Hi YesTam
The problem is not a shortage of pilots at all. It is a shortage of pilots prepared to work for the pay offered.
What do you suggest?
Pilots are unemployable. I don’t sent the builder for training when I contracting him for work. Do you get it?
A CPL pilot with 250 hrs is unemployable. How much money can you make, with a Barron or 210 on your licence and 250 hrs TT? You cannot even pay the access insurance.
How much money can a 1000 hrs pilot ( Scullies daughter excluded) with a 208 expect ? $ 7500 per month?
How much money (if nothing brakes) can a C 208 generate in a month?
How much money can a King Air 90 or 200 generate in a month? - and on ad-hoc charters – like 40 hrs per month if you are lucky ? The income cannot even cover the instalment!
Are you aware that an aircraft is a business unit on its own?
Have you ever calculated possible income, returns on investment, maintenance, unscheduled maintenance, down time, engine, prop and gear provisions, component replacements?
Do you know that there is an upper limit what the market can pay?
Explain to me how you can make money at R 22 – 23 /km on a 1900 based on 40 -60 hrs per month. (This is more or less what the owner gets.)
How much money must go to the crew?
SAA with all the latest (100 ‘s of millions of dollars) toys in the bed are running since day one at a loss (apart from one or two years when the assists were sold and placed in the balance sheet) how many airlines in the USA are under Chapter 11? How many airlines in SA went bust the last 20 years?
The bottom line is - Commercial aviation is a pie in the sky.
TFC