Flight training stupidity

[foghorn]

I'm commenting on this thread a little too late, but, as ever, RVR is bang on the mark.

There are of the order of 6,000 airline jobs* in the UK and 14,000 medically fit UK-based holders of a CPL or higher**.

That means there are 8,000 people qualified for airline jobs, who are not currently employed in the UK in an airline job. These people are:

- flying overseas
- instructing/meatbombing/taxi/towing gliders/bizjets/other GA
- not flying professionally

Now some of these GA flyers will not be interested in an airline job (often older GA pros), some pilots flying overseas will have no current plans to return to the UK, and some people who are not flying professionally will have almost given up on their dreams but will be keeping a valid medical to fly privately (I slip inexorably closer to this category with time).

However even stripping out these people from the magic 8,000 number, that still leaves a hell of a lot of people chasing jobs.

And that is before any influx of European-based JAA licence holders are taken into account (which anecdotally seems to be often more a net import of pilots).

On top of that, between 100 and 400 new CPL/IRs are issued in the UK every year ***.

Anyone entering training at this point in time has to be aware of the scale of these numbers. Had I appreciated the scale of these numbers a few years ago, I'd have thought a lot harder about getting a professional licence (I'd have probably got a PPL/SEIR and flown privately). However I committed to professional training right in the middle of the hiring boom, prospects seemed different then.

The problem is, despite the high cost of entry to the market, we are slipping toward the situation that has dogged Australia and New Zealand: way too many people with the motivation and access to the necessary funds for professional pilot training, compared to the number of professional pilots required.

It's a tough decision. Best of luck whatever decision you take.

cheers!
foggy.


* Estimate I've seen made before, based on doubling BA's pilot headcount.

** CAA's own figures of professional fixed wing licence holders who hold valid class one medicals last renewed at a UK-based AME - these are the closest data to the numbers of UK-based commercial pilots that are in the public domain.

*** CAA's own figures for IR issue to professional fixed wing licence holders.