A Dive into the Regional Airline Industry

The Regional Airline Industry was created by the Major Airlines themselves as a way of reducing costs and providing cheaper tickets to customers. The role of the Regional companies is to shuttle passengers from smaller airports to bigger ones, where they board a bigger airplane operated by a major company and onto their next destinations. The Regional Airline industry is still in a blooming period in its operations as it stands today. The numbers of travelers increase every year as well as the air transportation business in general has been growing in the last few years. The industry is facing a real threat of pilot shortage. A threat that may take many companies out of business. The Regionals are the source that “supplies” pilots to the major carriers as needed. The crisis of the pilot shortage that the industry is facing now will affect the major airlines as well in the long run. What will happen with the Regional Airlines can no longer provide the number of pilots requested by the major companies to meet flight routes? Will the Regional Airline go out of business? If we see such change, the major airlines will take a huge loss as it will no longer be able to operate cheaply.

            I personally do believe that the pilot shortage is a huge threat to our aviation industry. There are multiple reasons to why we are witnessing such shortage. In his article, “Here’s the Major Crisis the Airlines Are Facing Now”, Alex Fitzpatrick states that the pilot shortage is due to fact that it has been made very expensive to become a pilot in terms of training and starting with an entry-level salary of around $27,000 at a Regional carrier (Fitzpatrick, 2016). This new 1500-hour requirement, and for the moment I will stay away from the argument of how it negatively impacted the industry, has certainly made the process of becoming a pilot more expensive. The financial calculus of the situation, I strongly believe, has increasingly been keeping want-to-be pilots out of the cockpit. According to Aaron Karp (2017), the retirement age of 65 of the airline pilots has also contributed to such crisis of shortage (Karp, 2017). The retirement age, in all honesty, is something we may not be able to change. Although, there is few things we can do to end the crisis of the pilot shortage; getting rid of the 1500-hour rule, increasing the yearly salaries to attract pilots, and provide better duty schedules for pilots (Karp, 2017).

            The argument of whether the 1500-hour rule was the correct action after the Colgan flight accident to make the industry safer or it was just something that needed to be done to silence the public remains in question today. I personally think that it is indeed the time for the Federal Aviation Administration to reconsider the total hour requirements for pilots. How well does such number of hours represent the pilot’s skill? “Hours can reflect experience, but they’re not a good yardstick to measure pilots’ abilities. Somebody could go tow banners for 10,000 hours and be less prepared to be a first officer than a graduate that came out of a program like ours that perhaps had 500 or 750 hours.” Says Dr. Dan Macchiarella, dean of the College of Aviation Studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Fitzpatrick, 2016). The above statement is a well demonstration of the fact the 1500-hour rule does not make pilots more skilled when an incident in flight occur. It might allow them to have flight time experience but that’s about it. The best way to handle this situation is to take hourly rule out and implement a system that train pilots on real, in flight, scenarios so that when things go wrong, the two people in the cockpit are well prepared. 

            Professionalism, and in my own words, is maintaining and having all skills and manners needed to carry out a job. When we witness a lack of professionalism on the job, like the Colgan Air accident, the outcomes are catastrophic. In Colgan’s flight 3407 accident, and as researched in the flying cheap documentary, is a long chain of event and lack of professionalism that lead to such outcome. The initial re-action of the crew, pulling back on the yoke instead of pushing forward to break the stall, shows a huge lack of skill and professional by the crew. On the other side, the management of Colgan Air had failed to discover that captain Renslow failed 5 different check rides previously. The salary and work environment has a drastic impact on the level of professionalism pilots demonstrate while on duty. When and airline provides a culture of positivity and safety, pilots show skill and professionalism when they are required to do so on the job. You cannot operate in an environment where safety and professionalism does not exist in the management level expect to have well-trained and experienced pilots in the cockpit. Professionalism is what a company hires, trains, and presents to people. To maintain my professionalism once I am employed by the airlines, I will always strive to get the best possible training before transporting hundreds of people from one destination to another. Also, I will always promote safety. Being a pilot means you are responsible for the safety of operations as well as the safety of the passengers. Once you let anything get in the way of doing your job correctly, you are no longer a professional.

Citations

Fitzpatrick, A. (2016, March 23). Regional Airlines Hit by Pilot Shortage. Retrieved January 19,

2018, from http://time.com/4257940/pilot-shortage/

Karp, A. (2017, March 24). Analysis: Regional airline CEO says pilot shortage getting serious.

Retrieved January 19, 2018, from http://atwonline.com/opinions/analysis-regional-

airline-ceo-says-pilot-shortage-getting-serious