A read for all negotiating pilots - Even the Meter Reader job, which requires no education makes $70k a year!

[CanadaAir]

This is impacting everyone in aviation and should be discussed on the main forum.

The cost cutting, over reliance on junior new hires and the refusal to invest in retaining experienced qualified maintenance staff and pilots is critically reducing safety, as mentioned in posts above.

The industry was not built to handle this much turnover of experienced pilots and maintenance staff.

As professionals, pilots cannot allow the industry to degrade to a series of preventable accidents.

A single major accident of a Canadian 704 or 705 would harm the whole industry.

No one wants to fly on an airline that has a recent accident. An accident is a guarantee to put the company & its pilots out of work.

If Encore or Pacific Coastal crash, it would harm WestJet
In a Jazz crash, it would harm Air Canada.

There would be implications to other airlines, across the industry down to the flight schools.

If pilots can do one thing, its to recognize situations when the company sets you up for failure and not fly under those conditions.

[digits_]

Is your under paid salary worth any risks at this point?

That's an interesting statement. I really hope now that the next time I am an airline passenger, the crew will be underpaid. After all, it seems much safer as they won't be taking any risks!

[photofly]

I don't see why paying more gets you more experienced crew, in the long run. It may work short-term, but the experienced crew that is arriving at your airline is leaving another airline, lowering their experience level. You have just moved experience from one airline to another, not created it.

Eventually every airline has put up their pay "to get more experienced crew" but the cadre of pilots hasn't changed, and it contains the same level of experience as before, so on average every airline has pilots with exactly the same amount of experience as before.

Money doesn't create experience.

The only way to for all airlines to get more experienced crew is to expand the amount of experience that there is in the pilot population. SInce every pilot begins with zero experience and their experience grows with each hour they fly, In the long run, the only way for there to be more experienced pilots is for pilots to fly more hours per year than they do now (so they build experience faster) or to work for more years before retiring so they keep their high experience levels in the pool of available pilots for longer.

[digits_]

I don't see why paying more gets you more experienced crew, in the long run. It may work short-term, but the experienced crew that is arriving at your airline is leaving another airline, lowering their experience level. You have just moved experience from one airline to another, not created it.

Eventually every airline has put up their pay "to get more experienced crew" but the cadre of pilots hasn't changed, and it contains the same level of experience as before, so on average every airline has pilots with exactly the same amount of experience as before.

Money doesn't create experience.

The only way to for all airlines to get more experienced crew is to expand the amount of experience that there is in the pilot population. SInce every pilot begins with zero experience and their experience grows with each hour they fly, In the long run, the only way for there to be more experienced pilots is for pilots to fly more hours per year than they do now (so they build experience faster) or to work for more years before retiring so they keep their high experience levels in the pool of available pilots for longer.

You are forgetting about the experienced pilots leaving the profession or moving abroad. Not sure if that group is significant, but it would sure do wonders to get them back.

There's also the experience on type that might be of interest. If a 737 and 320 pilot swap seats, both are experienced but both are new to type, negatively impacting the experience in the cockpit of both airlines.

[photofly]

You are forgetting about the experienced pilots leaving the profession or moving abroad. Not sure if that group is significant, but it would sure do wonders to get them back.

In the long run, neither of those things is affected by pay. Foreign airlines want experienced crew too. If Canadian airlines increase pay relative to foreign airlines to move experience back to Canada, foreign airlines increase their pay relative to Canadian airlines to prevent that from happening.

If other careers fail to attract experienced pilots from Canadian airlines because Canadian airlines pay increases, then other careers' pay will increase to re-attract the pilots who have decided to stay as pilots.

Pilot experience is a resource that grows only when pilots fly more. You can't manufacture more of it with money. Increasing pilot pay may help with eperienced pilot retention but it also attracts more zero-hour entrants, who dilute the experience pool.

If you really want more experienced pilots at the controls of Canadian airplanes, let pilots fly until they're 70 or 75 and clamp down hard on the number of zero-hour entrants. In fact, if you make it a punishable offence for a pilot to leave the profession or to retire before they're 75, that should solve the experience problem.

