I have a customer whose son is a first officer for a regional airline. He has been doing it long enough he gets first choice of schedules, etc. He could advance to captain but doesn’t want to because then he would be at the bottom of the seniority list again.
Isn’t military pilot a path to commercial pilot also? Do commercial pilots typically graduate from an aviation program at a college? I know someone whose son went to Embry-Riddle but I think he intended to be something other than a pilot. Remember the TV show “Wings”? That’s what I think of when you mention a smaller airline. Probably half the people here weren’t born when Wings was on TV. From: AF <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Robert Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2025 11:00 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] OT Some more stats Liars, damn liars and statisticians.. I am willing to bet that none of these are the true numbers. & I'll also bet that the United number was a desired requirement, not a hard requirement, and they had 10 ways to hire around it going through a hoop or two. Most of the major hiring is from the smaller airlines. You don't get the big bucks until you survive on the small bucks. I have two friends rising through the minor airlines right now and they are semi-prime candidates but still going through all the hoops. There is also a lot of washout on the minor airlines from pilots that end up finding more money flying other paths when they need to support their families. Air cargo and such. On 9/23/25 9:46 AM, [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> wrote: Seems airlines hire 5000 new pilots each year. (from one unknown source) There are 10,000 new ATP certificates granted each year but half of them wash out or pause flying prior to earning the coveted 5000 hours that you need to become a first officer. So, seems supply exactly equals demand (roughly). Other sources are saying there is a shortage. Now, add an artifical restriction, of that 5000 fully qualified ATPs, your HR department says half have to be black/women. Only 5% of that pool are women. So, there are 250 available. Only 4% of pool are black. So that will get you 200. 450 total per year but your HR department mandated 10X that amount. How will you fill that requirement? Only one way, reduce the number of hours required. But even if you took it all the way down to the 1500 hours it takes to the the ATP you will still only have 900 available to fill 5X the requirement. And you will have 450 underqualified people sitting in the right seat in front. I doubt the figure I found for needing 5000 new pilots industry wide. I think it is low. I found another number saying that United Airlines (the one that had that DEI policy for a while) uses about 2000 new ones each year. Seems that United uses 40% of the pilots each year? In any event, that would make the numbers still work out in a similar fashion. Mandate 1000 where there are only 450 available assuming your company gets all 450. It’s math bitch, not racism.
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