break_break
I agree wholeheartedly with what you said there. The crux of the "pilot shortage" is without doubt derived at reducing the costs inside the flight deck.
I could just imagine the conversations between Mr Boeing and ACME airlines.
ACME: I would love to buy some more A/C from you Mr Boeing but these pesky pilots simply cost us too much money.
Mr. Boeing: If I could reduce the cost of your flight deck would you then buy these additional A/C?
ACME: Sure would, if you could halve the cost of the flight deck I would double my order with you.
Mr. Boeing: Leave it with me...
"Voila" press release detailing huge shortage for pilots hence flooding the market with hopefuls desperate to get a job, T's & C's go down the toilet.
Mission accomplished!
Just for a laugh I thought I would crunch some numbers..(it's only for a bit of fun guys/gals so please don't go all matter of fact on me, glaring omissions are accepted)
Mr. Boeing says:
Europe needs ~100,000 pilots over the next 20 years.
100,000/20 = 5,000 per year, sounds a lot?? Well that is for the whole of Europe.
Wikipedia states that Europe as we know it is now ~740,000,000 with 50 countries.
The UK is one of those with a population of ~61,000,000.
(61M/740M)x100= ~8.2% of the total population.
From the
CAA website it shows that for the last 5 years or so they have been issuing ~1300 CPL(A)'s per year. So....
(1300/5000)x100=26%!!!!
I appreciate the UK perhaps has a larger aviation industry than some of the countries in Europe but 26%, I sincerely doubt it.
On a closing note maybe some of you guys/gals from other European countries can look at your own CAA's especially in the larger countries to see how many CPL's they're issuing? I'm sure that the top 5 largest players in Europe are already spewing out way more than the 5000 required per year to fulfil this forecasted demand.