The UK leaving EASA makes it even worse on making a decision to start....
Saved 8 years for the full training to end up in this difficult phase... age is also playing a role now 34..
time to throw the towel in
34 is not too old to throw in the towel. I routinely train people in their mid to late 40's and early 50's at a regional airline. Starting at 34 might not beget top the list seniority or pay, but you'll at least stop yourself from regret later in life - at least, that's what they all tell me.
With that said, this crisis is not one to push to the side; it is getting more serious with each passing hour and it definitely should form part of your decision-making process. If you can afford flying and a trade, do that. Then you have something to fall back on. A new, green future will need electricians and computer engineers, so those are professions you can take to the bank.
But, I agree with the likes of PFD that this is being blown way out of proportion and people will still need to travel, but with Italy closing its borders and the U.S announcing all flights from Europe will stop at the end of the week for a period of time, we are rapidly approaching a point where the airline industry was post-9/11, with all the capacity reductions and groundings. As the CEO of Southwest said today, this is being driven by fear, plain and simple. Remove the fear and we'll be back to normal fairly quickly.
It took the industry a solid 5 to 7 years to recover from 9/11, although there is certainly an argument to say it has yet to recover. Things were also different back then. Airlines were only just starting down the massive growth path we've seen in the industry in the last 15 years, south-east Asia was quietly taking-off, and pilots were talking about the pilot shortage as a theory that was supposed to come to pass in 5 years. If there is a silver lining to all of this Coronavirus stuff today, it's that all those things have happened - there has been massive growth, Asia took off, and the pilot shortage is here. It's similar yet very different this time around. Right now many airlines have stopped hiring and lay-offs are being discussed, but the genuine hope is that early retirements and voluntary leaves will be enough. They might not be, and lay-offs may happen, but it should be less than it otherwise would be were there not so many retirements. I'm high enough on my seniority list to ensure I'll be locking a door if the worst comes to pass, but I'm hesitantly optimistic that things will be back to pre-pilot shortage normals in about a year and a half to two years and back to the way things were in November in about five years.
So what does that mean to student pilots? Well, if you're just finishing your training, you get to have a start to your career like I did in July 2001. You might get your first job and first lay-off before the quarter is done. It might take you a couple of years to get back into it. But you'll get there in the end. If you're not picky and are willing to move off your continent, things have a way of working out.
If you're just starting your training, don't worry too much about it. You don't have the licenses anyway, so you couldn't apply for a job even if you wanted to. Once you're done in a couple of years, the dust will have settled - assuming, of course, the Russians and Saudis play nice - and the industry will be moving again. Maybe slowly and maybe such that you too will have to go off the continent, but that's the beauty of the modern world - people still need to travel.