US Airways Flight 1549 Officer Pushes for Better Training

US Airways First Officer Jeff Skiles, who accompanied Capt. Sully Sullenberger on the Jan. 15 flight of US Airways Flight 1549 which landed safely in the Hudson River, is pushing for better pilot training. He spoke in Moore, S.C., Thursday, Nov. 5, with Scott Maurer, who lost his 30-year-old daughter, Lorin, in the crash of Continental Flight 3407 near Buffalo, N.Y.

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Tags:

• US Airways
• Flight 1549
• Sully Sullenberger
• Hudson plane crash
• buffalo plane crash
• flight 3407
• jeff skiles
• air safety
• airlines
• aviation
• pilot training
• moore
• sc
• south carolina
• spartanburg
• scott maurer
• lorin maurer

[bravobravo74]

The problem is that the travelling public expects cheap airline travel. If the customers were willing to pay more to travel (as was the case when airline transport began) then airlines would be able to hire more pilots in a bid to spread out flying duties amongst the crews. A higher industry salary would also attract high quality individuals into the field - the types of people that aviation is currently losing to law and medicine.

[Outlaw1257]

@marick626 Flying has always been expensive, and it's always been "exorbitantly expensive" in relationship to a dollar's buying power.

What concerns me is a pilot's sense of judgment. Taking out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans to get a job that literally pays what Captain Jeff described as "fast food wages"? A co-pilot's staring salary of $16,000. per year pays about $8.25 per hour.

[marick626]

it would be fine that the airlines required first officers to have an ATP if the cost of training wasn't so extremely expensive. Jeff Skiles learned to fly a couple of years ago. Right now, in 2010, you need an arm and a leg to pay for flight training. I mean, literally, renting an airplane just for training can reach over $200 an hour.