Pilot shortage at Brussels Airlines ?

[Air Key West]

Thanks to all four previous posts who said what I would have liked to answer to Vinne-Winnie. As TUB001 says : some comments make this forum sometimes heavy to read. And Vinnie -Winnie : when you are in heavy turbulence, so heavy that if yo don't have your safety belt tightly fastened you would be ejected out of your seat (maybe that has happened to you, yet, but happened to me at least three of four times), you're happy that the pilot is qualified to put the plane safely on the ground and your're happy there was not a bus driver in the cockpit (with all due respect to bus drivers).

[website-info]

Ok Guys,

now to get this back onto the original topic Pilot Shortages, the end of the month is fast approaching, does anyone feel like they can guess how many crew will resign by 31/8.............

T

[Vinnie-Winnie]

Right knew that my point would be misinterpreted and not read fully but anyway what could you expect! My point was with a bit of exaggeration was that being a pilot is not an elite job anymore, that now a lot of people are available willing to do the same job for less money! In that sense well yes I'm sorry pay needs to be adapted to what the market is prepared to offer! Not what it is deemed the right amount because x y z reason related to safety, skill...

Look at regional airlines in America! They don't pay much either! You might complain but that is life! Nothing is for granted anymore!

And BTW I respect and understand and a know about the efforts involved to become a pilot! It is a choice it can pay-off if you land at the right company, if it doesn't well I'm sorry other people have embarked in careers/expensive studies which at the end didn't bring the rewards one could have hoped for!

That is my point! No lack of knowledge here, no being dumb here, just making a point that was obviously gonna be disliked nevertheless would be heard more if this forum wasn't mostly used by aviation fans/people holding a stake in the industry!

[dre]

Dear Vinnie winnie pinnie,

If there were so many people willing to fly for less money, there would be no shortage in Brussels airlines. Don t make the same mistake than some managers who think flying for that or that airlines is a privilege.

RGDS

[FLY4HOURS.BE]

Actually some cadets with low hours accept lower salaries in the beginning.
If trainings were cheaper, alot of students would accept to be paid less, beacause they will be able to pay their loan back much easier.

[1V1]

1.Right knew that my point would be misinterpreted and not read fully but anyway what could you expect! My point was with a bit of exaggeration was that being a pilot is not an elite job anymore, that now a lot of people are available willing to do the same job for less money!

2.In that sense well yes I'm sorry pay needs to be adapted to what the market is prepared to offer! Not what it is deemed the right amount because x y z reason related to safety, skill...

Dear Vinnie

1. Remember: shortage at this moment? Available but without experience.

2. Because of the market lots of pilots worldwide saw their pay increase with 10 to 20%. (or even more)

3. Pilots are paid to take decisions that somethimes have big consequences for the company, that's why a company attracts what they think are the best pilots by paying them more than a train driver, nurse,....

[tolipanebas]

I'm sorry but pay needs to be adapted to what the market is prepared to offer! Not what it is deemed the right amount because x, y, z reason related to safety, skill...

You are 100% right: pilot's pay in belgium URGENTLY needs to be adapted to the market conditions!

Please take note that currently skilled and experienced pilots are in such high demand world wide, salaries offered have increased on average 20% over the past year alone, with no end in sight yet.

Your newspaper article is talking about ab intio pilots, who are unwanted at most places and certainly not to be used as reference in this discussion, so basing any conclusions about the competitiveness of the pilot's salary at SN on it is proof of just how small your insight in the matter is...

The main reason why SN is currently faced with an unstopable EXODUS of their flight crews is to be found in the totally uncompetitive pay, made bloody obvious by the very attractive offers from elsewhere!

It is as simple as you have said it yourself really: pay needs to be adapted to what the market offers. Curently the salaries at SN aren't and the results of it are plain simple: as from 17th September, flights will have to be cancelled and planes wet-leased to cope with the flight disruptions from pilot shortage...

Ok Guys,
now to get this back onto the original topic Pilot Shortages...

