More immediately, this year it announced it would increase its signing bonus for new pilots to $12,000 - $6,000 for the first year and $6,000 after completing a second year of employment.The 900-employee airline has 200 pilots. In March, Silver signed a preferential hiring partnership with Broward College to try to recruit more pilots trained there. To secure more pilots, airlines have tried bonuses and aligning with schools. It calls on Congress to adopt “strong, pro-airline” policies, saying consistently profitable and stable airlines will be able to offer better benefits and pay. The problem, the ALPA says, is that pay is too low for professionals who have invested $150,000 or more to become pilots. The Air Line Pilots Association says hundreds of pilots sit idle on work furloughs, while others work abroad, where pay and benefits are superior. Indeed, the pilots’ main union says there is no shortage.
The GAO, however, finds mixed evidence of a pilot shortage. “It’s pretty tough to live on $25,000 a year in the United States of America, and you’ve got to pay back your student loans,” observes Bob Rockmaker, president and CEO of Flight School Association of North America in Allentown, Pa. There are some exemptions, but the new requirements, the high cost of an education and the low pay for first officers at regional airlines have led to a drop in students pursuing studies, the GAO reported in February. The new law mandates 1,500 hours, which for pilots can mean two years of low-wage teaching, banner towing or hauling skydivers. Y., killing 50, led Congress to significantly raise the number of hours a pilot needs to be approved by the FAA to fly commercial airliners.īefore the law, which took effect this year, a first officer needed only 250 hours of flight time. The 2009 crash of a regional carrier near Buffalo,N. General Accounting Office interviewed for a February study reported difficulty filling first-officer slots.ĭemand for pilots is growing as the federal government has made it more difficult and expensive to attain commercial airline pilot status. Regionals operate half of domestic flights and carry about 22% of all airline passengers nationally, but they’ve had trouble filling the right seat in the cockpit. In Florida, Silver Airways, based in Fort Lauderdale, now has more than 560 flights a week in Florida, says spokeswoman Misty Pinson. Many new pilots at the regionals have to move back in with their parents and moonlight to make ends meet.Īs major carriers farm out routes, the regionals, which typically fly planes with from 30 to 90 seats, have become the fastest- growing part of the industry. Those earning lower wages tend to be entry-level pilots like Rice working further down the industry food chain at regional airlines. Most of the nation’s 70,000 commercial airline pilots are well paid - fewer than 10% of scheduled air carrier pilots make less than $65,420 a year, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Four years and a few months into his career, the 26-year-old’s pay hasn’t “cracked above $40,000.” But federal regulations limit flight hours to 1,000, for a maximum salary of $25,000.During his first year, Rice drew a salary of only $19,200. His first year as a first officer, he made $25 an hour, a tidy hourly wage. “The biggest drawback” of the job, for him and his peers, he says, is the pay. He feels fortunate his schedule means he doesn’t have to rent a place in Miami. From there, he works flying 50-seat airplanes to other cities, where he is put up in hotels, and then flies back to Miami to catch a space-available ride back to the Washington area. In a typical week, he catches a space-available basis ride from northern Virginia, where his family is from, to Miami. “It was a solid education and solid preparation,” Rice says. Rice, who didn’t want to identify his employer because he said he was speaking about the industry in general, lived in Florida during the five years it took him to earn his degrees and accumulate flight hours. “It’s everything I looked forward to as a flight instructor or student,” Rice says of his job.
His peers, as he did, spent between $120,000 and $200,000 to get the education and experience to be pilots.īut thanks to academic scholarships, family support and working as a flight instructor, he graduated debt-free from the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne with bachelor’s and master’s degrees and fulfilled his lifelong ambition of becoming a commercial airline pilot. Jordan Rice, a young Miami-based pilot for a regional airline, sees himself as more fortunate than most.
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