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A comment on Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit. Parent comment

Re:Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit by bsder on Sunday December 11, 2022 @12:39AM (#33940433)
> There simply isn’t enough pilots anywhere in the pipeline.

Really? Can you back that up with some reference somewhere?

From talking to aspiring airline pilots, it seems that their career trajectory is terrible until they actually land their butt in the seat of a major airline plane.

How can we have such a shortage of pilots and at the same time have such lousy pay and working conditions for the infeed?

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Re:Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit by akiselev on Sunday December 11, 2022 @01:06AM (#33940561)
See the FAA's US Civil Airmen Statistics spreadsheet for the overall big picture [1]. Specifically, the "Pilot Total w/o Student Category" fell from 490k in 2012 to 470k in 2021, despite the number of instructors growing from 98k to 121k. The number of students has skyrocketed from 120k in 2012 to 250k in 2021 but it's just not translating to commercially viable pilots: we added 30k students last year but lost several hundred airline pilots and only gained 600 commercial pilots. The number of PPLs fell from 188k in 2012 to 161k in 2021.

[1] https://www.faa.gov/data_research/aviation_data_statistics/c...

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Re:Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit by mym1990 on Sunday December 11, 2022 @03:53AM (#33941455)
Not sure if sarcasm, but are you asking how there is a shortage in airline pilots when the incentives to start looking at a career in the field are terrible?
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Re:Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit by smallerfish on Sunday December 11, 2022 @08:52AM (#33943159)
No, they're wondering why the market isn't responding to the shortage by increasing compensation, if the shortage is genuine.
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Re:Airlines lobbying FAA to have only one pilot in the cockpit by bsder on Sunday December 11, 2022 @03:04PM (#33946901)
Precisely. The working conditions for the infeed are terrible for pilots as well as flight attendants.

A friend went through flight attendent training recently. She did very well but eventually dropped out when the total compensation was small and didn't include things like the rent you pay to "hot bunk" at wherever you wind up stationed. Compensation also didn't include things like paying for your attorney if you are sued while working for the airline.

So many "shortages" are like the "shortage" of engineers. No, there are plenty of engineers--just none willing to put up with your bullshit at that price.

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