Originally Posted by
UAV689
Just where is there going to be a job in europe over the next couple of years with all this experience looking for work.
You answered your question, not with the current airlines/brands you recognise.
There will be thousands, probably tens of thousands of flying jobs over the next 5 years, but none, bar the
odd cargo one for the next 2. An incomprehensible number of airlines
will go bust, maybe not today, but soon. They’ll come out of this so
riddled with debt; this will open up many
many opportunities new solvent airlines to form. They’ll be able to buy slots, planes and crew very very cheap, on far worse terms than those employed now are on. There will be thousands of pilots looking for work around Europe and these new airlines will need to take on many experienced guys. To a guy that was earning 200k was a captain at BA made redundant from the 747, after a year on job seekers he’ll be chomping at the bit to be paid 40 or 50k a year to be a first officer at Covid-air (or whatever the new companies are going to be called). There will be plenty of jobs by 2025 for experienced guys, but these airlines will need to create a bit of an experience base before they can start recruiting low houred pilots or cadets.
My airline (easyJet) will certainly be around in a years time, but three or five years time? I’m not sure I fancy those odds. We’ll have so much debt in order to survive this that any profit we make will just be repaying the debt. That’s whilst the new
debt free competition can undercut us on price as they’ve bought a repossessed Airbus for 10m instead of the 50m we’ve paying for ours. Their flight deck will cost 100k a year as opposed to the 250k a year a crew at easyJet costs. No amount of government loaning is going to solve our/the upcoming debt crisis. We’re built to fly 100m passengers this year, anything less than perhaps 75m will undoubtably result in a massive loss. If we carry 50m between now and the end of 2021, it will frankly be a miracle, although I imagine the total might disturbingly be lower than that. Time will of course tell, but precise figures won’t solve the debt crisis.
Would anybody be able to hazard a guess as to what a used A380 might be going for today? The list price was $400m. I’d be very surprised if anyone would be willing to pay more than $60-100m today. There are going to be massive winners out of this, but the brands you recognise I’m afraid, aren’t going to be the champions.
Many threads on here are asking experienced pilots what they’d do after having to end their aviation careers early. My advice would be to write a business plan for the launch of an entirely new low cost airline. There will be an absolute fortune to be made, but not in the past.