[Ash Ketchum]

You are forgetting about the experienced pilots leaving the profession or moving abroad. Not sure if that group is significant, but it would sure do wonders to get them back.

In the long run, neither of those things is affected by pay. Foreign airlines want experienced crew too. If Canadian airlines increase pay relative to foreign airlines to move experience back to Canada, foreign airlines increase their pay relative to Canadian airlines to prevent that from happening.

If other careers fail to attract experienced pilots from Canadian airlines because Canadian airlines pay increases, then other careers' pay will increase to re-attract the pilots who have decided to stay as pilots.

Pilot experience is a resource that grows only when pilots fly more. You can't manufacture more of it with money. Increasing pilot pay may help with eperienced pilot retention but it also attracts more zero-hour entrants, who dilute the experience pool.

If you really want more experienced pilots at the controls of Canadian airplanes, let pilots fly until they're 70 or 75 and clamp down hard on the number of zero-hour entrants. In fact, if you make it a punishable offence for a pilot to leave the profession or to retire before they're 75, that should solve the experience problem.

I don't know I think pay has something to do with it. I am considering quitting my major airline job in Canada and moving to the states as I received a full ride to a top MBA program. If it wasn't for the terrible pay and dues paying for new hire FOs I would stick around for sure.

[cdnavater]

You are forgetting about the experienced pilots leaving the profession or moving abroad. Not sure if that group is significant, but it would sure do wonders to get them back.

In the long run, neither of those things is affected by pay. Foreign airlines want experienced crew too. If Canadian airlines increase pay relative to foreign airlines to move experience back to Canada, foreign airlines increase their pay relative to Canadian airlines to prevent that from happening.

If other careers fail to attract experienced pilots from Canadian airlines because Canadian airlines pay increases, then other careers' pay will increase to re-attract the pilots who have decided to stay as pilots.

Pilot experience is a resource that grows only when pilots fly more. You can't manufacture more of it with money. Increasing pilot pay may help with eperienced pilot retention but it also attracts more zero-hour entrants, who dilute the experience pool.

If you really want more experienced pilots at the controls of Canadian airplanes, let pilots fly until they're 70 or 75 and clamp down hard on the number of zero-hour entrants. In fact, if you make it a punishable offence for a pilot to leave the profession or to retire before they're 75, that should solve the experience problem.

I don't know I think pay has something to do with it. I am considering quitting my major airline job in Canada and moving to the states as I received a full ride to a top MBA program. If it wasn't for the terrible pay and dues paying for new hire FOs I would stick around for sure.

Perfect, when you’re done your MBA, you can do what all MBA’s with aviation background do, CEO of an airline and focus on reducing wages! I said this with tongue in cheek but it is somewhat realistic.
Good luck with your decision

[photofly]

I don't know I think pay has something to do with it. I am considering quitting my major airline job in Canada and moving to the states as I received a full ride to a top MBA program. If it wasn't for the terrible pay and dues paying for new hire FOs I would stick around for sure.

If you do leave, you'll be making Canadian aviation less safe. I hope you can live with that.

[digits_]

You are forgetting about the experienced pilots leaving the profession or moving abroad. Not sure if that group is significant, but it would sure do wonders to get them back.

In the long run, neither of those things is affected by pay. Foreign airlines want experienced crew too. If Canadian airlines increase pay relative to foreign airlines to move experience back to Canada, foreign airlines increase their pay relative to Canadian airlines to prevent that from happening.

If other careers fail to attract experienced pilots from Canadian airlines because Canadian airlines pay increases, then other careers' pay will increase to re-attract the pilots who have decided to stay as pilots.

Pilot experience is a resource that grows only when pilots fly more. You can't manufacture more of it with money. Increasing pilot pay may help with eperienced pilot retention but it also attracts more zero-hour entrants, who dilute the experience pool.

