Gatt wrote:

I'm curious as to why the airline pilots haven't all gone on strike to
demand better pay. Clearly, they can't be easily replaced or the airlines
wouldn't be scraping the bottom of the barrel for new hires. I learned
about supply/demand in Economics 101 but I'm sure the airline executives
know exactly what they're doing.


Right now they're not quite scraping the bottom of the barrel. The
current market for new regional FOs is about what it was during the last boom
period in the late 90s (when many also lowered the minimum hrs. to 500).
Rather than raising salaries, the airlines can just lower the experience
requirements to tap a reserve of potential recruits that wouldn't have
previously applied.

Supply and demand really does work. Previously, the regionals ate up the
supply of 800 hr. potential hires, and just lowered the requirements to
increase the supply to meet the demand. Granted, there is a limit to how
low they can go, but the 500 hr. minimum has been used before, so it'll
probably stay until the market changes.

I'm not so sure that upping the pay would make a great difference.
Assuming that they raised the starting pay 50% (a pretty hefty increase,
percentagewise), how many more qualified applicants would jump out of the
woodwork to fly for 30K/yr. instead of 20K/yr. My guess is :not many.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

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