Buttegeig says he can force airlines to hire more staff

[FLEA]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/buttigieg-power-force-airlines-workers-travel-delays

 

 

Industry relevant and interesting. Discuss.....

[SocialD]

That's a great sound bite and all, but who is going to train them?  A huge portion of our experience took early retirements during the great overreaction we lived through over the last few years.  So now we have a vastly inexperienced (relatively speaking) work force trying to right the ship, and that shit just doesn't happen over night.  In many sections of the airline, we have the equivalent of 4-ship flight leads running the IPUG and are surprised when the product is shit.  My understanding is that many of our experienced folks have been called back as consultants to help, but there is only so much you can do when you lose the staggering amount of experience we have lost.  This experience gap is but one result of policies enacted by our government (and those around the world).  

Edited June 19, 2022 by SocialD

[FUSEPLUG]

This guy...

What amazes me, is that 9 out of 10 times, I see ole Petey on talking head news, he's never discussing anything transportation related.  He's always throwing in his two cents on things way outside the purview of the Secretary of Transportation.  

Of course now that his travel plans have been negatively impacted, maybe he will start doing transportation stuff.

[Swizzle]

Threat of regulation by the "sovereign" - standard non-collaborative approach.

Saber rattling in case of need of reg crackdown..interesting whenever things don't go ideally he says stress-test...as if they were banks

[Prosuper]

Are they going to waive the 1500 hour minimum and the mandatory retirement age? How about scheduling for what you have the resources to do and not overbook.

[dream big]

Not trying to be snarky, I’m genuinely curious about the logic behind this.  Would Pooter or Nsplyr like to chime in? 

[BashiChuni]

This administration and much of the left live in fantasy land. Reality is bitch slapping them in the face right about now. 

[HuggyU2]

Hey Pete!

Focus on the FAA!  When you can get aircraft registration renewals below 5 months, let us know. 

[arg]

7 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

This administration and much of the left live in fantasy land. Reality is bitch slapping them in the face right about now. 

And they don't see it slapping them because they are so out of touch with reality. Maybe the pilots that caused his flight to cancel were home on maternity leave.

[Blue]

10 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:

Hey Pete!

Focus on the FAA!

Careful what you ask for.  From the Seattle Times:
 

Quote

The White House is set within days to announce Phil Washington, CEO of Denver International Airport, as its nominee to be the next FAA administrator, according to two people familiar with the deliberations.

Washington’s aviation experience is relatively light. He has headed operations at the Denver airport for less than a year and has a strong track record of leadership in ground transportation at big city transit organizations.

For six years he was CEO of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the rail and bus network that carries 1.2 million passengers daily.

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Blue

[kaputt]

Not only do they not hire someone with aviation experience, they hired someone that comes from the worst transportation area in the entire country. 

[Blue]

I imagine the FAA Administrator is a tough job to staff.  The population of people with aviation experience at an executive level (whether public or private) is pretty small.  To add, the person you nominate has to want the job.  With commercial aviation reeling from Covid, Boeing's shenanigans with the MAX and 787, etc, I'd think some qualified people would respond "thanks but no thanks."

However, the reality is that, in the hierarchy of qualifications for these politically-appointed jobs, experience is pretty far down the list.  It's Identity Politics above all, which means the number one criteria Democrats are looking for is that the nominee either be a woman or a "person of color."

When you constrain the candidate pool that much, it's no surprise that you end up with candidates who have really thin qualifications.

Edited June 20, 2022 by Blue

[Danger41]

If they hire someone that tells their personnel to answer an email with something other than “call me”, I’d be happy.

Cant stand working with the FAA. 

[SocialD]

7 minutes ago, Danger41 said:

If they hire someone that tells their personnel to answer an email with something other than “call me”, I’d be happy.

Cant stand working with the FAA. 

 

Sure thing, I'll call you on my phone which will be using an automatic call recording app...talk to you soon!  

Edited June 20, 2022 by SocialD

[FLEA]

2 hours ago, Blue said:

I imagine the FAA Administrator is a tough job to staff.  The population of people with aviation experience at an executive level (whether public or private) is pretty small.  To add, the person you nominate has to want the job.  With commercial aviation reeling from Covid, Boeing's shenanigans with the MAX and 787, etc, I'd think some qualified people would respond "thanks but no thanks."

However, the reality is that, in the hierarchy of qualifications for these politically-appointed jobs, experience is pretty far down the list.  It's Identity Politics above all, which means the number one criteria Democrats are looking for is that the nominee either be a woman or a "person of color."