If you really want more experienced pilots at the controls of Canadian airplanes, let pilots fly until they're 70 or 75 and clamp down hard on the number of zero-hour entrants. In fact, if you make it a punishable offence for a pilot to leave the profession or to retire before they're 75, that should solve the experience problem.

Of course that is affected by pay.
When people say they want experienced pilots, they don't care about someone with 10k hours vs 15k hours. They care about 2k hour captains vs 5k hour captains and 200 hour fos vs 2000 hour fos.

Those low hour fo jobs (and up to a point the captain jobs) are very prone to being left for other careers. That means you just lost 2 years of experience building. Which means the airline hires another 200 or 500 hour pilot. They toughen it out for a couple of years until reality sets in, and are once again at risk of leaving to either another airline (with likely 0 time on type), a non airline pilot job (more money perhaps in some 703 ops), another country (which affects Canadian aviation experience levels which is what we are discussing) or another industry.

That another country might outbid Canada is exactly the point. That's what's going on. The logical response would be to increase salary to retain the pilots considering leaving. If the other countries then raise salaries more, then Canada can adjust again. Important to note is that on a global scale, Canada pays sub par. If we raise our salaries to average, and all Canadian expats return home, it will barely make a dent in crew rostering for most international airlines. The net winner of raising salaries to retain experience would be Canada.

[photofly]

That another country might outbid Canada is exactly the point. That's what's going on. The logical response would be to increase salary to retain the pilots considering leaving. If the other countries then raise salaries more, then Canada can adjust again.

Don't you see how you can't win that way? Every country wants more experience. Every country will pay more, and we go nowhere.

There's a limited amount of flight experience in existence. You can spread it around as many different ways as you like, but for each winner there's a loser. Every loser ups their salary, until they're a winner again, and someone else is a loser.

If you want more experienced flight crews, you have to create that experience. You can't buy it.

[digits_]

That another country might outbid Canada is exactly the point. That's what's going on. The logical response would be to increase salary to retain the pilots considering leaving. If the other countries then raise salaries more, then Canada can adjust again.

Don't you see how you can't win that way? Every country wants more experience. Every country will pay more, and we go nowhere.

There's a limited amount of flight experience in existence. You can spread it around as many different ways as you like, but for each winner there's a loser. Every loser ups their salary, until they're a winner again, and someone else is a loser.

If you want more experienced flight crews, you have to create that experience. You can't buy it.

You can't buy experience but you can definitely buy the people who have the experience you want.

By your logic, why don't we all make minimum wage? If another company pays more others just raise their wages anyway and we end up nowhere?

Let's say air Canada raises their starting salary from 60k to 160k. Expats in China making 300k want to move home but couldn't afford to live on 60k. They can however afford 160k. If China raises the salary now to 400k, would the expat stay, or come back to Canada?

160k might not convince a local to move to Canada if they can make 200k or 400k in their home country, but it will entice a variety of pilots, many with experience, to work in Canada instead of abroad.

You seem to be under the impression that experienced pilots only look for dollars. While it is an important factor, once you reach a certain income level, you don't care that much more about the extras. 60k is way below that threshold. 160k might be above it.

[photofly]

You can't buy experience but you can definitely buy the people who have the experience you want.

Right. And you're buying those people from someone else. You win, they lose.

By your logic, why don't we all make minimum wage? If another company pays more others just raise their wages anyway and we end up nowhere?

For the same reason pilots aren't all making $2m a year each. Because mean pay isn't set by experience. Relative pay between pilots is determined by relative experience, but if all salaries increase then every airline will pay more for the same (in-)experienced pilot as before: no net gain in experience for the extra money being offered.

Let's say air Canada raises their starting salary from 60k to 160k. Expats in China making 300k want to move home but couldn't afford to live on 60k. They can however afford 160k. If China raises the salary now to 400k, would the expat stay, or come back to Canada?

160k might not convince a local to move to Canada if they can make 200k or 400k in their home country, but it will entice a variety of pilots, many with experience, to work in Canada instead of abroad.

