It only feels like yesterday when I was in the same position as you guys.I started my training in 1989 and when I became qualified Air Europe and Dan Air went bust. There were 600 qualified pilots actively seeking work and of course guys like myself were at the bottom of the list. It took me 4 years to get my first flying job when the glut finally reduced. I now work for a major U.K. long haul airline and once again pilots will be flooding the market in unprecedented amounts. This crisis will only go away with a vaccine. It started with one case 5 months ago there are now 4 million, we locked down with 3000 in the U.K. and unlocking with 300K, now I’m not a mathematician but it doesn’t take a genius to work out how serious this will become over the next 5 months it can only get worse.
The airlines are delusional when they predict only a 40% reduction in passenger travel over the next 12 months. The airlines are losing millions per week and the government loans will only give them about 8 months breathing space before they are back to square one. This is only phase one of redundancies and many more will follow after September when the passengers don’t return in sufficient numbers, aviation will never be the same again because without a vaccine in the next 12 months airlines will fail and recovery will take a minimum of 5 years to recover but once again only with a cure. Although I hope to survive this first round of redundancies sadly I am not confident that I will ever fly again. My advice is think very carefully about starting your training anytime soon, wait for a vaccine and then start and by the time you finish you may be in the right position to get your dream job. Good luck