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This is somewhat being compounded/driven by the pilot shortage/crunch in the aviation industry. Typical costs for becoming a pilot are high and the immediate r

This is somewhat being compounded/driven by the pilot shortage/crunch in the aviation industry. Typical costs for becoming a pilot are high and the immediate returns are low. Sure if you become a senior Captain with a major airline like United you can make good money, but before you get there you start by flying for a regional making as low as $20k a year: https://www.economist.com/gulliver/2016/03/09/america-is-running-out-of-people-to-fly-its-planes https://www.economist.com/gulliver/2016/03/09/america-is-run... And if you are facing student loans that is a wringer. So now that airlines are expanding, the majors are having trouble finding experienced or qualified pilots since many people forgo pursuing it as a career. For high growth markets, like Asia, they have resorted to lowering license requirements with things like the Multi-crew Pilot License (MPL) which is all sorts of alarming (remember when that Asiana flight crashed on landing in SFO?).

eternalny1 8y ago
Hence why I am a certified commercial pilot, Embry-Riddle graduate, and am now a software developer browsing HN. Not looking back.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
cm2187 8y ago
Also I understand pilots are discouraged from taking risk when flying a small private plane on their free time as it could hurt their professional license. But on the other hands that’s the sort of experience that becomes handy in those catastrophic failure scenarios.
- mjevans 8y ago
  Quite the mis-aligned incentive. At the very least hard core simulator time to initially train the reflexes and some real 'stunt' flight hours in actual air to overcome the fear when real forces are involved seems to be in order.
- dmurray 8y ago
  How does this work? I can see how it might look bad if they had an incident bad enough to report to the FAA. But what kind of "risky" flying is safe enough that pilots should try it, yet runs a substantial risk of having reportable incidents?
  - bdamm 8y ago
    Practicing very slow landings, or power-assisted landings, would fall into this category. There's a wide range of marginally legal behavior such as low flight, back country flying, or even gliding, that might serve a stick-and-rudder pilot well yet if a concern is raised either because of an accident or because of an ATC or pedestrian concern would result in action on a pilot's license and subsequent additional explaining to airline HR.
    - _s 8y ago
      I'm not sure that's a thing - PPL holders are supposed to be able to demonstrate flapless, partial power and glide (no power) approaches; plus low-level navigation. CPLs do more advanced (harder) versions of the same - it's part of most training curriculums and is tested on during exams.
- _s 8y ago
  Yes, there's a whole part of training dedicated to Threat and Error Management (TEMs). We don't take risks, but we do generally train for many common failure scenarios in a given plane (everything from incorrectly reading / failed instruments to equipment failures and fires etc) when getting endorsed / type-rated for it.
SilasX 8y ago
That sounds more like a surplus than a shortage.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- manicdee 8y ago
  How does a lack of pilots sound like a surplus?
  - SilasX 8y ago
    See sibling reply[1]. If you can't make much as a regional pilot, that sounds like supply swamping the demand. But if you need all those hours to be a different kind of pilot, that may translate into a shortage of that kind. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18410665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18410665
    - gshulegaard 8y ago
      It's more like a sticky market effect than it is a surplus of supply. When I worked in the aviation industry 5 years ago the problem was education costs had increased rapidly while entry-level wages have largely stayed the same. This is the same trend as the overall market, but in aviation the cost-wage differential was especially large. Airlines began to see the the number of college-age, young students entering the pilot industry start to fall. Additionally, the pipeline for new private-sector pilots started to shift: fewer students entered high cost private flight schools while more enlisted in the Air Force which offered better incentives and (more or less) free training at the cost of a 4 year military commitment. This squeeze led to majors upping their compensation for tenured employees in order to encourage them to stay. This is why Senior Captains have seen increases to their average compensation while entry-level pilots at regionals haven't seen much change (regionals often operate on shoestring margins). This, in the short term works, and even now it's part of the reason that Pilots at majors end up having longer careers at the same carrier than average private sector industries. The benefits in scheduling and pay that they accrue the longer they are at a single airline are some of the strongest employee retention benefits of any industry today. Perhaps not as strong as the pension benefits of the 50's but certainly stronger than Software Engineers which have seen decreasing average employment duration in recent years. This means that while potential new pilots have been choosing alternative carreers and older pilots stay longer, the age distribution of pilots has become unevenly distributed. There are a lot of older-aged pilots being paid a lot, but there have been overall less pilots entering the industry. But here's the catch: Airline pilots are one of the only professions which have federal regulations governing age eligibility. That is, pilots must retire at age 65 according to the FAA. This age requirement was increased from 60 back as recently as 2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001654.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01... But the FAA added a qualification where international captains over 60 had to be accompanied by a co-pilot under 60. https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/too-old-fly-180962349/ https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/too-old-fly-1809623... Point is there is an aging pilot population which, literally, will age out of the profession and not enough younger pilots to fill the gap. At any rate, the pilot crunch is a really interesting market situation and I haven't been in the industry for 3+ years so my perspective is likely dated.
reaperducer 8y ago
I know these are all facts, and used to have empathy for my neighbor across the street who is a pilot for one of the majors. Then one night at a neighborhood party he was complaining about his pay and let it slip that he had to take a pay cut that was more than some people's entire annual take-home. I don't feel bad for him anymore.

