Future Pilots
Hi everybody, I hope this finds you well despite all the doom and gloom surrounding aviation and Covid.
My question, or rather an endless thought that seems to go around my mind while in isolation..... flying is in the blood, once you start, it's a love affair for life. As a student pilot all we hear about is the current weathering of the aviation industry and the anticipated lack of pportunity for us to progress into the industry post Covid.
My understanding is though, we had a pilot shortage due to a compound of issues:
1. Industry growth outstripped the global ability to train pilots. Covid hasn't dented people's confidence in flying, only taken the ability away for now. I believe a full recovery will be quite swift (provided we have ready pilots to answer the demand).
2. Certain other countries are training their students to FO or SO standard in a bid to fill the right seat to keep aircraft in the air. Progression for these pilots to Captain though will be slow as there is further training required to bring them to "Captain Ready" standard. This slows succession planning to a degree but it's a mountain that's not insurmountable.
3. An interesting statistic I read suggested that pilot influx (if not increased) was not going to match pilot retirements in the future. Sadly, the depth of knowledge leaving or stepping back in the industry was not matched by the introduction of pilots to continue to hold the mantle. How many of these seasoned, near retirement Captains and pilots are going to want to revisit their type currencies after such a long break if they're close to retirement though? (Not that I want to see distinguished pilots leave the industry, more a question of cost vs return time to the chair before having to reassess their career progression - I hope I put that tactfully enough)
My thoughts are, and I invite and appreciate further opionions, surely the future for up-and-coming pilots can't be that bad? We have an industry that suffered no hit to consumer confidence or it's ability to execute task to an excellent standard. We have a situation where a certain number of pilots are FO and SO ready but won't swiftly progress to the Captain's table and we have a question mark over the likelihood of near retirement (commercial) captains that need to evaluate their type currency, career progression and associated costs vs remaining career timeframes.......
Surely the outlook for us can't be that bad considering all of the above?