When you constrain the candidate pool that much, it's no surprise that you end up with candidates who have really thin qualifications.

Wouldn't that have been a good move up for Sully after he finishes as Ambassador to ICAO. 

Also random question, is Ambassador to ICAO a DoS or DoT position. 

[HuggyU2]

More like a PoS position. 

[ClearedHot]

19 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:

Hey Pete!

Focus on the FAA!  When you can get aircraft registration renewals below 5 months, let us know. 

Took me six on one and five on the other...crazy.

 

[SocialD]

5 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

Took me six on one and five on the other...crazy.

 

 

Fughhhh....guess I better get on mine.  One is due on October and the other in November!  

[nsplayr]

On 6/19/2022 at 2:24 PM, dream big said:

Not trying to be snarky, I’m genuinely curious about the logic behind this.  Would Pooter or Nsplyr like to chime in? 

No clue what the administrative law here says re: what the Secretary of Transportation has power to help with vs encourage vs incentivize vs force. I also could never find an actual video or transcript of the full interview of what Buttigieg said even after some moderate googling, appreciate any link if y'all can find it.

I am a fan of strong, capable government administration to help/incentivize/force (in that order) industry to do what's in the best interest of US persons.

Maybe we're talking more like customer service reps to cut down on call wait times and curbing some frustrating consumer-facing scheduling practices i.e. stop selling tickets for flights you know are very likely to cancel due to staffing shortages? More like, "Hey airlines, just be upfront and say 'we're staff-limited and flying a more limited schedule' and detail to the FAA/DOT a plan to staff up to meet current demand, etc.

Hard to say exactly without more expertise and context.

I mean, if Sec. Mayor Pete wants to waive the 1,500 hour limit down to ~100 hours manned fixed wing PIC time and count CSO and RPA Pilot hours for the rest, I'm more than willing to get trained up by DAL/AA/UAL/SW/FedEx/UPS and fly the friendly skies haha! That'd be +1 in the pilot pool - crisis averted 😎

Edited June 21, 2022 by nsplayr

[Danger41]

The ironic part about Buttegieg saying anything like this is that he won’t do anything that could potentially hurt him with some group later when he makes another presidential run. He’s the ordained Democrat for some reason and can’t be upsetting anyone so Americans can just deal with it.

[dream big]

11 hours ago, nsplayr said:

No clue what the administrative law here says re: what the Secretary of Transportation has power to help with vs encourage vs incentivize vs force. I also could never find an actual video or transcript of the full interview of what Buttigieg said even after some moderate googling, appreciate any link if y'all can find it.

I am a fan of strong, capable government administration to help/incentivize/force (in that order) industry to do what's in the best interest of US persons.

Maybe we're talking more like customer service reps to cut down on call wait times and curbing some frustrating consumer-facing scheduling practices i.e. stop selling tickets for flights you know are very likely to cancel due to staffing shortages? More like, "Hey airlines, just be upfront and say 'we're staff-limited and flying a more limited schedule' and detail to the FAA/DOT a plan to staff up to meet current demand, etc.

Hard to say exactly without more expertise and context.

I mean, if Sec. Mayor Pete wants to waive the 1,500 hour limit down to ~100 hours manned fixed wing PIC time and count CSO and RPA Pilot hours for the rest, I'm more than willing to get trained up by DAL/AA/UAL/SW/FedEx/UPS and fly the friendly skies haha! That'd be +1 in the pilot pool - crisis averted 😎

I figured it wasn’t just pilots, but more customer service reps.  My question is why have airlines not already done this? As it is it’s impossible to get many to work those jobs post Covid.  

I am not sure there is a legal precedence to force a company to hire workers.  You can incentivize, but forced hiring seems to set a bad precedent we don’t want to live with. 

[pawnman]

5 hours ago, dream big said:

I figured it wasn’t just pilots, but more customer service reps.  My question is why have airlines not already done this? As it is it’s impossible to get many to work those jobs post Covid.  

I am not sure there is a legal precedence to force a company to hire workers.  You can incentivize, but forced hiring seems to set a bad precedent we don’t want to live with. 

1. It's not impossible to hire people. It's impossible to hire people at the current pay level.  Offer more money, you'll get more applicants.

2. I'm curious what "forcing" airlines to hire more people looks like.  Do they go door-to-door with a SWAT team and march people to the job interviews?  How do you force the airlines to hire more people when there aren't enough applicants?