So what’s the solution? Subsidising self funded CPL holders? My local club last year sold a 172 and made redundant an instructor to avoid the bank taking its assets.
Due to the fact that there is nobody self funding CPLs anymore would i be right in saying it’s now easier to get a job out there?
These are real issues.
Airlines have been consulted for a long time about the impending shortage. Unfortunately for all the paradigm of abundant supply meant any attempt to show the problem was laughed down. It was also readily evident that the apparatus set up and that included the recruiting, training, HR and IR model saw supply as a given.
Aging populations are all over the western hemisphere, the Second World War responsible for the single largest generation in history.
Just how does an airline change direction when their system cannot see the fundamental flaw in their model?
Of course there are airlines that have happy and loyal employees and readers of Pprune know that there were leaders that did things a different way. From Gordon Bethune to Herb Kelleher and closer to home Rob Fyfe airlines can control cost secure their revenue and also have happier employees. As Mr O'Leary is finding out supply is limited and money is not likely to fix their problems. Their business model needs to change, but ultimately will it? Just how an airline tackles declining supply and experience levels is going to be fascinating to watch.
For the incumbent airline CEO in Australia, as this thing bites it may well be important to remember that sincerity is very difficult to fake.
Australian airlines were smug in their own ignorance. With GA and the military, as well as the occasional shock keeping the supply of pilots nicely ahead of demand, the model they developed was designed to keep downward pressure on wages. It certainly worked.
Divisive, adversarial models may well have had their day, it will be brave CEOs that declare this and decide to unwind some of the more complex administrative empires their businesses possess.