Who else wants to go to China?

Well, it's happened Hawker Beechcraft has been sold to Superior Aviation Beijing Co. Which begs the question as to who else has left to go to China...For a while China has had issues with their General Aviation, one blogger states that China is behind the curve and doesn't really know where to begin in order to bring General Aviation up to where the U.S. is. To me it makes perfect sense that China is purchasing U.S. manufacturers, how else are they going to learn the ways to have a successful world of aviation, and who is better to learn from then the leader? Today the Cessna Skycatcher is built in China and shipped on over to the U.S.. This saves the company $71,000 in production costs PER AIRCRAFT. Even though they save about 40% in cost on the down side over 650 jobs were lost in the plants of Wichita and Bend Oregon and that was just at the beginning of the sale over to China. By the end of it all over 8,000 jobs were lost in America so that the Skycatcher could be built in China...thank you China.

Now China is starting to learn our ways of how we are able to have a successful world of General Aviation they are starting to grow just like the U.S. When there's a company building faster and safer aircrafts people are going to be more willing to buy them, and that could be what China is going for. Having a safer GA there so they can make even more money off of us silly pilots.

One thing I've noticed with a few other companies that have ties with China is that they are just ties. China hasn't fully taken over. Just like the Cessna Skycatcher, China is only building that one type aircraft. They're not designing them and their not building all of the Cessna aircrafts. This seems to be the way with other companies like Cessna, China is only doing a part of it in order to reduce cost and in return making it more affordable for those looking to purchase.

If what I think is happening with China's GA actually happens this could potentially be bad news for the U.S. GA. More and more jobs will be moved and some might even go to China in order to purchase an aircraft completely Chinese made instead of keeping at least a portion of the money here in the States. But let's be honest here, what hasn't China partially taken over? It comes down to the person running the company if they're a gung-ho American lover or if they would rather keep some more green in their pocket.

Comair or Comsink?

Back in the 70s a couple of guys got together and purchased some Piper Navajo and flew out of Cincinnati. With their growth they purchased more and more aircrafts and became a public company in the early 80s. It wasn't until 1984 that they became a Delta Connection carrier and by 1999 Delta fully owned Comair and from then on Delta has owned Comair until it's resent closure. The story as to why they were shut down is because it wasn't financially smart to keep them running. The smaller regional airplanes cost more since they are not as fuel efficient, not to mention that as these planes age the cost to maintain them and keep them airworthy was almost not worthy (haha!). Another reason why Comair got the short stick in it all is that they weren't all that busy. From Detroit about 6% of the departing flights were from Comair and only 1% in Atlanta. The loss of jobs is devastating especially for the Cincinnati Kentucky area since they employed approximately 1,700 people.

The future for Regional Airlines is rather dark. Even though they account for almost half of the Nations schedules flights the costs are outweighing the profit forcing airlines to shut their regional down and closing the small routes. Because of all of the extreme prices the airlines are having to prioritize where their money goes. The major airports have more of a demand for the not only the airlines money but their attention as well causing the Regional Carriers to go on the back burner.

Coming from a Pilot who might have to take a job at the Regionals in order to build hours and reach higher jobs I hope that the major airlines will find a more suitable purpose in order to keep them alive. Comair may no longer operate however most Regional Carriers are merging together such as Pinnacle and Mesaba or SkyWest and ExpressJet. Hopefully this will aid in keeping the Regional Carriers alive and moving.

From this point I decided to look into First Officer jobs at the Regional level. I finally found a site that didn't require my money in order to look at the job posts and found out that CommutAir is hiring. The starting pay is low but somewhat normal for the first year at a Regional Carrier as a First Officer. Starting at $23-$25 an hour which may require me to live with my parents for a bit but I'm sure they won't mind and would enjoy my company. Plus who doesn't enjoy mama's cooking?