"Do you think the upgrade time will actually increase to 6-8 years ? Carriers all around the world are ordering extra planes, those need to be filled with crews. Yes they might employ DEFO's but when the demand gets high will they not upgrade SO's faster too ? There might be a pilot shortage in the next decadeh
Demand for airline pilots set to soar - USATODAY.com"
This is a very good article and I want to thank you for providing this link. Personally I take these kinds of articles, hyping this so called “pilot shortage” with a grain of salt as I have seen stuff like this for many years. Back in the mid 90’s when I went to Embry-Riddle, their freshman recruiting pamphlets were filled with graphs and projections of how fast the aviation sector would grow and how many pilots the airlines would need. If you read some of this stuff, you would get the sense that all the airlines would need pilots so bad, they would send recruiters to ERAU’s graduation ceremony and “pluck” them as they walk off with a degree.
The reality is, there was never a real “pilot shortage”. It seems something always happened; 9/11, bankruptcies of the big carriers, rise in fuel costs, Lehman, AIG etc etc. I believe there are still a lot of challenges ahead which may not make this “pilot shortage” happen ever. For one, with the military (US) winding down coupled with more use of drone aircraft, they will need less pilots (in cockpit) and hence there will be larger pool of highly qualified pilots coming into the commercial market as the military downsizes. There will be lower growth in the economies of US, Europe and even Asia (to include China and India) in the coming years. IATA just predicted a 29% drop in revenue in global air travel in 2012 due to the global economic slow down. It seems the average consensus from economists believe the US and EU will not recover until 2015 at best. I also believe that in the distant future (maybe next 15-30 years) it maybe very likely we will see the cockpit crew reduced to one from the current two. This may sound outrageous but if you think about it, back just 10 years ago, there were quite a few planes flying around the world with a crew of three, 30 years ago, there were commercial airliners still flying with as many five (pilot, co-pilot, engineer, navigator and radio operator). Also, I am sure eventually the technology you find in military drones, will make its way into civil aircraft just like the many other technology before it (ie fly-by wire). It is amazing what automation can do at the expense of humans. Lastly, there are still pilots on furlough, unemployed pilots and tons of pilots who forked out a pretty penny so they can earn a CPL. Active pilots in US alone, 125,738 have CPL, 144,600 with ATP, I would think that is a large pool of candidates.
Now, this whole China and India and how they will need thousands of aircraft and tens of thousands of pilots a year just to fill those cockpit… The truth is, they can find the pilots they need through their military (like most countries in Asia) and they are sending their own nationals overseas for flight training and building their own flight schools/programs as well. What they will need for the time being are experienced pilots, particularly captains, people with tons of PIC time. I can assure you, once these countries fill their cockpits with the right experience and talent with their own nationals, they will no longer need any expat pilots and the expats will be the first to be let go if there are any downsizing. So basically, unless if you are a mainland Chinese or an Indian or a captain with tons of PIC times, you will not be able to enjoy the boom in their pilot hiring.
So with all this, my conclusion is, although a pilot shortage would be nice, don’t expect it to automatically happen. The airline is a very cyclical industry. In good times, the airlines make billions, but bad times they lose billions. I have a very good friend who worked as a vice president for various departments in Lockheed in past 30 years on some very neat projects (and some highly top secret and he would only give me bits and pieces of info as teaser). He said after the L-1011 flop, they did market analysis to determine if it was feasible to design and market more commercial aircraft. He ordered a study of the airline profitability through a span of a couple of decades and found that the net profit within the time frame for all the major airline was slightly negative. Another words, in simplistic terms, the study added up all the profits and minus all the losses of all major carriers within so many years and found they actually lost money overall, as opposed to many other industries (manufacturing, services, IT etc) that had an overall profit. Keep in mind too that this study was done around early 80’s when airlines had a better margin not the cut throat environment it is now. So even if you do see some signs of a pilot shortage, pilots being hired at a “record” pace, remember, the bad times will come for the airlines like it always has. It is a matter of when, and when it does, this “pilot shortage” will never matter.