The shortage of pilots is a hot issue. During the pandemic airlines pushed late-career pilots to retire early, and they weren’t hiring pilots. It’s time-consuming to train pilots, and it’s expensive. And they’re also forced to retire at age 65 regardless of health.
Up until 2013 pilots were required to hold a commercial license which required 250 hours of flying (in addition to being type-rated for the specific aircraft they’re flying). The hours requirement was increased in safety legislation which followed the 2009 Colgan Air crash, even though hours of pilot training had nothing whatsoever to do with that crash.
When something bad happens, people take unrelated pet ideas off the shelf and push them – after TWA Flight 800 exploded we got ID requirements to fly because the President wanted something to announce, to show he was doing something. After 9/11, then-Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) famously said of the opportunity “It’s an open grab bag, so let’s grab.”
We got a 1500 hour rule for commercial pilots even though both pilots of the Colgan Air flight had over 1500 hours and the Captain had 3379 hours.
There are exceptions to the rule,
- Military pilots can have 750 hours
- Those with a B.A. in aviation can fly with 1000 hours
- Those with an Associates degree in aviation can fly with 1250 hours
Except the hours of flight time, on top of the commercial license, don’t have specific objectives or proficiency requirements. It’s just time. There could be better training and testing with more structured flying that’s easier and less expensive to accomplish, but we do not have that because,
- It sounds like the hours are important for safety and no one wants to oppose safety
- The Air Line Pilots Association (pilots union) wanted to make it tough to become a pilot, which increases their bargaining power (keeps pilots scarce and difficult to replace)
There’s little work showing that 1500 hours (again, the Colgan pilots met this) reduces accidents. And other safety agencies around the world haven’t copied the standard and pilots with less experience for foreign airlines fly to the U.S. and operate at U.S. airports.
We want pilots who know what they’re doing, but the 1500 hour rule itself doesn’t weed out those who don’t. European regulators and Canadian regulators don’t see a need for 1500 flight hours on top of licensing and type-rating. We want to focus on measures that actually improve safety, and so pilot flight hour requirements can probably be greatly improved. Instead we’ve got rules that primarily make it tough to become a pilot, increasing the bargaining strength of those already in the profession.
Absolutely not. There’s a reason commercial aviation in the US is the safest in the world and the proof is in the pudding. We had a less than stellar safety record until these regulations were enacted and its has seen an incredible improvement as a direct result. These laws are written in blood and will not be diluted. There are plenty of well qualified pilots in the US and the real solution to their artificial shortage is to pay a desirable entry-level pilot salary and to create programs to assist with people earning their certificates and the necessary experience. United and a few others are already doing this or have plans to.
It’s a common misconception, but they really didn’t force a “1500 hour rule”. What Congress did was legislate that BOTH pilots in the cockpit be qualified to operate the aircraft as an Airline Pilot.
Prior to the change, only the Captain was required to be Type Rated in the aircraft and hold an Airline Transport Pilot License. The FAA defines the requirements to be an ATP, which are very much in line with the rest of the world.
I work for a company that bemoans the fact they can’t find good talent and often lose the talent they have.
When recommendation were made to increase benefits and compensation, it was stated quickly by executives that compensation and benefits weren’t an issue.
The President and CEOs though get fat increases every year
There is very little in common between hours built towing banners or crop dusting, and the multi-crew environment of a modern airliner. You might as well have added a requirement of being able to count backwards from 20 while hopping on one leg.
I have interviewed and hired dozens if not hundreds of pilots for airline jobs, and quite honestly the CPL products of the US system need to be seriously retrained before releasing them into line airline flying, while EASA products with MPLs are the other end of the spectrum and pretty much ready to go on day one. You can’t really compare low hour pilots in the US with those produced by systems abroad as the curriculum and training objectives are extremely different. The US pilots do need more hours (maybe not 1500hrs but definitely more than a basic 250hrs) to achieve the same levels as their counterparts trained abroad when it comes to airline readiness.
Definitely keep the 1500 rule. I always feel safer knowing the pilot has at least that much time under his/her belt.
