We started this conversation yesterday in the comment section, and I think it’s deserving of its own topic. The Colgan Air accident involved a couple of pilots who were exhausted. One had just flown in on a redeye the night before and shouldn’t have been flying that plane. Thanks to this incident, commuting and fatigue are getting their time in the spotlight, and it’s important that this gets discussed.

First, I’d like to make it clear that this is in no way a regional airline issue. Pilots at nearly every airline commute and fatigue is an issue regardless of what size plane you’re flying, though it is more taxing to fly 10 short hops a day than it is to fly one long haul flight over the ocean. Also, at the regional level, low wages can make commuting more of a necessity than a choice depending upon where that pilot is based.

People often think of commercial pilots as making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, but the reality is that it takes a lot of suffering to get even close to that point. After getting a private pilots license, most pilots will scrap along, building hours any way they can with the hope that an airline will pick them up. Sometimes, that first job may be at some sketchy cargo airline hauling crap on ancient airplanes in the middle of the night. For others, that job will be for a regional airline.

That regional job pays just about nothing. A first year First Officer at Colgan, for example, will earn $21 an hour. And that’s $21 per hour of actual flying, not time on the clock. If that guy flies 75 hours a month (that’s the minimum Colgan guarantees), then he’ll make $18,900 a year. Yes, it’s incredibly low, but that changes over time in a growing industry.

When the industry is growing, the opportunity for advancement comes quickly. For example, if a pilot is able to get on with Southwest, the best paying passenger airline in the US, he’ll make $54 an hour in his first year as a First Officer, more than doubling his annual pay. A Southwest captain tops out at $206 an hour, close to $200,000 a year with minimum flying levels. But in a shrinking industry like we have today, people don’t move up very frequently. They get stuck in their jobs and don’t have the opportunity to advance. That’s why you hear a lot of grumbling these days when you didn’t hear it as much before. The unfortunate problem for the pilot, however, is that there’s always someone waiting to take that spot.

In this shrinking industry, pilots get paid less for longer, and that makes creating a good life for oneself harder to do, especially if that pilot is based in a big and expensive city. Allowing a pilot to commute to his job is the only way to be able to pay someone that little and expect him to live. That’s why you see people commuting from either cheaper cities or from parents’ homes. It saves precious money. These newbies usually find a bunch of other pilots and they all go in on a crash pad in their base – whenever someone is in town they can crash there. It’s not ideal, but it works. So, should this be stopped?

Not in my opinion. Listen to what Peggy Gilligan, Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety for the FAA, had to say on the subject during Senate committee hearings on the Colgan Air accident in Buffalo.

As you can imagine, those pilots who commute responsibly are understandably concerned that they could be forced to relocate because of the irresponsible actions of a few. Should some sort of hard and fast commuting rule be imposed, it could result in families being separated, people being forced to sell homes at a loss, or even people being forced to violate child custody agreements. It is important to keep in mind these personal accounts because, to people not familiar with the airline industry, the issue of living in one city and working hundreds of miles away in another does not make sense. But in the airline industry, this is not only a common practice, it is one airline employees have come to rely on.

Very true. Do you think airlines are going to magically raise pay levels or pay for relocation? No way. And why should they? This process works just fine for those who are responsible. It’s those who take advantage of the system and show up exhausted after a long night of commuting that should be stopped. If a pilot can’t commute properly in order to show up rested for work, then maybe it’s not the right job for that person.

This is why the FAA is so important. The FAA needs to be vigilant in ensuring that airlines aren’t putting too much pressure on pilots to fly even if they aren’t up to it. There have certainly been times where that’s happened in the past, and I imagine it happens today. It’s a very hard thing to police for an airline. If management is too soft, then pilots may take advantage of the situation. If management is too hard, then safety becomes an issue.

This really is a job for the FAA, and it’s regulatory issues like these that should be their top priority. I’m eagerly waiting to see what they decide when it comes to rest and commuting rules, but hopefully they don’t give in to politics and simply ban commuting altogether.

[Original photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30816202@N02/ / CC BY 2.0]
[Original photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/articnomad/ / CC BY-SA 2.0 - Joshua Davis - jdavis.info]

The discussion about how safe regionals are has been top of mind since the Colgan Air crash in Buffalo last year. A recent Frontline report on regional pilot safety has fanned the flames, and we’ve even had a discussion about this in the comments over the last few days. I’ve received a lot of questions in different forms, but I thought I’d post this particular question as an Ask Cranky since it’s a slightly different take on things. I’m hoping that you pilots out there will hit the comments with your take.

As a loyal American Airlines flyer, I cannot think of another mainline airline whose parent company wholly owns the regional carrier, American Eagle . . . right? Am I correct with this, AMR wholly owns both? My assumption would be if the same folks own AA as American Eagle, surely they are going to act more responsibly in terms of caring for their pilots and keeping the brand comparable in terms of safety regulations? I was curious as to your thoughts on this . . . even United contracts out it’s regional flying.
L. Feldman, California

It’s a good question indeed, and it may be one that many people haven’t even thought about. This awful Colgan crash, congressional hearings, and the special on PBS have really convinced some people that regional flying is incredibly dangerous thanks to inexperienced pilots. So is your life potentially safer on a wholly-owned subsidiary airline as opposed to a contract regional? First, let’s dispel the notion that regional flying in general is unsafe.