If China raises the salary to $400k, a whole bunch of other pilots living in Canada who are already making enough but want more, will move to China. Canada won't win.

You seem to be under the impression that experienced pilots only look for dollars.

If pilots weren't looking for dollars, then the piloting profession would be filled by people who are happy with what pilots are paid today, and this thread wouldn't exist. That obviously isn't the case, so the premise is false: pilots are looking for dollars.

The point remains:the premise that all airlines can have more experienced pilots if they all increase pay, is false. The airline industry as a whole cannot buy experience: it has to build it, hour by hour.

[digits_]

You can't buy experience but you can definitely buy the people who have the experience you want.

Right. And you're buying those people from someone else. You win, they lose.

Yes. I'm quite certain people here are concerned about the experience in Canadian aviation. I doubt many people are concerned about the experience levels in China or Qatar.

The point remains:the premise that all airlines can have more experienced pilots if they all increase pay, is false. The airline industry as a whole cannot buy experience: it has to build it, hour by hour.

Possibly. You still have the people leaving the industry that could very easily (and likely) return for higher pay, and you can retain experience. But we've talked about that before.

But if we ignore those leaving the industry, then my claim was never that experience globally would increase, but that Canadian airlines would get more experienced pilots if they paid more.

[Bug_Stomper_01]

I don't see why paying more gets you more experienced crew, in the long run. It may work short-term, but the experienced crew that is arriving at your airline is leaving another airline, lowering their experience level. You have just moved experience from one airline to another, not created it.

Eventually every airline has put up their pay "to get more experienced crew" but the cadre of pilots hasn't changed, and it contains the same level of experience as before, so on average every airline has pilots with exactly the same amount of experience as before.

Money doesn't create experience.

The only way to for all airlines to get more experienced crew is to expand the amount of experience that there is in the pilot population. SInce every pilot begins with zero experience and their experience grows with each hour they fly, In the long run, the only way for there to be more experienced pilots is for pilots to fly more hours per year than they do now (so they build experience faster) or to work for more years before retiring so they keep their high experience levels in the pool of available pilots for longer.

You are forgetting about the experienced pilots leaving the profession or moving abroad. Not sure if that group is significant, but it would sure do wonders to get them back.

There's also the experience on type that might be of interest. If a 737 and 320 pilot swap seats, both are experienced but both are new to type, negatively impacting the experience in the cockpit of both airlines.

The number of experienced staff now gone from Canada or the profession is astounding.

[photofly]

Yes. I'm quite certain people here are concerned about the experience in Canadian aviation. I doubt many people are concerned about the experience levels in China or Qatar.

It doesn’t make any difference what people here care about; there are people in China and Qatar who are concerned with experience levels in those countries, who will put up salaries there, if they need to, to keep experienced pilots from returning back to Canada.

But if we ignore those leaving the industry, then my claim was never that experience globally would increase, but that Canadian airlines would get more experienced pilots if they paid more.

Any my claim is that Canadian airlines won’t, for the reasons given. Changes in Canada’s salary structure will cause changes in salary structures elsewhere that undo the effects you’re looking for. Change in one place causes compensating change in other places. It’s a classic negative feedback mechanism.

If you want to increase the proportion of experienced pilots who work in Canada, you need to increase things that make working in Canada attractive that other countries can’t easily replicate. Money isn’t such a thing.

It’s probably worth adding that most of the things that make Canada attractive to pilots (other than money) are not under the control of airlines but in the hands of government. If pilots’ true priorities were having more experienced crew then they would campaign for work visas to be given freely to experienced foreign pilots. Canada would be flooded with very experienced crews from abroad, and the experience level in Canadian flight decks would go up enormously. Of course that’s not what pilots want because at the same time salaries would go down. Again - there’s no link between salaries and experience.

I’m all for campaigning for higher wages, but pretending it’s about getting more experienced pilots is plainly dishonest.