@PHLPHLYER please show us a listing of commercial crashes that happened in the US because the crew had less than 1500 hours and then show us a list of crashes where the crew had over 1500. Just want to see how you tied in the improvements to a less than stellar record to an increase in hours. Yes, better pay will retain pilots but those pilots have way more than 1500 hours.
Mets Fan in NC: sadly, isn’t that always the way…..
By the time the work comes out it will have been too late. This is not something we should be putting to the test and waiting for a result. At the slightest whiff of something that vaguely resembles a safety issue, like two plane wings clipping each other, the authorities who signed off on relaxing the 1500 hour rule face evisceration.
Nice. A causal statement bereft of evidence from somebody who has never heard of the word “counterfactual” or the phrase “potential outcome.” Probably not even “correlation is not causation.”
Wow. Not only is this not an argument, it is incredibly self centered.
To help relieve the shortage of pilots the mandatory retirement age needs to be nudged up one more time to 67 with the following provisions..
1. Pilots who turn 65 would have the option to fly 24 more months till their 67th birthday or retire at age 65.
2. From age 65 to 67 the pilot can only serve in the right seat as she/he would be charged with mentoring the newer (i.e younger) Captains.
3. The right seat mentors would be given super seniority for monthly days off and They would then be paired with the newer Captains schedule on available days.
4. Their Right seat salary would be their Captains salary from their last year in the left seat plus an override for the mentoring role.
5. This mentoring role is different from an IOE instructor as the mentoring Captain would only be paired with new Captains who have completed IOE.
6. The mentoring Captain would have the option of being paid out for her/his vacation in her/his last 2 years (the 24 months following their 65 birthday)
7. The 1000 hour calendar flight time FAR limit would be raised to 1,250 hours a year
8. Required twice a year FAA physicals would still be in effect.
Spence
There were fatigue issues related to commuting in the Colgan crash that had nothing to do with experience
Mandating minimum 1500 hours rather than focusing on *Quality* of training is like kids going to school for 12 years but then graduating while still not being able to do their 3 R’s properly. Increased times in a flight simulator to “experience” and “learn” how to properly handle various emergency situations will help the credentials of a pilot (and safety for passengers) a lot more than merely flying 1000s of hours on uneventful “level” flights with the autopilot engaged!
A lot of incorrect information in this post.
No one was ever hired in the last 50-years at any of the major carriers without a 1,500 hour ATP. You’d very hard pressed to find anyone at a regional carrier who was not an ATP.
The legislation mandating an ATP was meaningless and changed nothing.
Captains were ALWAYS required to be ATPs. This only affected first officers, but they were ATPs anyway.
You want fewer requirements? You’ll end-up with button pushers instead of pilots like they hire at the LCCs in Asia. No thanks.
You want more pilots? Raise the awful starting wages at the regionals to make it a worthwhile profession.
@1KBrad-
you are absolutely wrong. Before the rule changed, the regionals were hiring THOUSANDS of pilots (to be first officers) with 250 hours and a brand new commercial certificate.
Now back in the 1980’s, to be competitive (at the regionals) you did indeed need 1500+ hours, but only a Commercial certificate was required by the FAA and the regionals to be legally qualified.
@Jeff: Citation to support your first assertion?
I don’t expect you to be able to provide one because it doesn’t exist as to the U.S.
@1k Brad –
I’m an airline pilot for a major airline, and I personally know DOZENS of pilots that were hired at the regionals in the last 20 years or so (prior to the rule change) with a “wet” commercial certificate and 250 hours, give or take
The 1500 hr requirement is a symptom, not the root cause of the pilot shortage. The first root cause for the lack of candidates is that airlines in the US have relied on the US military as their primary source of pilots, and using the civilian trained candidates to top off the candidate pool. The military has cut way back on the number of pilots that they train, and have been much more aggressive in keeping the few pilots that they have (i.e. bonuses of $80k and higher to stay in) and that is choking off the primary supply line.
The second root cause is that the cost for a civilian to train up to ATP versus the income they can earn on the way to 1500hrs + ATP is out of balance, easily over $100k in outlay to get there.
The solution is what the airlines are just starting to do; train up their own pilots from 0 hrs to ATP and keep them employed in the process. Its a long lead and the only interim solution would be the extend the flying career limit from 65 to 67 to help smooth over the transition.
