Hi all, I just wanted to post what I and many others think the reality of the situation is.
I hear alot of the UK modular flight schools saying now is the best time to train with one particular one in the Midlands putting out false advertising on their website.
Starting to train now is not a good idea! This advertising is
100% FALSE. I know personally one of the main recruitment team members for BA and they are not expecting any sort of recovery for 6-7 years and
any recruitment will be from the pilots they sacked who are in a holding pool while they are working elsewhere, these are not cadets, they are A320 type rated pilots who have been flying for years.
FACT CHECK
Here is some of the reality (numbers approx), are loads more, is a recent article from BALPA saying job losses are 10,000 approx, also seen another article that it is more than 15,000, this is Europe alone and I have missed loads of airlines out and numbers reported are often lower than they are, NO ONE knows the actual truth unless they work in the airline:
Approx Pilot Losses
1961 Norwegian
120 pilots at Jet2
295 SAS
349 SunExpress
313 Icelandair
300 BA (over 10,000 job cuts in total)
235 Wizzair
226 CityJet
212 Air Italy
95 Ryanair
185 Air Baltic
200 Lufthansa
120 Brussles Airlines
170 CAE Parc
55 Airtanker
30 Belgium
150 LaudaAir
400 Cathay (8,500 in total)
Monarch Airlines, 35 aircraft, c500 pilots (2,300 total employees) ceased trading October 2017
Thomas Cook, 117 aircraft, c1,000 pilots (9,000 UK employees and 29,000 employees worldwide) ceased trading September 2019
Flybe, 80 aircraft, c750 pilots, (2,500 total employees) ceased trading March 2020
Trans Airlines (USA) ceased trading March 2020
Compass Airlines (USA) ceased trading March 2020
Virgin Australia ceased trading April 2020
Avianca (Columbia) filed for bankruptcy
Also gone under in 2019
- Adria Airways (Slovenia)
- Air Philip (South Korea)
- Aerolineas de Antioquia (Colombia)
- Aigle Azur (France)
- Al Naser Wings Airline (Iraq)
- Asian Express Airline (Tajikistan)
- Avianca Argentina (Argentina)
- Avianca Brazil (Brazil)
If that isnt enough, look at the aircraft parked in the dessert it is full of BIG aircraft 777s and A380s, I heard that Emirates have just sacked another 300 A380 pilots, its complete and utter carnage! For pilots that have kept their job, serious paycuts on allowances etc.
My current company has cancelled all business travel for 12-18 months minimum, shut down an office which used to hold 3,000 people and made everyone home based and use Zoom for calls etc. COVID has vastly accelerated the death of the high street and home working beyond what anyone was expecting. Business travel is unlikely to recover EVER, the CEO of Barclays said home working is going to be the future and we will need to travel less. Flights will be for holidays of course and cargo will increase as online shopping reaches new levels and people are more conscious of damage to environment so fly less before 2020 happened!
On top of this a UK licence and its status needs some time to work out how it fits into the new Europe and indeed post COVID world.
Spending £70,000-£120,000 on pilot training is a
very poor investment so do yourself and your family a favor, spend your hard earned cash on another career and see how the land lies in at least 5 years.
If you are a parent dont put yourself through it many better stable careers out there, you will dodge a bullet!