[khedrei]

I dont know if there will be a definitive answer on the debate you are having. Where will the pilots go if wages are raised and how much is enough to live in Canada? Who really knows?

One thing is for sure, if there are not enough pilots, it doesn't matter how high wages are.

I look at my situation. I have a decent amount of experience and an ATPL. But I have no turbine time, and not much multi. The bigger carriers dont want me but I will NOT go work for minimum wage up north or for the regionals in a major city making only slightly more. I won't even apply. I will continue to work for myself doing whatever jobs I want and make my own schedule. Im not making a whole lot more but im working a whole lot less. And I'm fine with it.

How many people out there are like me who could be lured in with higher wages? My guess is probably not that many so I doubt enough to solve the problem. But perhaps enough to make a dent? And perhaps there are a bunch of others with the credentials who left the industry years ago due to poor wages and working conditions that could be lured back? I dont know the answer to that either. I cant see paying higher wages as a bad thing, for retention of employees and less waste of training costs alone.

Something has to give though. Forget trying to bring back expats, paying pilots bare minimum wages will see the industry collapse eventually from lack of new pilots signing up. If we think the problem is bad now, just wait 3 years when the industry is expecting to see the graduates from all the people who didn't enroll during the pandemic cause the industry was in the toilet. These companies have always been reactive when they need to be proactive.

[digits_]

It’s probably worth adding that most of the things that make Canada attractive to pilots (other than money) are not under the control of airlines but in the hands of government. If pilots’ true priorities were having more experienced crew then they would campaign for work visas to be given freely to experienced foreign pilots. Canada would be flooded with very experienced crews from abroad, and the experience level in Canadian flight decks would go up enormously. Of course that’s not what pilots want because at the same time salaries would go down. Again - there’s no link between salaries and experience.

I don't think many experienced pilots would be happy to leave their (significantly?) higher salaries to move to Canada to make 70k/year. Some might, but I doubt it will be much. Canada already offers quite a lot of immigration streams where a lot of pilots abroad would quailfy for. A lot of them have university degrees and likely some kind of other experience.

However, by your logic, why wouldn't other countries raise the salaries in that case to prevent pilots to leave for Canada?

[rookiepilot]

MODs.

This is a 705 airline / industry/ union thread. It belongs in the airline section, as does every other similar thread. Please move it there.

Let’s keep general for aviation topics.

Thank you.

No!

This affects everyone in aviation.

And it doesn’t affect you.

Thought about it. You’re right. My apologies. Important discussion.

[TheOriginalMagicMike]

Alpa merging with acpa will help raise the bar for the industry

[photofly]

It’s probably worth adding that most of the things that make Canada attractive to pilots (other than money) are not under the control of airlines but in the hands of government. If pilots’ true priorities were having more experienced crew then they would campaign for work visas to be given freely to experienced foreign pilots. Canada would be flooded with very experienced crews from abroad, and the experience level in Canadian flight decks would go up enormously. Of course that’s not what pilots want because at the same time salaries would go down. Again - there’s no link between salaries and experience.

I don't think many experienced pilots would be happy to leave their (significantly?) higher salaries to move to Canada to make 70k/year. Some might, but I doubt it will be much. Canada already offers quite a lot of immigration streams where a lot of pilots abroad would quailfy for. A lot of them have university degrees and likely some kind of other experience.

Look at the fuss we made about Sunwing and the FLVC pilots from Poland, wasn't it? That was allowing experienced foreign flight crew to lend their experience to Canada, resulting in more accumulated flight hours in Canadian flight decks; from a "experience equals safety" point of view it was a no-brainer, but we didn't like it because it was "cheap" labour.

However, by your logic, why wouldn't other countries raise the salaries in that case to prevent pilots to leave for Canada?

They would. For the same reason that if Canadian pilots were permitted to work in the US without restrictions, salaries in Canada would go up to compensate.