@1K BRAD-
here is a source – look at table 11. I will accept your apology now.
https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1002&context=db-applied-aviation
@1KBrad,
I will back up what Jeff stated, during the early 2000s in the US most regional new hires (myself included) had less than 500 hrs. Most of us received our ATP when we upgraded to Captain. This dynamic is what enabled the regionals to pay such horrific wages because a new pilot could be sitting in a new hire class in <6 months, the pipeline was short and there was always a replacement. Upon the ATP requirement for both crew members the pipeline lengthened out and the wages started to increase and in contrast to what you paint are actually half way respectable. This was the unstated goal of congress in passing the legislation, they couldn’t/ wouldn’t want to mandate a minimum wage for new hire FOs industry wide but they could drive up the wages through through the backdoor. But you are right when it comes to major airline newhires, indeed none (besides ex fighter guys) have had fewer than ATP mins for decades.
@Jeff: So no authority for your opinion. Got it.
@Tyrone G: They already had that opportunity when they raised the retirement age from 60 to 65.
@Jeff — “I’m an airline pilot for a major airline, …”
Just curious — how many of the 1500 hours, in your view, might be meaningfully offset with flight simulator times that actually prepare pilots to deal with real emergency situations, rather than flying nominally just to accumulate “hours in the air”?
Yes the regionals in fact did hire many pilots with less then 1500 hrs prior to the rule. Now the path to 1500 hrs is easily reached by a pilot spending some time as a flight instructor prior to moving into the right seat. Flight instructing always has and always will be an excellent way to build not just hours, but truly useful experience that translates well into being an airline pilot.
Requiring those pilots to instruct for a year or two not only sharpens what they learned when they got their ratings, it gives something back to the profession by helping others become pilots.
Yet for some reason all those 250-hour pilots in the 80s, 90s, 00s and 10s became flight instructors to build up their hours so they could get hired by regionals.
I guess they didn’t receive the memo that they could have just gone to work for regionals in the U.S. at 250-hours.
IT DIDN’T HAPPEN.
Did it happen with on-demand propeller aircraft outfits? Sure.
Did it happen with 121 carriers? No!
The bottom line is it’s all about experience. The rule as it stands is pretty arbitrary but addresses the problem somewhat of a low time, in over his head new hire FO ending up in the right seat with a new Captain flying into New York during a snowstorm. When you fly with a new hire FO you want that FO to not be a liability when things go south. Many ways to insure that either through good training or good, varied experience before he/she is hired. Either a very intensive training program or at least 1500 hours of good experience will work.
1KBrad,
It DID happen at the US regionals between 2003-2008. It DID NOT happen any other time period you mention. I was hired on the E145 at a US regional in 2005 with less than 500 hrs and without a CFI, and that was common. It was a unique time in the industry with the explosion of RJs.
Your mistaken Brad, I too flew with FO’s that built their hours at regionals before being hired by my Major airline. They were hired into the right seat of planes like the Dash 8 with less then 1500 hrs.
@Dan77W and @JohnW:
OK, Ok. I’ll admit the 2003-2008 time frame was a little after my time in the industry.
$12 an hour for an inexperienced pilot? Amazing there were not a lot more accidents.
Cheers.
1KBrad,
Thankfully since I was hired into the jungle jet I slid right into $21/hr! It was criminal. And yes it was not fair to those Captains we sat with until we got up to speed, and amazing there were not more “issues” throughout the industry.
@StrictlyFacts-
The European model has worked well for many many years (ab initio).
Pilots are trained from the beginning for the airline environment, and are hires as first officers with 250 hours (give or take) on Airbus or 737 aircraft, with excellent results.
So to answer your question, the majority of the 1500 hours would not seem to be as beneficial as job specific training.
@Jeff: I am a Liveryman in the Honourable Company of Air Pilots. I have had that discussion often with English/Euro members of the Company.
With 250-hours, it is my position you are training button-pushers–not pilots.
The Air France flight over the Atlantic comes to mind.
I’m not saying 1,500 hours is required, but it should be a LOT more than 250.