Indeed, enough about the ab initio's who still need to build experience and have traditionally always been and will likely always be squeezed by malaficious small airlines who hire them for peanuts: this discussion is about experienced pilots leaving SN.

[Air Key West]

How long do you think is it going to take b.air's management and Board of Directors to realize they cannot go on like this ? And how long is it before they take effective action ? Don't they notice this cannot go on unless they want their airline to be grounded ? Cancelling flights (for whatever the reason is the worst publicity you can get).

[Vinnie-Winnie]

Your newspaper article is talking about ab intio pilots, who are unwanted at most places and certainly not to be used as reference in this discussion, so basing any conclusions about the competitiveness of the pilot's salary at SN on it is proof of just how small your insight in the matter is...

Wow wow wow I wasn't basing myself on any newspaper... I'm going to repeat myself but my point was that basically there is no justification for high salaries for pilots if the market doesn't say that high wages should be the standard!

What SN can do if it doesn't want to offer the wages deemed competitive is the following: Become basically the training ground for big companies that needs fresh pilots which do not cost as much money yet! Keep some experienced pilots with good wages to be captains and for the rest that is it you get an ok airline using young pilots as copilots at the least wages possible till they get enough experience to be rightly entitled to more wages! It is a win win situation for both Brussels Airlines and the young and fresh pilots!

After all this happens in many other sectors: Take the media sector for example! They take fresh recruits and pay them peanuts, because it is some kind of honour to work in a big media company! Same could apply for young pilots: It would be an honour to be employed with not much flying experience!

About loans... Well apart from the cosy European system a lot of university graduates are burdened with huge amount of debt as well!

So anyways I know my strategy is a bit flawed if Brussels Airlines does not belong to a big airline! But yeah it can make sense!

[tolipanebas]

I'm going to repeat myself but my point was that basically there is no justification for high salaries for pilots if the market doesn't say that high wages should be the standard!

And I will repeat what about 300 posts on this site have indicated so far:
the market is indicating higher wages are 'standard' nowadays, hence the exodus at SN.

What SN can do if it doesn't want to offer the wages deemed competitive is the following: Become basically the training ground for big companies that needs fresh pilots which do not cost as much money yet! Keep some experienced pilots with good wages to be captains and for the rest that is it you get an ok airline using young pilots as copilots at the least wages possible till they get enough experience to be rightly entitled to more wages! It is a win win situation for both Brussels Airlines and the young and fresh pilots!

Some remarks:

-) SN already seems a low cost training ground for big airlines like you are proposing here and they are about to pay the operational consequences of it: an urgent lack of pilots, so clearly this idea of yours is not so great as it may seem to you.

-) keep some experienced pilots as captain with good wages...
For your information: that's already half (even slightly more even) of the pilots then and I can assure you they'd need a considerable wage increase to be tempted to stay on in a sort of supervising and training scheme like you propose.
How are you going to pay for that in your 'low cost' approach?
By lowering the co-pilots salaries even further?
Prepare to cancel almost all of the flights over the next 6 months then, as they will ALL leave for better places and it will take you that long to train new ones who'd be willing (and allowed) to work under the new terms.
By then of course you won't have any pax, thus no airline left...

-) I don't know if you are aware, but SN has also big problems attracting new pilots because other airlines in Belgium and around simply offer better terms, not necessarilly always financial, but definitely professional: if you have the choice to fly 737NG at Jetairfly or RJ at b.air, reality today is many 'ab initios' take the 737 rating as it gives them more carrier possibilities sooner (joining FR for instance)...
If you don't want second choice F/Os only, something which you definitely don't want as you'd be needing them later to upgrade them to 'training captains, you'll have to tempt the good ones into choosing for you, thus offer them better pay...

