Ask the pilot

Facing a serious pilot shortage, airlines are hiring crew members with remarkably little experience. What does this mean for safety?

By Patrick Smith

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Dec. 7, 2007 | The first airline I worked for was a small regional carrier named Northeast Express -- an affiliate of Northwest that flew under the "Airlink" banner. When I was hired, in the summer of 1990, my logbook contained just over 1,500 total flight hours. In addition to various instrument, multiengine and instructor ratings, I had a newly minted airline transport pilot certificate as well. I had been a flight instructor for the better part of four years, slowly building time in Cessnas, Pipers and other light, single-engine aircraft.

Such a résumé was, at the time, borderline competitive for an airline position. Thus I was equally thrilled and lucky when Northeast Express gave me the nod. My first assignment was hardly anything special -- first officer (copilot) on the Beech-99, an unpressurized 15-seater. Starting pay was about $850 per month.

Or, I think of my friend Mike, who was hired by the same company shortly thereafter. It was the best job he could find after retiring from the Navy, where he'd flown fighters. Like many airlines at the time, ours was so overwhelmed with eager applicants that it began charging new hires for the cost of their own training. Mike's out-of-pocket expenditure totaled more than $10,000. Had he declined, there were a thousand others in line behind him.

That was then. Those pay-for-training schemes are mostly gone now, as carriers struggle to fill positions amid the most serious pilot shortage since the 1960s.

Allow me to introduce you to a friend of mine, an aspiring airline pilot whom we'll call Kevin. About two weeks ago Kevin was hired by a US Airways Express affiliate. Later this month he'll begin first-officer training on a highly sophisticated 50-seater. Kevin, who is 29, has a grand total of 300 hours in his logbook. Three hundred. Thinking back to the mid-1980s, to the point when I had 300 hours, the prospect of applying to an airline -- any airline -- was unfathomable.

The expression "pilot shortage" is somewhat incorrect. There are plenty of résumés pouring into the recruitment offices, believe me. However, there is indeed a shortage of applicants who possess the level of qualifications traditionally sought after. And at least in North America, this crisis, for lack of a better term, exists almost exclusively at the regional level -- a problem not for United, American, Northwest et al., but for their numerous code-share partners and subsidiaries. In fact there are thousands of major airline pilots still on the street, yet to be recalled from furlough (more than 2,200 from American Airlines alone). As this column has explored in recent weeks, record numbers of Americans are traveling by air, but they are doing so in smaller planes. The use of regional jets (RJs), in particular, which carry anywhere from 35 to 70 passengers, has increased nearly 200 percent in the past five years, creating thousands of entry-level jobs.

To fill those slots, airlines have been steadily reducing their minimum requirements, and suddenly, as Kevin can attest, it's not uncommon to be hired with a few hundred hours and a smidgen of multiengine time into the copilot seat of a $20 million aircraft.

At what point this trend will bottom out is impossible to tell. The capacity reductions announced by airlines earlier this week may bring some regional downsizing. Similarly, carriers are figuring out that one of the easiest ways to reduce delays and congestion is to scale back RJ flying and consolidate with larger planes.

Either way, if it seems the applicant pool is not being adequately replenished, we need look no further than the $20,000 or less opening salary offered by most regional airlines. In decades past, flying for a regional was considered a temporary apprenticeship, a steppingstone before moving on to a more rewarding career at a major airline. That progression, never a sure thing, is today even more of a gamble. And even if things work out, major airline pay scales are nothing like they used to be. Increasingly, a position at a regional is looked upon not so much as a means to an end, but as a career in and of itself. And not a very profitable one. Although a senior RJ captain can earn close to six figures, the prospect of investing tens of thousands of dollars for the necessary licenses, only to languish for several years earning poverty-level wages, has dissuaded many from a career in aviation. (That these airlines have not substantially increased wages to attract more experienced candidates shows they are not yet as desperate as the term "pilot shortage" might imply.)

On the other hand, candidates are able to enter the industry with far fewer hours upfront, meaning less expense and, on average, an earlier jump on things. There are plenty of 22-year-olds out there with 300 or 400 hours. Even at $20,000 to start, there are worse jobs for a young guy or gal just out of school. Assuming a quick upgrade to captain, he or she could be earning upward of $50,000 well before age 30.

The obvious question: Is this a safety issue?

Next page: Is experience overrated?