I would agree with 1KBrad on that one. Like I’ve mentioned at 450ish hours when I got hired it was a steep learning curve and other than button pushing and running checklists I probably wouldn’t b able to contribute if we were faced with an emergency or something funky my first year on the line. Fast forward a few years later then flying from the left seat I had doubts about some of the low time guys and gals in the right seat if crap ever hit the fan (although a few were on their game and were awesome). Fast forward even further flying wide-bodies at a major Middle East carrier and watching their 200 hr local cadets from the jumpseat it was equally terrifying sometimes, they knew books, procedures, aerodynamic theory down better than I but they lacked practical experience, when to deviate from the book in the interest and to enhance safety, when to throw it out the window because it didn’t address the situation adequately or when to follow it religiously….that takes awhile on the line and seeing some interesting situations, failures, MELs, weather phenomenon. 1500 is an arbitrary number for sure, but the scarcity it caused artificially lifted pilots at the lower end of the 121 world to a living wage. This current shortage was caused more by the airlines themselves that worked hard (multiple prearranged Ch1q bankruptcies gutting contracts/pensions, B scales, outsourcing to regionals/scope, Ch 7s) for many decades making the profession unattractive to prospective newbies. Banks or Mom and Dad not willing to shell out tons of money for training when the ultimate goal of working at a major airline and getting the paycheck that came with it was not a forgone conclusion. They are in the position more of their own making. As Brad said for most of the last 50 yrs you needed at least 1500 hours to be realistically competitive for even a turboprop job, so why not set that at a minimum to fly an airliner? There are always the exemptions provided to the total time requirement for verified programs/military.
Don’t airlines pretty much fly themselves these days? We have US drones dropping precision guided bombs on middle eastern farmers just for shits and giggles being flown remotely by a kid on some military base a thousand miles away. Pretty sure we can figure out how to fly planes remotely and just have one reserve pilot on board sleeping unless shit hits the fan.
@Dan77W: You and I are on the same page.
@Jerry: If a drone malfunctions or loses radio contact, it crashes and no one cares because there was no one on board. It’s just money. Two pilots aren’t going anywhere anytime soon (no matter how much the bean counters in the ivory towers want them gone).
Maybe we should revisit the airlines running shell company regional airlines that pay pilots poverty level wages to work 80 hour weeks for years to start their careers. Maybe then there would some interest in becoming a pilot again.
They’ll just hire unqualified women and minorities.
More atlas air style accidents probably.
@1KBrad,
You have such certainty even though your expertise appears to be AFT of the flight deck door.
I don’t need tables, or citations, to know what you have said is patently false, because I was personally hired at a major with FAR less than 1,500 hours at a time when at least 1 of them only required the 350 hrs it takes to get all of your ratings!
In fact, I took my ATP Checkride in a 757, because that was the airplane to which I was upgrading, and it required a type rating, back when you need an ATP for a type rating on your Pilot Certificate (which is no longer the case).
So, I’m living proof you are wrong, and that QUALITY of experience can be a significantly greater predictor of safe performance than QUANTITY of experience, especially when the “experience” metric is merely time.
A few tidbits:
*It’s common for 2-pilot military planes (C5/C17/135’s etc) to have BOTH pilots with sub-1K flying hrs. Flights often involve very challenging circumstances like NVGs and operating into austere/blacked out airfields.
*I had a NetJets bud tell me the other day they have a handful of pilots pushing 80 yrs old.
Cost is the issue. Flat out.
The issue with hiring pilots is the lack of education on the career in high schools and colleges. The lack of transferability of courses to other professions, and by extension the lack of guarantee of employment and pay after completion.
I don’t even know, but can you get FAFSA education loans/grants like traditional colleges but for pilots?
@Jerry — “Pretty sure we can figure out how to fly planes remotely and just have one reserve pilot on board sleeping unless shit hits the fan.”
What an ideal set up for some nefarious actors to electronically hijack airliners for ransom or for terrorist actions! What happens when the remotely controlled flight system gets hacked and then “suddenly” becomes non-responsive to over-rides from that reserve pilot onboard? What next?