-) Finally, do you seriously think Belgian Civil Aviation Authorities will approve a scheme where a passenger airline will operate with low-hour co-pilots only? You seem to think pilots are 'just' busdrivers, but the BCAA and EASA take a different point of view and look very cautiously at airlines who have low-hour co-pilots, putting them under close supervision and enforcing very strict training conditions and operational limitations.
E.g. for what it is worth: SN has recently asked the BCAA to be allowed to lower the company requirements for upgrade to captaincy in an effort to cope with the urgent shortage of captains they face yet they weren't allowed to by the Belgian authorities because the average experience of the co-pilots at SN was deemed too low to approve such a move...
Imagine the BCAA's reaction to your proposal if this average becomes 500 iso 1,500 for instance?! They'll imediately put severe constraints on SN's all important AOC, for instance: no low visibility approval causing more costly divertions, extra fuel reserves cutting the range of the planes etc, etc, which all have a big impact on the result of the airline!

In short: your idea is not taking into account some airline specific facts which make it totally irrealistic for a scheduled airline like b.air.

Like it or not, but the rules of aviation are not the same as the rules of bus companies or media concerns, and pilots are no bus drivers or stand up comedians.

[Vinnie-Winnie]

And I will repeat what about 300 posts on this site have indicated so far:
the market is indicating higher wages are 'standard' nowadays, hence the exodus at SN.

I totally agree don't get me wrong here!

-) SN already seems a low cost training ground for big airlines like you are proposing here and they are about to pay the operational consequences of it: an urgent lack of pilots, so clearly this idea of yours is not so great as it may seem to you. !

Fair point! How long does it take for a freshly graduated pilot to get enough hours to realistically be able to switch to another company with better prospects?

3 6 12 months? I have no clue...

-) keep some experienced pilots as captain with good wages...
For your information: that's already half (even slightly more even) of the pilots then and I can assure you they'd need a considerable wage increase to be tempted to stay on in a sort of supervising and training scheme like you propose.
How are you going to pay for that in your 'low cost' approach?
By lowering the co-pilots salaries even further?

yes basically...

Prepare to cancel almost all of the flights over the next 6 months then, as they will ALL leave for better places and it will take you that long to train new ones who'd be willing (and allowed) to work under the new terms.
By then of course you won't have any pax, thus no airline left...

Why if Brussels Airlines organises itself a bit better? I mean if for example it takes 6 months for a pilot to become interesting why not prepare an intake every 6 month with the amount of copilots needed due to others having left already?

-) I don't know if you are aware, but SN has also big problems attracting new pilots because other airlines in Belgium and around simply offer better terms, not necessarily always financial, but definitely professional: if you have the choice to fly 737NG at Jetairfly or RJ at b.air, reality today is many 'ab initios' take the 737 rating as it gives them more carrier possibilities sooner (joining FR for instance)...

I'm aware of that yes...

If you don't want second choice F/Os only, something which you definitely don't want as you'd be needing them later to upgrade them to 'training captains, you'll have to tempt the good ones into choosing for you, thus offer them better pay...

What is a second choice F/O exactly? Just curious? Aren't the commercial pilot licences not good enough to cream off the second choice pilots?

-) Finally, do you seriously think Belgian Civil Aviation Authorities will approve a scheme where a passenger airline will operate with low-hour co-pilots only? You seem to think pilots are 'just' busdrivers, but the BCAA and EASA take a different point of view and look very cautiously at airlines who have low-hour co-pilots, putting them under close supervision and enforcing very strict training conditions and operational limitations.

No I never said that pilots were just bus drivers! I said that there are many eager young pilots willing to get experience, IE more supply of labour, comparable in a and I say a way to the supply of people willing to drive buses! Why did no-one read my comments about deregulation exactly?
Can you or anyone tell us more about the BCAA and EASA rules concerning fresh pilots? Would give us a bit more hindsight about the realism of hiring fresh new pilots!

E.g. for what it is worth: SN has recently asked the BCAA to be allowed to lower the company requirements for upgrade to captaincy in an effort to cope with the urgent shortage of captains they face yet they weren't allowed to by the Belgian authorities because the average experience of the co-pilots at SN was deemed too low to approve such a move...
Imagine the BCAA's reaction to your proposal if this average becomes 500 iso 1,500 for instance?! They'll imediately put severe constraints on SN's all important AOC, for instance: no low visibility approval causing more costly divertions, extra fuel reserves cutting the range of the planes etc, etc, which all have a big impact on the result of the airline!

