New regulations have impacted regional airlines in a big way, with the increased flight requirement of 1,500 hours to become a first officer. Prior to the Colgan accident the legal requirement to be a first officer was a commercial rating and a current medical. The new regulation increased the required time from 250 hours to 1,500 hours, and that is driving many students away. As with every problem there are solutions which can solve the problem or at least limit the negative effects of it. In order to fix this problem two things must happen, lower the 1,000 hour requirement for university students, and increase the pay of first year pilots. Those two things will help regional airlines hire and keep pilots with in their company. Another thing that regional airlines should be doing is sponsoring students pilots and assisting them with the cost for flight training. This will ensure more students are enrolling in flight schools and universities. And upon graduation students are guaranteed a first officer position with that airline. International airlines such as Qatar, Lufthansa and many others utilizes the cadet program, in which the company pays for the students training and in return they work with the company for x amount of years.
There are various unions other than ALPA that represents the aviation industry. A few of the unions I found is the National Air Traffic Controller Association (NATCA) which consists of over 20,000 controllers, engineers and other professionals. Also the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA) is the world largest flight attendant labor union containing over 60,000 members from 19 different airlines.
In my opinion professionalism means to carry yourself in a professional matter when you are on duty. To take your job seriously and put in the extra time and effort to make sure everything is up to par in terms of quality and safety. After watching flying cheap it was clear to me that Colgan Air didn't believe in professionalism. Colgan's management did an awful job of maintaining a professional environment, there were many instances in the video that displayed that, one of the most shocking was when a flight was over the allowed weight they altered the weight and balance to make it a legal flight. Pilots also lacked professionalism in this documentary, it was clearly demonstrated in the buffalo accident. On approach the flight crew had a meaningless discussion instead of focusing on the approach itself. If the flight crew maintained a sterile cockpit and monitored the flight instruments they could of prevented that tragic accident from occurring by maintaining their airspeed and situational awareness.
First year pay is a huge factor when it comes to their lack of professionalism. After watching the documentary it seemed like the majority of first year pilots' were miserable and hated their jobs because they were over worked and underpaid. As with any job, if your employees are unhappy they will not put in the time or effort to do the job right or on time, which is unacceptable in the aviation industry. I plan on maintaining and expanding my level of professionalism once I become employed by doing the right thing and making the best decisions and putting time and effort to ensure that i am doing things safely and in a timely matter. Most importantly I plan on taking every flight seriously and avoiding unnecessary conversation in the cockpit so that I am not distracting myself or my co pilot.
Lavine, A. (2015). Why the U.S. Airline Pilot Shortage Is So Hard to Solve -- The Motley Fool. Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/08/10/why-the-us-airline-pilot-shortage-is-so-hard-to-so.aspx
The Coming U.S. Pilot Shortage Is Real. (2015, February 16). Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/coming-us-pilot-shortage-realNational
Air Traffic Controllers Association - Homepage. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://www.natca.org
About AFA. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://www.afacwa.org/about_afa
Air Traffic Controllers Association - Homepage. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://www.natca.org
About AFA. (n.d.). Retrieved October 12, 2015, from http://www.afacwa.org/about_afa
I really liked that you don’t just pick one reason for the cause of the pilot shortage. I would say though, that the overall problem comes right back down to money. While I understand that retiring pilots is a factor there is money for flight school, money to reach the 1500 hours, not paying enough money for entry level jobs. And that low salary is definitely an influencer of the lack of professionalism.
ReplyDeleteNice blog! We both share the same views when it comes to first year pay being a contributing factor to lack of professionalism. I think we saw examples of this in the documentary flying cheap. I also believe that regional airlines should sponsor student pilots. This will reduce the burden of financial debt that occurs with student pilots currently.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that something needs to change, raising pay for first year pilots seems like a tough one to accomplish. The two main issues with that are the fixed-cost contracts the regionals have in place with the mainlines, and the collective bargaining agreements the pilots currently have in place.
ReplyDeleteI could not agree more regarding the shortage. The airline officials try to say otherwise but the truth is there is a shortage and its only growing. From underqualified pilot to high cost of training, this trend is going to keep going. Also with the recent increase in hours qualification, a lot of pilots who were eligible are no longer able to get these pilot jobs because there busy trying to get the hours up.
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