With respect to the movement to downgrade to single-pilot cockpits, that is absolutely *Not* wise in the least, as my primary care doctor, who has lots of airline pilots as patients, told me recently that there have been so many pilots from *All* major airlines who have suddenly died while flying enroute, that this entire situation with coercing airline pilots to get their jabs or lose their jobs, has totally blown up in the faces of those airline companies … but they are trying their utmost to desperately *Hide* this fact from the public for obvious reasons! So unless the risk of having an airliner fly without a live pilot onboard is a prospect that the public truly desires, then the whole idea of a single-pilot cockpit will *Not* happen any time soon … or it had better *Not* happen any time soon!
Strictly Facts: Wait! You say LOTS of pilots dying flying enroute! How many is LOTS? Why hasn’t Gary covered this? Why hasn’t the media covered this?
Lots of pilots dying while flying planes!!??
Please explain this coverup!
@JorgeGeorge Paez — “Please explain this coverup!”
As I had already explained in my post, the airlines absolutely do *Not* want such information made public, for *Obvious* reasons. “Lots” means that these tragic events have occurred multiple times across major airlines. I think that it will be really difficult to get any statistics from those airlines when they’re more concerned about burying such events from the public in order to forego general panic over commercial flying. The good news is that second pilots in the cockpits have been able to successfully avert fatal disasters. What I relayed were, as I understand, originally conveyed by currently active pilots across multiple airlines.
I actually do *Not* support making this issue a front page headline since that will totally tank the airlines; but, within this restricted aviation forum, I trust that this information will remain responsibly managed by all readers, and *Not* wantonly spread everywhere for the sake of sensationalism! Let’s all be adults about this “sensitive” information!
Strictly Facts: Thank you for your prompt reply. Makes sense.
As long as the planes stay airborne!
I’m old, don’t do social media.
This issue is closed for me.
Thanks!
Just for the record, “strictly facts” is anything but….
@JohnW — “Just for the record, “strictly facts” is anything but….”
Just another nebulous personal attack — why not be brave enough to put forth exactly *What* you’re objecting to, so that it can be properly addressed? Just making a random claim does *Not* mean that it is, therefore, true!
@Widebody Captain: I don’t think you read all of my posts.
WHEN were you hired with 350-hours?
My experience is aft of the flight deck door? True as to commercial aircraft, but not true generally.
I have an ATP, about 2,000 hours, and a CE-525S type rating.
I practice aviation law and have probably been involved in litigation with your employer at one point or another.
Lol… Ok “strictly facts” ….., pilots rarely die at the controls, but when it happens it’s very newsworthy. You read about it the news. With so many witnesses and the emergency that is declared it’s not possible for the airlines to “cover it up”.
ALPA (the pilots union) has those statistics readily available
If you knew anything about flight crews you would know that they have a Coconut Telegraph that spreads news like wildfire also making it impossible to keep what you are saying a secret..
…..and no it’s not Jewish space lasers or the vaccines doing it either…….Conspiracy theories seem to becoming a national illness for people in this country that have a void that needs to be filled.
You’ll likely want to engage in some kind of weird debate, sorry I can’t help you there.
@1KBrad.
I generally agree with your comments. Having been an expat Captain at three foreign airlines, the “button pusher” comment is true. Many of the FO’s (many not experienced enough in stick and rudder skills to call copilots) I flew with had fast fingers and knew the autopilot and systems adequately. Autopilot OFF, it got real ugly real fast, “Children of the Magenta Line.”
As far as being hired with less than 1500 hours or ALTP, before Human Resources got into replacing the Chief Pilots office, it was a judgement call by an experienced aviator and not a person with perhaps a BS in psychology that was proficient at filling squares and multiple choice.
The current US rule is good and benefits passengers, companies and the pilot in the left seat.
BTW, I was forced to “retire” by AGE 60 Rule and became an expat Captain for two non-US International carriers during the next five years. I was operating back into a country that would not let me exercise my US ATP at a Part 121 carrier. Do away with the FAA/ICAO age 65 rule and make it based on health and competency.
The “Children of the Magenta Line” observation is a good one. With Airlines like United starting their own flight schools they would be wise to put a special emphasis on stick and rudder skills.
My take is a tailwheel endorsement and 10 hrs of basic aerobatics would be a good start. Throwing in a glider rating wouldn’t hurt either.
The more varied your flying background is the more experience you have to draw from.
