Originally Posted by
Rated De
The data sets we have reviewed suggest strongly that an economic downturn will not do a great deal to address the demographic structural shortage.
If the answer to these questions is that management may have finally realised a shortage is real and sustained...
RD,
Correct for the USA for sure on the first statement. The attrition out the top is so high that laying off people in the inevitable economic hiccup will likely be unnecessary for quite a while at the career-destination level.
As for management awareness, what can ya say ? Every airline knows the exact moment a pilot will retire under existing regulatory structure the moment he's hired. And companies, unions and trade organizations collect this data so
EVERYONE knows the score. Yet they've done nothing to prepare despite the evidence of a coming tsunami ?
So now they're scrambling ? They'll have to look elsewhere than me for any sympathy. Maybe they'll be able to overcome their misjudgement (I'm being kind) considering the infrastructure we have here in the USA...and have had for 50+ years at the university level, to say nothing of the countless commercial training operations:
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While the case can be made that it's not the airlines' job to produce applicants at the front gate, they do have fleets to crew. Do they want to keep them crewed when the long range data has shown for decades a rather significant deficit was inevitable ? Some carriers here are trying to regain some equilibrium by spawning new blood into the field. Time will reveal their success.
Of course, given the bad press the career has gotten in recent years, getting people to jump into the fray at any level might be a bit uphill ? That's a whole other subject.
Maybe the sky-is-falling shortage, media attention will move some fence sitters in a necessary direction.
In the meantime,
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