be. I firmly believe that flying is one of the few careers that people would do for free if they were capable of. I have seen people with the flying sickness, the feeling that if they don't get to fly at least once a week, they start looking like caged bulls. I think that, especially at the beginning of your flight training, this love of flying is what gets you through the long, scary, and difficult pre-solo phase, past your cross countries and into your private licence. What happened to me was I had my private and was working toward my instrument licence and decided that I might as well get my commercial and CFI ratings, and make some of the money back that I had spent to get that far. Aviation is a passion that you try and figure a way to get paid to do. However if you do decide to pursue your passion, you have to make enough money to survive.  

The number one largest factor in my mind leading to the pilot shortage is the cost of training. I can not tell you how many times I have given flight instruction to students that are in their late 40s- early 50s and they tell me the same story, " They started flying out of high school and loved it but... life got in the way, kids, marriage, ect." And the time that they are talking about was when flight training is a fraction of what it is now. Now a days it costs almost $150,000 to get a college degree and up to your ATP licence (Olinga, 2016). That is absolute insanity, I don't understand how anyone can afford that, and even if they can afford it, how do you justify spending that much money, knowing that you are not going to make a living wage until you have been in the airlines for a few years? Its just hard to justify that kind of expense while knowing that it may never pay off, especially if we have another 9-11 or oil prices spike again.

That brings me to my last point, a major reason that I didn't go, and don't plan going into the airlines, is I have seen what happens to pilots when the industry turns down. The biggest concessions always come from the pilots, be it their pay, their benefits, or their jobs, Pilots are almost always the first to be cut and cut the deepest when things turn bad, and getting those concessions back is impossible.  I could fill pages of stories of friends that this has happened to with the airlines over the years, but lets just hope that we can get in and get enough seniority to be safe when this bubble of air travel and cheap gas pops. With all of these cuts and mergers and bad press at times, I have been able to see the role of airline pilot brought down from an enviable position, a master of all, to being treated as a glorified bus driver. I believe that this lack of prestige and recognition of the skills necessary to pilot an aluminum tube full of people all over the world, is the main reason that we are seeing the shortage of people wanting to be pilots.

References

Fitzpatrick, A. (2016, March 23). regional airlines hit by pilot shortage. Retrieved April 21, 2016, from http://time.com/4257940/pilot-shortage/

Harrison, V. (2015, July 21). The world needs more pilots: 28,000 new jobs a year - Jul. 21, 2015. Retrieved April 21, 2016, from http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/21/news/companies/boeing-pilots-demand/

Levine-Weinberg, A. (2015, August 10). why the U.S. airline pilot shortage is so hard to solve -- The Motley Fool. Retrieved April 21, 2016, from http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/08/10/why-the-us-airline-pilot-shortage-is-so-hard-to-so.aspx

Olinga, L. (2016, March 7). pilot shortage hits US regional airlines. Retrieved April 21, 2016, from https://www.yahoo.com/news/pilot-shortage-hits-us-regional-airlines-042334238.html?ref=gs

Tallman, J. (2015, May 5). pilot shortage: yes or no? - AOPA. Retrieved from http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2015/May/05/osu-pilot-supply-conference

   

NTSB Most wanted

The NTSB has some good ideas with their most wanted lists. Their idea is that by putting out what they see as the cause of too many accidents and their ideas on how to fix them. If I were to rank their 2016 Most wanted Improvements I would do them like this.
1. Prevent Loss of control in flight
2. Fatigue related accidents
3. Medical Fitness
4. Reducing distractions
5. Cockpit image recorders.

The reason that I think that Loss of control (LOC) Prevention should be at the top, is because it is really scary to think that someone could fly very little and in very specific situations, can load up a plane full of people and fly into conditions that could be far and above their skill level and lose control and kill everyone on the plane and even people on the ground. There have been over 1200 deaths in the last six years contributed to Loss of Control (NTSB, n.d.) LOC accidents are not only a GA problem. Look at the Colgan Air crash or the Air France flight, both of those aircraft entered textbook stalls, and the pilots reacted in the worst possible ways and crashed the airplane.

The second one on the list is kind of the dirty little secret of aviation. I spent a year flying cargo, and not even that hard of flying, we were out at 6am sat in a hotel room all day and flew back around 6 pm. I was off duty by 9:30 PM every night, but there wasn't one day that I wasn't at least tired, if not fully fatigued. And I know that most of the other pilots felt that way.  I know that 121 carriers are a little better at giving their pilots more rest than 135 operators, but just the lifestyle of living out of a suitcase, in hotels, and the demands of the job make pilots much more fatigued than people that put in 9-5 jobs. The rules that are in place are meant to be a bare minimum, but most if not nearly all commercial operations just copy and paste the regs into their schedule, the thought being that if its legal it must be safe, but that is just not the case.