Stick and rudder skills are still important. As pilot hiring becomes more controlled by bean counters and less the Chief Pilots office this important fact could get easily overlooked.
@One Trippe: “Do away with the FAA/ICAO age 65 rule and make it based on health and competency.”
I agree in concept, and I expect we will move in that direction.
The biggest issue I see is defining those standards.
@JohnW: “My take is a tailwheel endorsement and 10 hrs of basic aerobatics would be a good start. Throwing in a glider rating wouldn’t hurt either.”
Agree fully.
@JohnW — OK … now we have something concrete to go over —
“Lol… Ok “strictly facts” ….., pilots rarely die at the controls, but when it happens it’s very newsworthy. You read about it the news. With so many witnesses and the emergency that is declared it’s not possible for the airlines to “cover it up”.
I actually agree with you that these types of events with death-in-cockpits while enroute *Are*, normally, rare and *Should* have created lots of sensation, but these are *Not* normal times, and, with the amounts of *Proven* “cover ups” going on, with respect to the consequences of getting jabbed, should we still trust, at face value, what the airline companies say (typically by immediately “debunking” rumors about such events, for obvious reasons) or what the government (eg, FAA) reports to the public?
With respect to the witnessing of such events, I was told that the plane will land as “normally” as possible (even avoiding a diversion, if feasible), and all passengers allowed to fully deplane before any medical personnel are brought onboard from the ramp to deal with the dead pilot’s body, so as to *Not* make the tragic event totally obvious to passengers. I understand that it should be required for the remaining pilot in the cockpit to declare an “emergency” to ATC but I don’t know if anyone has tried to recover those recordings to confirm or debunk claims about such events.
——————————————————-
“ALPA (the pilots union) has those statistics readily available”
Yes … yet the Oct/Nov 2021 ALPA publication has shockingly revealed that during 2019 one (1) pilot passed away, during 2020 six (6) pilots passed away, and during just the first nine months of 2021 one hundred eleven (111) pilots passed away. The information released doesn’t break down where those deaths occurred, so we won’t draw any unfounded conclusions about how many occurred while enroute during flights, but this revelation definitely shows that the #deaths among pilots during 2021 can *Not* be within “normal” amounts, right? Similar excessive deaths among pilots have also been reported from overseas sources (eg, UK, India).
——————————————————-
“If you knew anything about flight crews you would know that they have a Coconut Telegraph that spreads news like wildfire also making it impossible to keep what you are saying a secret..”
The CDC has finally confessed that it intentionally withheld safety- and efficacy-related information on their so-called “vaccines” in order to crush potential “vaccine hesitancy” among our public. I’ve heard rumors that DoT is requiring information about such tragedies in the cockpit to now be “classified” in order to *Not* allow the public to know. It is easy to suppress such information from getting out because the mainstream media has already been complicit with the government to censor such information, anyway. So it appears as if we will need to rely on that Coconut Telegraph network to convey such events, albeit without the support of mainstream media to get the news out.
——————————————————-
“…..and no it’s not Jewish space lasers or the vaccines doing it either…….Conspiracy theories seem to becoming a national illness for people in this country that have a void that needs to be filled.
You’ll likely want to engage in some kind of weird debate, sorry I can’t help you there.”
I don’t have any voids to fill and I’m actually *Not* interested to debate you on this issue, since I do fly a bit and *Hope* that this issue is *Not* as rampant as some would make it appear; however, what I’ve conveyed was told to me by my doctor based on what his patients who are currently active pilots at major airlines have directly told him, so it is what it is, at this point.
@1KBrad. Regarding defining those standards, no need. I also hold an Australian CASA ALTP and they already have a system in place for flying while healthy and proficient with no arbitrary age discrimination in Part 121 type operations. Qantas is not a part of that program, that I am aware of.
@Strickly Facts. I still get the ALPA magazine. I suspect what you are referring to as pilots dying is basically an Obituary page in the magazine. Often they get notified of a retired ALPA pilot that passed away in a previous year, thus the 1 vs. 111. But, I still didn’t do and most likely will NOT do the Jab! EUA has taken the place of extended clinical trials. Too bad the CDC/FDA aren’t as concerned about safety as the FAA.