Depending on who you ask in the aviation industry, you will hear many different answers regarding a "looming pilot shortage". Some people believe this to be true, that there are not as many pilots or people who want to be pilots as there used to be. Others will argue that there is no shortage of people who want to be pilots, just a shortage of people willing to put up with low pay for pilot's work. I tend to sit on the fence on this topic, as I believe that it is actually a bit of both. For the sake of argument, I will side on the "there is a pilot shortage" team.
I will concede that it feels like we've been "just a few years away from a huge pilot shortage" for about 10 years now. That "there is a massive bubble about to burst causing pilot shortages across the nation". Even though we have been hearing things like this for 7-8 years now, some of the effects can already be felt, especially for the regional carriers. I tend to believe that we are experiencing more of a molasses spill than an actual bubble 'popping', if you will. Events like 9/11 started off by causing a massive slowdown/shutdown of the aviation industry. Many pilots were furloughed. Many left of their own accord. Many chose not to return when the aviation industry started picking back up in the wake of the attacks. This started the ball rolling towards the current pilot shortage. In the early-mid 2000's, the 'glory days' of being an airline pilot were long gone. It was a rough and gritty time, with not much money to be made, especially if you were at a regional carrier, or didn't carry much seniority. Or worse, low ranking and at a regional carrier.
Both sides of the argument have valid points. The regional carrier system, as it is now, is all kinds of hectic. With the mandated retirement age and many of the baby boomer pilots working their way out of the system, there are many seats to be filled. More so than can be filled by current regional pilots. This leaves the regional carriers in a tough spot, because even fewer pilots are trickling in from schools and other forms of recruitment. According to a study done by the University of North Dakota's Aviation department, the pilot deficit will rise to 15,000 or more by 2026 (Bloomberg, 2016). That is 15,000 empty seats in exactly ten years. The dip is expected to start showing itself in the next year to 3 years. This is where the physical lack of bodies comes into play.
Now, where the pay shortage comes into play is in a lot of the regional airlines. Almost everyone in the industry knows that a regional airline gig is pretty much just something you use as a stepping stone to the next step in your career. You know it. The airlines know it. As a result, pay is kept lower. By cutting costs, including employee (read: pilot) wages, ticket prices can also be kept lower for the customer. But how low is too low? As of 2014, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) estimated that the average pay for a regional first officer was $22,500 per year (Fortune, 2014). Now, when broken down to hourly earnings per 40 hour work week, this comes out to roughly $10.75 per hour. I don't know about you, but I was earning that kind of money working as an assistant manager at a retail store in high school. No wonder it's becoming difficult to find people who want to sign their lives away for 2-3 years for peanuts.
One of the biggest reasons I feel like we see a pilot shortage right now is the absurdly low rate of pay in the lower rungs of the industry. On one hand, the old heads will chime in with a 'pay your dues' speech, which I understand. But on the other hand, pay for a first officer in today's world should not be able to be beat by a high-schooler working at a hardware store. People are starting to see exactly what young, starting pilots make, and are either pursuing other aviation paths that promise more benefit up front, or they're getting scared away from aviation entirely. I think that in order to fix this problem, regional airlines need to suck up some of the cost and up the pay for their pilots. Luckily, it seems that most of them are slowly getting this hint, especially since the crash of Colgan Flight 3407 was so closely linked to overworked/underpaid crew.
Many of the regional airlines, especially ones that directly feed the major carriers, have bumped their starting pay as of 2015. The average starting pay for regional airlines has slowly worked its way from the $20K per year range, up to the $50K per year, plus benefits (WSJ, 2016). While this isn't true for all regional airlines, this is definitely a much more comfortable number, and a number that is much more indicative of what a competent pilot (in partial control of a tube full of lives, after all) should be making. The general trend does seem to show pay going up though, which in the end, is good for everybody.
While ALPA is a great organization for any airline pilot to be a part of, it is only one of many organizations that exist to further the aviation industry as a whole. One other such organization is the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. While ALPA exists to cover the butts of airline pilots all over, GAMA exists to help manufacturers and operators of smaller, general aviation equipment (GAMA, 2016).
Professionalism, in my own words, would be a mentality that one takes on for their career. It is a mentality that drives them to perform their job duties in the most expeditious and judicious manner possible, and to do so competently, and with an end goal of furthering themselves and those around them in the process.
Two ways in which I would say professionalism lacked heavily leading to the crash of Colgan Flight 3407 would be the First Officer's decision to take the flight sick, first and foremost. While she made the decision based on poor pay and trying to save herself some money, she should have known that she was not fit to fly and taken that day off. She also was deathly afraid to fly in icing conditions, so maybe her flying through icing for the first time while she was sick wasn't the best idea... Secondly, the trans-cockpit authority between the Captain and the First Officer seemed to be almost nonexistent. Sterile cockpit procedures were not practiced, and conversation between the two was almost all non-pertinent up until the accident started to develop. This is not to excuse Colgan management. They definitely made more than a handful of decisions as a company that led to these overworked pilots slipping through the cracks. But I believe that 3407 was mostly caused by a complete breakdown of communication and failure to rely on training in the cockpit.
2 ways I plan on expanding my professionalism in the job market after I graduate will be to (1) study the mistakes of those around me. "Know thy enemy". My enemy is a crash. By doing all I can to learn from the mistakes around me, I will hopefully maintain an air of professionalism that allows me to not make those same mistakes, or any new ones. Also, I plan on (2) maintaining a mental on/off switch of when to have fun and when to be serious and in control. In many of the accident recordings you can find on Youtube, there is often a good amount of non-pertinent conversation leading up to the crash. This takes your attention away from the stimuli around you, and can cause a lapse in judgement or attention, allowing just enough time for an irrecoverable accident to develop. Situational awareness is key in this profession, and complacency kills. No one should know that more than a pilot.
References:
Bloomberg - Schlangenstein, M., & Sasso, M. (2016, June 29). Shrinking Pool of Future Pilots Keeps Major Airlines on Edge. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-29/shrinking-pool-of-future-pilots-keeps-major-airlines-on-edge
Fortune - Zillman, C. (2014). Why airlines are running out of pilots. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from http://fortune.com/2014/03/03/why-airlines-are-running-out-of-pilots/
WSJ - Carey, S. (2016, November 06). Pilot Shortage Prompts Regional Airlines to Boost Starting Wages. Retrieved November 20, 2016, from http://www.wsj.com/articles/pilot-shortage-prompts-regional-airlines-to-boost-starting-wages-1478473042
GAMA - About GAMA | GAMA - General Aviation Manufacturers Association. (n.d.). Retrieved November 20, 2016, from https://www.gama.aero/about-us
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