There's a fixed amount of flight experience in the world. You can spread it around differently (either between different airlines, within one country, or between different countries, internationally) with different incentives but you can't create it with extra money. And when you try to influence where the experience goes you have to remember you're not the only player - other airlines and other countries have opportunities to respond to your attempted influence, in ways that reduce the effect of those changes.

Example: Delta just put up their pay. You might think that would allow them to attract experienced flight crew from American Airlines. But no, AA puts up their pay to match.

[digits_]

It’s probably worth adding that most of the things that make Canada attractive to pilots (other than money) are not under the control of airlines but in the hands of government. If pilots’ true priorities were having more experienced crew then they would campaign for work visas to be given freely to experienced foreign pilots. Canada would be flooded with very experienced crews from abroad, and the experience level in Canadian flight decks would go up enormously. Of course that’s not what pilots want because at the same time salaries would go down. Again - there’s no link between salaries and experience.

I don't think many experienced pilots would be happy to leave their (significantly?) higher salaries to move to Canada to make 70k/year. Some might, but I doubt it will be much. Canada already offers quite a lot of immigration streams where a lot of pilots abroad would quailfy for. A lot of them have university degrees and likely some kind of other experience.

Look at the fuss we made about Sunwing and the FLVC pilots from Poland, wasn't it? That was allowing experienced foreign flight crew to lend their experience to Canada, resulting in more accumulated flight hours in Canadian flight decks; from a "experience equals safety" point of view it was a no-brainer, but we didn't like it because it was "cheap" labour.

They made more than the Canadian pilots in the same company. Do you think they would have come over for 70k/year? That's what those same pilots would have made if they would have gotten hired at AC, or even less at Sunwing. They were temporarily leasing pilots. At a higher cost than local pilots.

This translates to "To prove that paying pilots more will not give us more experienced pilots, we will now pay these experienced pilots more to get them to work for us for 6 months".

However, by your logic, why wouldn't other countries raise the salaries in that case to prevent pilots to leave for Canada?

They would. For the same reason that if Canadian pilots were permitted to work in the US without restrictions, salaries in Canada would go up to compensate.

There's a fixed amount of flight experience in the world. You can spread it around differently (either between different airlines, within one country, or between different countries, internationally) with different incentives but you can't create it with extra money. And when you try to influence where the experience goes you have to remember you're not the only player - other airlines and other countries have opportunities to respond to your attempted influence, in ways that reduce the effect of those changes.

Example: Delta just put up their pay. You might think that would allow them to attract experienced flight crew from American Airlines. But no, AA puts up their pay to match.

Again, I don't disagree with that. I just think Canada is in a position to quite cheaply attract more experienced pilots by raising wages.
In your US example the crazy salaries are happening at the highest paid companies. And that makes sense, at that level you can fully see the effect of running out of experienced pilots, and trying to flip flop them around between companies.

On a global scale, Canada is near the bottom of the list of experienced pilot pay. The top 10 paying airlines (suchas Qatar, Catahy, ...) won't care one iota if Canada moved up from position 90 to 70 by doubling or trippling their wages. The competition for those few pilots will be relatively small.

It's a combination of salary and non-salary attractions that would compell expats to return home. Don't underestimate the urge to return home to your extended family and your home country. It won't apply to every expat of cours, but likely a significant bunch.

[photofly]

They made more than the Canadian pilots in the same company. Do you think they would have come over for 70k/year? That's what those same pilots would have made if they would have gotten hired at AC, or even less at Sunwing. They were temporarily leasing pilots. At a higher cost than local pilots.

It doesn't matter how little or how much they would or wouldn't have accepted, or whether they were leased, borrowed or purchased through a share-buyback programme. They could even have flown for free. Because they were denied permission to fly Canadian flights, their experience was not permitted to increase the pool of experience of pilots flying Canadian flights. If you believe that safety is improved by having more experienced crews, then you must accept that safety was compromised by not allowing them to fly here.

I just think Canada is in a position to quite cheaply attract more experienced pilots by raising wages.

From where would these more experienced pilots come?

