Originally Posted by
CurtainTwitcher
Toga, as pilots age, the rate of medical terminations increases significantly. Each Captain who retires or leaves medically generates a significant number of training courses behind them. One A380/B747 Captain retirement could generate 5+ training course behind them. The consequence of this that as both the rate of growth and retirements increase, there is a disproportinate backlog of training. You could potentially have 5~10% of pilots in training at any one time.
The peculiarities of this seniority system, and the implications & consequences appear to have escaped senior management, and the delay in training & recruitment back in 2015 has put them significantly on the back of the drag curve. The training system then became clogged and further exacerbated the issue and increased significantly time off line in the training system (6 to 9 months to do a type course), a training death spiral
Good Points Curtaintwitcher.
The Retirement numbers listed by Keg are at best conservative.Higher numbers are actually retiring due medicals or pilots leaving before they MUST retire. With the pilot shortage pilots are flying maximum divisors and that’s putting pressure on all pilots too. Many have left prior to retirement age.
As Keg mentioned the numbers get pretty large anyway.
They also assume little to no growth. Regardless as Cpt Curtain mentioned each retirement requires multiple training slots to cover the multiple movements.
The pilot academy will take many years to provide the hundreds of pilots that Alan Joyce has said Qantas will need annually.