Never ever did I say that captaincy requirements should be lowered! My proposition would be to keep existing captains but as you rightly pointed out raise massively their wages! And yeah if possible pay the new FO's little money! (Unfortunately but need to save money somewhere) Would be cheaper for cash strapped Brussels Airlines than to raise wages for everyone!

In short: your idea is not taking into account some airline specific facts which make it totally irrealistic for a scheduled airline like b.air.

Fair point that is why I'm asking further questions...

Just trying to imagine money savings techniques which do not involve our useless government meddling in aviation! (We all know how good they are at that )

Right so how much time and money does it involve to train a new pilot? is the time and money "wasted" less or more than the amount of money which would have to be spent extra in order to keep F/O's and captains?

[1V1]

"Right so how much time and money does it involve to train a new pilot? is the time and money "wasted" less or more than the amount of money which would have to be spent extra in order to keep F/O's and captains?"

Depending upon typerating: +/- 35.000 dollar

[Johan23]

With al my respect but JAF isn't any better. Guys who payed their rating themselves please raise your hands. Times like these rating doesn't matter that much, ex-RJ pilots are flying 777 en 747. And a lot of ex Bru Air pilots fly at FR now.

JAF, honestly I am not jalouse looking at the rosters they get. Not to mention the fact that JAF pays worse than bru air.


Regards,
J.

[Vinnie-Winnie]

"Right so how much time and money does it involve to train a new pilot? is the time and money "wasted" less or more than the amount of money which would have to be spent extra in order to keep F/O's and captains?"

Depending upon typerating: +/- 35.000 dollar

+-35000 dollars is the cost to Brussels Airlines to adapt a pilot who has all the certificates required to say an Avro right?

[LX-LGX]

How long do you think is it going to take b.air's management and Board of Directors to realize they cannot go on like this ? And how long is it before they take effective action? Don't they notice this cannot go on unless they want their airline to be grounded?

Your remarks (I don't call them forum questions) have been posted here about 100 times during the last weeks. Seems nobody has an answer for you yet.

Cancelling flights (for whatever the reason is the worst publicity you can get).

You're obviously not that familiar with cancellations. If a flight is cancelled because of crew shortage and if this is done with due notice (f.e. within the legal terms from the EU-regulation 261/2004), it is not "worst publicity": it is just a cancellation. Nothing more, nothing less. Passengers or travel agents who want to book for that cancelled flight get an unavailable on their screen. Pax or travel agents who have booked already will receive a mail from Resa: "due to operational reasons, we're sorry to advise you... Then follows a list with alternative flights (b.light - b.flex doens't matter for Involuntary Reroutings). So don't worry, Resa doesn't tell us it's because of crew shortage: "operational reasons" wil do, and this excuse is accepted by passengers. Cost for the airline: time spent on bookings / cancelled bookings / rebooking-refunding. And a small loss on gross revenue as one plane will probably be grounded (although: imagine one of the very few smart managers sends it to maintenance during that off duty...).

So "worst publicity" in case of a cancellation because of crew shortage only applies if somebody wants to abuse that cxl to damage the image from Brussels Airlines. Plenty of choice here, I would say...

[Corto]

Of what I remember from my school days, the cost of replacement of an employee in any organisation is one year of the gross salary of the employee to be replaced. I do not know if this is valid for aviation but it should not be far from that.
It gets me a bit itchy to always hear (read) substantive of "persons" to refer to one side of an argument (pilots, employees, students...), and substantive of "objects" or "bodies" for the other side (The Company, The Board of Directors, The Governement...). These bodies are made of people with a mind, an agenda, responsibilities and accountability. The CEO (a person, not a computer) of Brussels Airlines is responsible to the share holders (people) represented by directors (people) and is accountable to the people of the public represented by ministers and civil servants.
My point is that a situation created by people cannot be managed by "things". The CEO of B.Air has perhaps an agenda that is far beyond the imagination of anybody on this forum. For example, and it is not exhaustive: As a manager of the organization, the CEO has for primary duty to increase the shareholders' ROI. Most of the time, this is done by making profit, BUT NOT NECESSARILY! There are other legal, even if not very ethical ways to achieve this. As for the people governing the trade (it is not a profession, as there is no degree sanctionning it) of aviators, they might have less reasons to worry about the exodus of pilots than one could imagine. Money is not necessarily the primary concern in Political Economics. Sometimes, in some circumstances, a "shortage" may be more wishable than an "excess". It is a bit like the problem of making four equilateral trangle with six matches: to solve it, one has to think outside the box.

