I got involved in flying in the late 80’s which was a time when Irish airlines were actually phoning people with lapsed Commercial licenses and asking them if they wanted flying jobs. When I sat my PPL exams there were 4 people in the same hall sitting their ATPL exams.
With an upswing in the market, EI started their cadet scheme again and the numbers of people sitting exams rocketed, there were at least 100 people there when I sat my Commercial exams.
In the early 90’s, the Gulf War, the Australian pilots strike, the demise of a number of UK airlines together with Pan Am and Eastern, pilot jobs became incredibly scarce. The ones that were available were going to experienced crews. It took around 3-4 years before we started the next upswing.
The aviation industry is still on the way down, the
Guv has written about this looming recession for months, but no one wanted to listen to him. We are going to see a lot more airlines going broke in the next 6 months with a lot of people losing their jobs. In the 90’s pilots escaped to the Middle East and Asia, but these options no longer exist, EK are the only Middle Eastern airline hiring groups of pilots, the Asian airlines are scaling down.
I am therefore pleased when I read comments by
WWW and
Scoggs, they are telling you the truth based on what they have seen in their aviation careers. You don’t have to listen to them, after all it is your money and time that you are investing, but you must do it with the knowledge that the days of walking into the right seat of a jet airliner with 200 hrs are GONE. They will come again, all that you have to do is make sure that you have a way to pay back your loans until that day.
Finally getting back to the original topic, I remember a comment attributed to the owner of IONA, (Defunct flight school in Dublin.) he believed in the late 80’s that he could get instructors to pay for the privilege of instructing in order to build hours. I don’t know if he ever tried this plan, but he wouldn’t have had any problems finding volunteers.
Good Luck and welcome to the wonderful world of aviation..
Mutt.