[digits_]

They made more than the Canadian pilots in the same company. Do you think they would have come over for 70k/year? That's what those same pilots would have made if they would have gotten hired at AC, or even less at Sunwing. They were temporarily leasing pilots. At a higher cost than local pilots.

It doesn't matter how little or how much they would or wouldn't have accepted, or whether they were leased, borrowed or purchased through a share-buyback programme. They could even have flown for free. Because they were denied permission to fly Canadian flights, their experience was not permitted to increase the pool of experience of pilots flying Canadian flights. If you believe that safety is improved by having more experienced crews, then you must accept that safety was compromised by not allowing them to fly here.

Sure, it possibly made things less safe. But that's unrelated to the argument that more money would attract more experience.

I just think Canada is in a position to quite cheaply attract more experienced pilots by raising wages.

From where would these more experienced pilots come?

On a global scale, Canada is near the bottom of the list of experienced pilot pay. The top 10 paying airlines (suchas Qatar, Catahy, ...) won't care one iota if Canada moved up from position 90 to 70 by doubling or trippling their wages. The competition for those few pilots will be relatively small.

It's a combination of salary and non-salary attractions that would compell expats to return home. Don't underestimate the urge to return home to your extended family and your home country. It won't apply to every expat of cours, but likely a significant bunch.

[CanadaAir]

Flight hours don't directly make a safe pilot.
It depends on the quality of the hours.

There are pilots with 500 hours that are knowledgeable and capable. Some hours gain lots of experience, seeing things go wrong or dealing with problems not usually encountered.
Some low time may have refused to fly, and been fired and unemployed while those who took the flight gained time and moved up.
There was more experience gained in standing up to unsafe scenarios and dealing with conflict, compared to the pilot who accepted every flight without question to gain time or fear of being fired.

There are pilots with 20,000 hours who have forgotten the basics and fallen behind on knowledge not keeping current. Or they think they are invincible with all their hours.
Many major accidents have happened with senior captains, chief pilots and training pilots.

Then there are those who have low time and aren't safe yet, and those with higher time that are so dedicated to being current that they go out an practice in Cessnas and simulators on their days off from the airline.

Flight hours are not the only indicator of safety.


The safety issues in 2023 are related to lack of pilots with time ON TYPE and with the company.
Regardless of overall flight hours, the crew has to have sufficient time ON TYPE.

The industry is piling up with low time FOs and rapid upgrade or direct entry captains with minimal type experience.

Regional airlines can have crews flying with less than 1500 hours on type total between the captain and FO.
In the past this was 8000 hours or more between the crew on type and on the routes flown.
A captain who is experienced on King Airs in the north, and who transitions direct entry to a Q400 doesn't have the experience flying into LGA or other busy airports, or dealing with airline operations, even if they have thousands of flight hours. Then they are placed with a junior FO who's never really flown IMC on a bad weather day departing from YYZ or with deferred systems.

To ensure that safety is maintained, the airlines must have at least one pilot on the flight who has many years of experience with the type and the routes. These are the pilots that are leaving in mass, type experienced first officer and captains, and they are leaving due to lack of pay.

Add the large turnover of maintenance staff who also lack type experience.
Its not safe.

To maintain adequate safety, the airlines have to pay well enough to retain the type and route experience.

[CanadaAir]

Update on Flight Attendants


"Flight attendants don't get paid when the plane door is open. Now there's a push to change that

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/flight-atte ... -1.6370957

"That's because it's common practice for the workers to only get paid once the pilot takes the brakes off the plane and backs up.

"Any time that the aircraft door is open, we are not getting paid. When we're boarding, when we're delayed, when we are getting guests settled, we are not being paid,"

"One aviation industry analyst says the airline industry needs to end the practice and follow what is being done in the U.S.

"U.S. airlines basically have kind of stepped away from that kind of practice

"So whether there's a delay or whether there's an issue with boarding passengers, the rules south of the border in terms of pay for flight attendants have changed. And I think that's where the Canadian flight attendants are looking to have similar conditions applied in Canada."