The next hiring wave

[sepia]

Anyone who doesn't think that the big players like AC and Jazz directly control the state of the industry is deluded. They are the two biggest pilot employers in Canada, there is absolutely no getting around that. In Air Canada's last hiring wave they picked up roughly 750 people in a span of less than 3 years. For each of person hired by Air Canada they created many openings as everyone moved up one rung of the ladder.

Corporate jet guy flying the falcon 900 goes to AC
Corporate falcon 900 FO gets left seat
Lear 35 captain flying for sketchy air ambulance outfit takes top end corporate job
Lear 35 fo upgrades to the left seat
Piggiao Avanti captain moves onto his first jet flying a lear 35
Avanti FO becomes captain
Cessna 402 captain leaves to get first turbine hours with the hope of a quick upgrade
cessna 402 FO gets the left seat of the cessna
hicks and lawerence pilot used all of their multi time from last summer to finally crack into a multi job
Instructor with 3 years in finally breaks the magic 100hrs multi to get the hicks and lawerence job
fresh class 2 guy moves up and finally starts flying the twin
school needs another class 4 to fill the void

Obviously guys are taken from other rungs than the top one, but almost no one comes from anything other than the top 5 rungs, and very few from anything other than the top 3 or 4. Also it there are many parallel rungs which exist to these within the industry, I picked these just to illustrate a point. Every guy that Air Canada or WestJet hires creates somewhere between 5-10+ new jobs within the industry. Jazz or porter is much the same, they just commonly take from a lower rung.

[lionheart27]

Hey Sepia

That might be all fine in a perfect world scenario but the industry is a little more volatile then that.

Captain on Falcon 900 goes to AC. Possibly if lost his job with that company. If he was flying corporate he'd probably stay if he could. More money, benefits and less seniority issues for him.

Avanti FO becomes captain. Again most of these A/C are corporate are they not and only require one pilot.

I guess as long as companies like AC are circulating their employees creating new hiring positions that will hold true. Let's hope that's the case. Staying positive!

Most pilots will experience a journey that eventually finds them happy with one company or if not moving on but it eventually comes down to the numbers. If AC's numbers are up they'll probably be hiring yes?

[sepia]

I just picked whatever positions popped into my head, I wouldn't spend too much time picking them apart. Though to be honest, my class at AC had corporate jet captains, 727 captains, large turboprop captains etc. So I wouldn't rule out corporate guys coming to AC.

[scopiton]

curious move for corporate aircraft captain
do you know what motivated their choice ?

[sepia]

If you had asked me 2 years ago what the most stable corporate jet jobs in North America were I would have without question told you Citi Bank and GM. They were too big to fail after all right?

In Canada with nortel shares over $100 bucks they seemed like a fantastic option too. The entire corporate side is littered with failed corporate flight departments. At the whim of new management they either get rid of the jets, or shoot them over to management companies. So you're either out of work, or working under much crappier pay and lifestyle conditions. In Canada there might be maybe 25-50 somewhat stable corporate jobs that pay over 125k/yr. At Air Canada there's about 1000 that would have similar stability and go from 125k/yr +.

I'm not saying that corporate sucks, or that absolutely excellent jobs don't exist. They're just far and few between, and those that do exist, exist with at the best, limited long term stability.