[tolipanebas]

Vinnie-Winnie-

I can see the point you are trying to make, but as I have told you before, it fails to take into account a lot of airline specific aspects, one of which is the TYPE RATING course.

What you are proposing is a system of well-paid captains which will stay with the company and provide the 'experience', paired along with low-paid co-pilots which are just building hours and provide the 'cheap labour'.

Apart from the fact it is very dubious that the ballance of what you can still take away from ab initios at SN is sufficient to bridge the gab between what captains at SN are now being paid and what they should be paid to make them decide to stay on under a system like the one you are proposing is positive indeed, you are also failing to take into account some serious other costs which will emerge under such a system.

The problem is that to be able to fly as co-pilot at SN, you need to be fully type rated on the Avro RJ and such a type rating easily costs 30 to 40 thousand euro to the airline!

An airline generally feels that it takes 3 to 4 years to make it worth the investment, hence at many places pilots are faced with what is called 'economical criteria' when wanting to upgrade internally before they have done their time on the type they are type rated on...
Your suggestion to let them go after 1 year or even sooner is financial suicide for the airline!

Not surprisingly the 'small places' where low-paid co-pilots are hired and build their experience operate with smaller prop planes only, which cost far less to be type rated on (provided you even need to be as co-pilot). Also, these operators can cope with the strict limitations put on their AOC by the authorities as they often don't operate an extensive route network which would suffer from them.

Remember there is a difference between flying a single beechcraft turboprop on occasional corporate charter flights and sending 50 or more large passenger jets all over Europe every single day of the year, regardless of the weather.

The idea to copy the methods of the corporate charter operators to the airlines is something which many will have looked at before you, but since it hasn't been done yet, it should give you ample reassurance it is unfaisable from a legal, financial and economical point of view, so I am not going to elaborate too much on the differences between JAR 145 operators and the rest...

[teddybAIR]

This topic has been going on for quite a while now and I wonder whether anybody got a clue on the current status for Brussels Airlines:

- How many pilots have left the company since the beginning of this year?
- Do you know something about the split between the different levels (FO's vs Captains, short/medium/long haul?
- How many airplanes have already been grounded temporarily
- How many planes have been leased with crew to compensate for the loss in capacity
- Action plan for the future?

Thx in advance!
Tom

[Vinnie-Winnie]

@Tolipanebas: Thanks! Always interesting to have a bit more hindsight in comp&any operations! I know see that my point is fairly invalid! Back to proposirion 1 then increase wages...

[Air Key West]

to LX-LGX : yes, I am unfortunately familiar with cancellations. Had three recently, but not on b.air as you will be pleased to hear (AF, LX, KL : not minor players).
I maintain that a cancellation for whatever reason if the worst publicity ANY airline can get. Whether the reasons are technical, operational or bad weather (for the latter it is difficult to blame the airline, but all depends how the airline will take care of you.....). If a pax is warned of a cancellation in due time, damage is minor, yet it is very annoying because it can force you to travel at another time, sometimes on another day or not on a connecting flights. Extremely annoying if you're a tourist and it shortens your holiday. Very annoying if you are a business traveller and if "time is money". For the pax affected, "a cancellation is not just a cancellation" as you write. Maybe it is for an airline (shows how airlines treat pax). So, I don't agree with you that cancellations could be considered acceptable if pax are informed in due time. There still is something called wet lease or charter if the cancellation is known several days before the flight will be operating. And at short notice, some airlines will have a reserve aircraft and crew.