Here's my 'unexperty' prediction: there will be a spike in acft accidents in the next two decades due to appalling training quality of pilot factories and lack of experienced pilots (from zero to hero, skipping some basic maths in between). The future captain will be either a guy who started flying A320 when he was 16, 'cos his parents owned one, or a guy, who was a fitness coach, saved some money, and paid for his job.
The truth is that the training courses that many of the major FTO's to cadet programmes provide, are far from "appalling" and far exceed what it is either available in the general marketplace, or what existed years ago. I have worked with the "product" of these programmes for some 15 years now. Those 250 hour
cadets are todays 10,000 hour captains! They are neither poorly trained, nor are they inexperienced.
In order to make sensible predictions for the next two decades, you need to understand the evolution of the last two decades. A lot of people simply refuse to do that because it doesn't suit their own model. To get a foot in the door, you must first know where the door is! Airlines are buying their pilots from two sources (in varying degrees.) They are buying experience or they are buying trainees from sources they trust. Although the balance has changed over the last two decades, fundamentally this has always been the case.
Two decades ago, the only 250 hour commercial pilots in the UK, where from approved training schools. In the majority of cases those pilots were yesterdays
cadets. Beyond that, a
wannabe commercial pilot needed to amass over 700 hours for a basic commercial licence. That was only possible for the majority by working their way up through instructing, or the few general aviation opportunities that were available. Having the opportunity usually meant that the world didn't stop at the 700 hour point. yesterdays instructor/ GA pilot /CPL/IR holder would often go on to acquire the basic couple of thousand hours that provided an invitation to the
big boys party! Whilst it provided a well worn path to the airlines, it wasn't a universal success. A couple of thousand hours instructing or GA flying provided
experience, but it didn't always provide a good product for the airlines. The training background was often patchy, inconsistent and subject to rectification in remedial training later on.
When JAR resulted in the CPL experience level being reduced from 700 hours (other than approved schools) to 250 hours, it simply stripped a third of the "bulk hours" experience from new CPL/IR holders. This "aerial work" licence was now the basic requirement to instruct, or to do many of those GA stepping stone jobs that existed previously. The airlines didn't generally reduce their experience requirements, nor did they need to.
Recruitment continued to select the previous experience base. That being comprised of military service career changers, and experienced pilots in the market for new opportunities. The change came at the entry level. Growth came in this sector of the market from an evolution of the previous "approved schools." The established names and a few new entrants to this market, offered airlines a well trained
cadet product, whereby the risk was shifted from the airline to the cadet themselves. Despite a long and succesful history in a small segment of the marketplace, these new programmes were initially viewed with some scepticism. Nevertheless, that scepticism proved largely unfounded, and these cadet programmes supplied an ever growing proportion of many airlines new pilot requirements.
The general economic downturn has simply masked much of this reality. Whilst certain sectors of the market have continued to grow, there has been widespread stagnation in a lot of it. Airlines (like most businesses) have sought to survive, by cutting costs wherever feasible. This has then been passed down to their suppliers, and is also reflected in the general
T&C's on offer to new and current employees. Although it is still very patchy, when growth returns, the mask is lifted, the economic lessons are still a painful reminder, and the pre-recession new realities will return even more aggresively than where they left off.
The quaint notion that things will somehow revert back to where they were two decades ago, is simply nonsense. They can't because the fundamentals have changed. The mask that this current economic downturn provides, is a set of hoardings. If you find a crack and peek behind those hoardings, you will see investment and reorganisation going on at many of these large FTO's in preparation for the expansion that they intend to profit from.
Evolution is about the need to adapt in order to survive in a changing environment. The marketplace has evolved. The regulatory environment has evolved. The commercial priorities of the large industry players has evolved. Those that seek success in this business need to understand these realities and evolve themselves. Hiding under a rock and hoping it will all go away, isn't likely to be a succesful formula.
Speaking as somebody with no axe to grind and having been lucky enough to have forged a very good career from this industry, I would most definitely approach things from a different way 35 years later! I am flying with people who have adapted to these realities. They have embarked on good career paths. They recognise that whatever the realities, they are also very lucky.