eternalny1 8y ago

Hence why I am a certified commercial pilot, Embry-Riddle graduate, and am now a software developer browsing HN. Not looking back.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

cm2187 8y ago

Also I understand pilots are discouraged from taking risk when flying a small private plane on their free time as it could hurt their professional license. But on the other hands that’s the sort of experience that becomes handy in those catastrophic failure scenarios.

mjevans 8y ago
Quite the mis-aligned incentive. At the very least hard core simulator time to initially train the reflexes and some real 'stunt' flight hours in actual air to overcome the fear when real forces are involved seems to be in order.
dmurray 8y ago
How does this work? I can see how it might look bad if they had an incident bad enough to report to the FAA. But what kind of "risky" flying is safe enough that pilots should try it, yet runs a substantial risk of having reportable incidents?
- bdamm 8y ago
  Practicing very slow landings, or power-assisted landings, would fall into this category. There's a wide range of marginally legal behavior such as low flight, back country flying, or even gliding, that might serve a stick-and-rudder pilot well yet if a concern is raised either because of an accident or because of an ATC or pedestrian concern would result in action on a pilot's license and subsequent additional explaining to airline HR.
  - _s 8y ago
    I'm not sure that's a thing - PPL holders are supposed to be able to demonstrate flapless, partial power and glide (no power) approaches; plus low-level navigation. CPLs do more advanced (harder) versions of the same - it's part of most training curriculums and is tested on during exams.
_s 8y ago
Yes, there's a whole part of training dedicated to Threat and Error Management (TEMs). We don't take risks, but we do generally train for many common failure scenarios in a given plane (everything from incorrectly reading / failed instruments to equipment failures and fires etc) when getting endorsed / type-rated for it.

SilasX 8y ago

That sounds more like a surplus than a shortage.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
manicdee 8y ago
How does a lack of pilots sound like a surplus?
- SilasX 8y ago
  See sibling reply[1]. If you can't make much as a regional pilot, that sounds like supply swamping the demand. But if you need all those hours to be a different kind of pilot, that may translate into a shortage of that kind. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18410665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18410665
  - gshulegaard 8y ago
    It's more like a sticky market effect than it is a surplus of supply. When I worked in the aviation industry 5 years ago the problem was education costs had increased rapidly while entry-level wages have largely stayed the same. This is the same trend as the overall market, but in aviation the cost-wage differential was especially large. Airlines began to see the the number of college-age, young students entering the pilot industry start to fall. Additionally, the pipeline for new private-sector pilots started to shift: fewer students entered high cost private flight schools while more enlisted in the Air Force which offered better incentives and (more or less) free training at the cost of a 4 year military commitment. This squeeze led to majors upping their compensation for tenured employees in order to encourage them to stay. This is why Senior Captains have seen increases to their average compensation while entry-level pilots at regionals haven't seen much change (regionals often operate on shoestring margins). This, in the short term works, and even now it's part of the reason that Pilots at majors end up having longer careers at the same carrier than average private sector industries. The benefits in scheduling and pay that they accrue the longer they are at a single airline are some of the strongest employee retention benefits of any industry today. Perhaps not as strong as the pension benefits of the 50's but certainly stronger than Software Engineers which have seen decreasing average employment duration in recent years. This means that while potential new pilots have been choosing alternative carreers and older pilots stay longer, the age distribution of pilots has become unevenly distributed. There are a lot of older-aged pilots being paid a lot, but there have been overall less pilots entering the industry. But here's the catch: Airline pilots are one of the only professions which have federal regulations governing age eligibility. That is, pilots must retire at age 65 according to the FAA. This age requirement was increased from 60 back as recently as 2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013001654.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01... But the FAA added a qualification where international captains over 60 had to be accompanied by a co-pilot under 60. https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/too-old-fly-180962349/ https://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/too-old-fly-1809623... Point is there is an aging pilot population which, literally, will age out of the profession and not enough younger pilots to fill the gap. At any rate, the pilot crunch is a really interesting market situation and I haven't been in the industry for 3+ years so my perspective is likely dated.

reaperducer 8y ago

I know these are all facts, and used to have empathy for my neighbor across the street who is a pilot for one of the majors. Then one night at a neighborhood party he was complaining about his pay and let it slip that he had to take a pay cut that was more than some people's entire annual take-home. I don't feel bad for him anymore.