After a handful of applications being rejected for myself and my colleagues, after meeting numerous jobless pilots during the airline interviews, I am trying to understand, how it is possible that the industry experiences the shortage of pilots, even though there are loads of licence holders ready to fly and unable to get a position. Hence, after many thoughts I would like you (newbies and experienced pilots) to express your opinions about the pilots' shortage issue. Is it real? Does the airline industry actually needs that many pilots? Or is it just a campaign induced by the airline industry, flight training organisations and aircraft manufacturers to support their revenue by increasing number of pilots trained and reducing their wages at airlines?
Interesting one. I have lived through several projected "pilot shortages” and they seemed similar to other shortages, like water and food, where the underlying problem was distribution rather than an absolute lack of resources. There is also the issue in our market where one unemployed pilot = surplus but one less than required = cancelled flights, plus the fact that aircraft manufacturers are always extremely bullish about future demand/production, which drives a lot of the “we need X more pilots in the next Y years” stuff.
Things *may* be a little different this time round as there will be significant numbers of the most experienced pilots leaving the industry in the coming decade - you can tell a slight squeeze is happening already as for the right candidates, some of the contracts in places like China are having the T&Cs ramped up considerably. This doesn’t immediately help those down at the 200hr level but it is an encouraging sign.
Back in the day, there were three main routes into the airlines: self-improver/GA, military and airline sponsored. Now, it’s much more difficult/expensive to come in by the hours-building route, the militaries have been sucked almost dry and most airlines have got greedy and let private concerns make a “product” for them. The last item I think will be the most problematic as it has divorced supply from demand: as long as they’re making money the schools are happy to churn out pilots but that is constrained to those who are able to pay for it in the first place. There are rumours of some carriers starting up cadet schemes but the lead times from having the idea to someone qualified and sitting in the RHS are long.
The final problem is that being a somewhat cyclical industry, historically the growth/shrinkage of airline capacity has been rather out of phase with pilot supply, in that you train up a load of pilots and by the time they’re ready to do the jobs they aren't there any more...