They have medical fitness on here, but I think that really there should be ways to improve the medical reporting without risking losing your licence. As we saw on the German Wings crash last year, the fear of losing your medical and with it your entire flying career, is enough to make people hide very important medical information. It is the fear of the swift and decisive action that follows disclosing a medical problem, that keeps pilots mum on things that could be a small problem and prevents them from getting help while it is still a small problem.

Distractions in the cockpit can be a problem, but I don't see it as huge problem. Flying on autopilot, day in and day out over the same route can be boring, so what is the difference if a pilot is reading his phone or a book? But when its time for sterile cockpit, I would doubt that you would see any PEDs out.

Lastly, I think the idea of having image recorders in the cockpit would do very little to improve safety. The idea makes more sense in a train where things can jump out at you, but with the voice recorders and the flight data recorders, the investigators get a pretty good idea what happened.

Again I don't think that Cockpit image recorders are necessary for airplanes. There just isn't enough situations that having the image recorded would help in the investigation of accidents. As well as if video of a crash would get out, it could greatly hurt the aviation industry, by letting people see the final moments of a crash.

One thing I would like to see on the list, is an improvement of stick and rudder skills for 121 pilots who spend way too much time on autopilot that they lose the skills to actually fly the airplane if the situation calls for it.

As far as what I think the FAA will actually address, I think that they are working on the medical fitness and I have seen many forums on the Loss of Control issue. LOC is becoming what runway incursions were when I was starting out in the pilot world. Where there is intense focus on the causes and ways to keep them from happening, from training to recognition and prevention.

NTSB. (n.d.). prevent loss of control in flight in general aviation. Retrieved April 10, 2016, from http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl/Pages/mwl6-2016.aspx

NTSB. (n.d.). disconnect from deadly distractions. Retrieved April 10, 2016, from http://www.ntsb.gov/safety/mwl/Pages/mwl5-2016.aspx

Aviation Organizations

Aviation organizations are a great tool to get to know people in the industry and to have a lot of fun in the world of aviation.

 I have been a member of the Experimental Aircraft Association ever since I was 6 years old. I have also been a member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association for over 15 years, ever since I became a commercial pilot. I plan on continuing with these organizations because I believe that they are a great way to bring people into the world of aviation.

The EAA's main objective is to promote general aviation, as well as bring new people into the world of aviation. (EAA, n.d.) If you were to go to an airport and started talking to someone about being interested in being involved in aviation, there is a good chance that you would be talking to an EAA member. They have nearly 1000 chapters and over 180,000 members, all focused on promoting the "Spirit of Flight" (EAA, n.d.)
They do this by hosting Young Eagles events, that allow children to get some free time in a general aviation airplane, they also have local fly ins that bring people to airports and of course they host Airventure in Oshkosh, Wisconsin every year where thousands of pilots and aviation enthusiasts gather to see the latest and greatest as well as classic and antique aircraft. The EAA is also very involved in advocacy, especially for older and recreational pilots.

 The AOPA is another organization that's main goal is the promotion of General Aviation. They focus mainly on advocacy and education for pilots as well as lobbying congress and even state and local governments to keep General Aviation accessible to all. (AOPA, n.d.) AOPA has over 400,000 members and uses that clout to help fight back against laws and regulations that are aimed at hurting GA or giving businesses like the airlines preferential treatment. The AOPA has been on the frontlines fighting against user-fees, and ATC privatization as well as all of the knee-jerk security regulations that came out after 9-11

The EAA and the AOPA are the two biggest advocates for General Aviation. Both take great steps in protecting and encouraging new and recreational pilots, they just do it in slightly different ways. The EAA is focused mainly on bringing new pilots into the world, they were a big proponent behind the Sport Pilot rule, which was supposed to bring the cost of flying way down. (It worked...kinda) but they also do the grassroots work of having local chapters and promoting aviation on the ground. Where the AOPA takes more of a legal protection aspect more seriously, they are the ones that are talking to congressmen and women, and pushing for a fair shake in government regulations and laws, as well as helping to protect airports from developers.

The reason that it is important to not only join but to be active in these organizations is the same reason that it is important that Labor unions are important. Without them, the people with the most money, will have the most influence and it is only through the collective weight of these organizations that the everyday pilots voice can be heard.

Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. (n.d.). mission and history of AOPA - AOPA. Retrieved April 3, 2016, from http://www.aopa.org/About-AOPA/Governance/Mission-and-History-of-AOPA

Experimental Aircraft Association. (n.d.). who we are | EAA. Retrieved April 3, 2016, from https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/about-eaa/who-we-are