Pilot Shortage Now What

[The Dread Pilot Roberts]

Now that the long rumoured and much delayed pilot shortage is officially here, now what?

How is this industry going to adapt, single pilot airlines?

Scuds suggestion in the other topic about northern pilots becoming some rouge mercenaries with their own birds contracting to airlines or air taxis that can find lift?

Wages will rise but how will pilots fuck this up
as we normally do?

Governments etc

[BusChauffeur]

Time to pay up! Follow the lead of: DELTA, UNITED, AMERICAN and just about every other airline south of our border.

[Scudrunner]

I’m going to enjoy the next few years ! Daddy needs a new toy !

[TwinOtterFan]

This crazy idea I had to change careers late in the game might just work out, although this does have me reconsidering my initial plan of going instructor and then slowly getting my multi-IFR rating as I teach. Before anybody jumps on me about building time as an instructor I want to preface that I mentored junior troops in the military and I really enjoyed teaching, I liked being up in front of the class and I enjoyed teaching one on one during procedures and such.

I'm just not sure if I want to do it for the rest of my career is all, are there any lifer instructors on here that can comment? I know most tend to just get to the majical 1500 and leave, I was looking at more like 3 - 5 years and then considering other options.

[Nark]

I wouldn’t piss on the instructor route to build time.

If your end state is an airline or corporate, ask me how many times learning how to brush snow off a wing in -40 has helped in the jet I fly now?

There are dozens of paths to “get there.”


Not going to lie… it’s nice being a narrow body captain at a major down here. All the cohorts I worked the ramp with in YTH and YSF circa 2001, are in a different tax bracket.

[TwinOtterFan]

End state was eventualy going to be medevac, but I have started to look into corporate or maybe even a regional one day, I think the RCMP would be pretty sweet to fly for, not sure I want to do another boot camp again though haha.

[Slick Goodlin]

I wouldn’t piss on the instructor route to build time.

I think instructing probably remains the way to get some of the PIC ATPL requirements quickly. I guess owning a plane would be more efficient but also much more expensive.

[Colonel]

Instead of instructing people used to work the ramp in some hellhole for years hoping to get right seat when it was their turn. I always thought that was legalized slave labor but whatever floats your boat.

Get hours. Get your ATP. Don’t do drugs.

[Slick Goodlin]

Now that the long rumoured and much delayed pilot shortage is officially here, now what?

I think the wage jumps that Canadian pilots want will be too little too late and the companies know it. WestJet management appears to prefer to scuttle the place rather than treat employees better, which is an odd data point but here we are.

How is this industry going to adapt, single pilot airlines?

I may be the only one but I just don’t see single pilot airliners being a thing. A single mistake can take one down, or it’s just easier for the one driver to pull a repeat of German Wings or Malaysia. Some will say that the solution is to have a remote pilot managing several airliners from the ground somewhere with the ability to override control but if that’s the case why even bother putting a pilot on board? Better to put extra cushy passenger seats up front and sell the best view in the house for an enormous premium.

Now, Airbus has been playing with an A350 that has external cameras and a good bit more automation than they normally do. I don’t believe that this will eliminate the requirement for pilots but I bet it will knock down training requirements a bunch. Maybe just fewer sims, maybe the folks in the flight deck will just be technicians with a couple weeks of procedures training.

The cynic in me says that in Canada we’ll see nothing done at the airline level. Flying jets for a living will become progressively less attractive, airlines will be shut down, amalgamated, whatever. CEOs will take their golden parachutes and go count beans in some other industry. The public will still want to travel so we’ll see cabotage laws dropped and airlines from south of the border will come in to pick up the work.

Jeez though, I’d rather get a big raise as a part of someone trying to fix this.

[Nark]

You make a great point about cabotage rules, or the like of AC and Westjet leaning on their codeshares down here.
UA/DL using the their RJ’s to fly from YEG-MSP-YYZ, AC only selling 1 direct a day, and sourcing the 3x daily departures to the RJ’s of down here for penny’s to the dollar of what it’ll cost AC.

Extreme example sure, but I see that happening well before I see single pilot airlines, or even no-pilot.
I’ve seen a lot of the data from our training and safety departments . There are wayyyyy too many pilots doing silly things, and way to many near misses (not near crashes, but links in the accident chain)


Further, being able to take a peak behind the UAS curtain in the military, I’m confident no commander is ready to assume the risk to allow troop transport on autonomous aircraft anytime soon. (Sorry about that run-on sentence, I r just a pylut)