Some like to point out that the accidents in the US since the end of 2001 have all been on regionals, but it’s important to note that there still haven’t been that many accidents. Let’s look at every commercial accident in the US since 2002 where someone on board was killed.

2/12/2009 – Colgan Air Q400 in Buffalo
8/27/2006 – Comair CRJ in Lexington
12/19/2005 – Chalk’s Grumman in Miami
10/19/2004 – Corporate Airlines Jetstream 32 in Kirksville, MO
1/8/2003 – Air Midwest Beech 1900 in Charlotte

The Chalk’s one and the Air Midwest (former Mesa subsidiary) one were due to maintenance issues, so of the thousands and thousands of regional flights that have operated in some of the worst weather imaginable during the last 8+ years, there have been three fatal accidents during scheduled service due to pilot error. Is that something we should be content with? Certainly not, but I think it’s important to put this in context. These TV specials always make it sound like you’re likely to die on your next flight.

Yes, regional pilots get paid less (sometimes a shockingly low amount), and they have less experience than their big jet counterparts, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t get you there safely. In fact, those pilots have gotten their passengers to their destination safely all but three times in the last 8 years.

Now, to the question about wholly-owned regional subsidiaries . . . I don’t think that makes a difference. US Airways, by the way, owns a couple of its regional subsidiaries while outsourcing the rest, so American isn’t the only one. Also, while American Eagle is wholly-owned, but there is also American Connection which is outsourced. Now, Colgan was the focus of this program because of their recent accident and other issues they’ve had, but that’s somehow been blown up into the entire regional airline world being unsafe.

Sure, Colgan has some serious issues they need to work out, but every other airline has its share of troubles along the way. Right now, in fact, it’s wholly-owned American Eagle that is on the hot seat. They’ve been hit with two major fines related to how they maintain their airplanes.

So for me, it’s not whether an airline is wholly-owned by its major carrier or not that matters. We simply have to put our faith in the feds and hope they’re regulating the industry properly. That’s a story for another day. In fact, tomorrow, I’ll talk about misguided attempts to change pilot commuting rules.

Republic, overlord of Frontier, Midwest, and a bunch of regional flying, made headlines last week by placing an order for 40 CS300 airplanes. These are the “C-Series” airplanes that Bombardier has been putting together to compete with the Boeing and Airbus narrowbodies. If it actually works as advertised, then that’s great news. But there’s a big “if” here. This order shows some confidence in the airplane, but more importantly, it also gives us some insight as to where Republic is taking its branded product.

For Republic, this was probably a pretty easy decision to make. The order for 40 planes with 138 seats each is worth $3.1 billion at list prices, but that means they probably paid $29.95. Like Airbus when it first tried to break into the US market, Bombardier must have been willing to give a sweetheart deal to anyone who would take a chance.

The C-Series is the first non-Boeing/Airbus airplane in the 100-150 seat category to get an order in the US since Douglas back in the day. So maybe it’s fitting that the interior of the cabin looks remarkably like the MD-80. Try to ignore the hilarious rainbow of colors strategically placed by Bombardier in this shot (Asian, black, white, Indian, young, old, bald, gray hair, blah, blah, blah) and you’ll see that it actually looks like a vast improvement over the MD-80:

The seating is 2×3 across, just as in the MD airplanes, but you can see that the windows are nice and big, and, most importantly, so are the overhead bins. They show roller bags being placed wheels-in, so these should be just like what you’ll find on a new 737 or A320, just with only one middle seat per row instead of two.

The other thing that isn’t like the MD-80 is that the engines are slung under the wings, so you won’t be stuck in row 32 staring at an engine casing. The engines are really what have the chance to make this thing succeed. After heading toward the junk heap of formerly important aviation-related companies, Pratt & Whitney has decided to make a comeback with its Geared Turbofan. This is a complex engine that has never been able to be produced reliably for commercial operations before. (They can do it for military.) Pratt thinks it will make it work, and that means a 20% reduction in fuel burn. If it works, that’s huge, and this airplane will fly long before Boeing or Airbus even get close with their next generation airplane. If not, well, this plane may not fly at all.

So what will Republic do with this? Well, the plan is to put them into service in the branded operation – that means Frontier and Midwest. They don’t have much of a choice here. If any airline decided to outsource its 138-seat flying requirements, then there would be an absolute revolt from the front lines. Most airlines don’t have the ability to do it now anyway.

In the branded world, they won’t say if it’s going to be a Frontier or a Midwest product, but let’s be honest. By the time these things show up in 2015, I’ll put money down there’s really only one brand left (if any, I suppose). But there are some clues in the press release about where they’re taking their product.

The airplane will be configured with 138 seats. The first five rows will be in STRETCH configuration with a few inches more legroom and nothing else. That tells me that Midwest’s Signature Service days are numbered. They’ll end up standardizing with STRETCH as the premium option.

Will these airplanes end up replacing the Airbus fleet? It wouldn’t surprise me if that happens one day, but the C-Series can’t really offer the A320-size capacity that Frontier might want to continue to have at the upper end. For what it’s worth, Republic says that no retirements are planned because of this. Well yeah, it’s still 5 years away.

To sum it up, the planes must have been really cheap, and they won’t be delivered for 5 years. Might as well get in on the action now with the hope that this thing works as advertised. If it doesn’t, then I’m sure they can just walk away. If not, then they’ll be in a good place.