Boeing reports that Asia will need 240,000 pilots in next 20 years [Archive]

DODGYOLDFART

30th Aug 2018, 22:49

Before we get to fully pilotless we will see the advent of the "cockpit minder" on about half the pay of a current 1st Officer.

No I am not dreaming that is exactly what happened with the first generation of robots and NC machines back in the 1960's. Machine minders looked after the robots and if anything went wrong they knew where the big red "STOP" button was and pushed it. Not much skill required in that and my guess is that flying will go the same way.

I learned to fly on gliders (CCF) and got my PPL on Tiger Moths where the two most useful instruments in the aircraft were your backside and your eyes. Later progressing to more complex aircraft where it could take quite awhile to find your way around all the switches and dials, never mind all the mind blowing calculations you had to do in your head regarding route, weather, C of G, etc. Then along came round one of automation, GPS and the little disk you stuck in the dashboard which took most of the fun out of flying.

I doubt I will get to see it but my guess is we will see the advent of something like the cockpit minder in the not too distant future. God help us!

Lookleft

30th Aug 2018, 23:08

On the one hand Boeing are saying 240,000 pilots in the next 20 years and on the other they are saying that they are developing autonomous aircraft within a similar timescale. They are hyping up the pilot numbers to generate business for their training centres while at the same time hyping up the time frame for no pilot aircraft which would make their training centres redundant! Maybe the autonomous aircraft hype is for the benefit of airline CEO's who can see a big performance bonus for reducing staffing KPIs. The reality of both predictions will be borne out by the next generation of narrow body aircraft designs. If Boeing commit to autonomous aircraft production and the airlines commit to firm orders then we will know which area of the Boeing business has won the argument. Until then the current pilot shortage and the exit of experienced pilots over the next 10 years from the industry is still an airline CEO's reality.

Icarus2001

31st Aug 2018, 01:51

Cargo ships ply the oceans and when leaving and arriving in port they are taken over by local marine pilots who guide the ship in as they have local knowledge.
This means of transport is predictable and moves in two dimensions. It would be ripe for automation but that is not happening.

Trains run on FIXED tracks and in some places are driverless but this is not widespread. I think that is because the passengers want someone up the front who has a vested interest in getting there safely.

So until both of these forms of transport are largely autonomous then pilotless aircraft are just a wet dream of people like MOL. Even the so called US drone aircraft have pilots in a room in the US. They are remotely controlled.

Boeing need to glass up? What does that mean?

racedo

31st Aug 2018, 12:22

Ultimately it will come down to cost and afraid that is what is the driver of it.

A 100 fleet SH carrier will need circa 12 qualified pilots per aircraft on average, and assumming cost is $200k a year each that includes Salary, Taxes, training costs etc etc then that is £200-250 million dollar cost per year.

Assumming Boeing / Airbus can roll this out and I believe they can and will then their is a real benefit to airline owners.

The arguement will be passenger worries.............. well post 9/11 nobody in Europe wanted to fly on an aircraft, Ryanair introduce 1p fares and people overcome their worries very quickly for a cheap fare.

I would expect 2-3 years iof transition where Pilots are present in the cockpit but from first introduction I would expect 10 years before we have automated fleets in many countries.

Circa 2040 is probably not unrealistic.

captbod

31st Aug 2018, 12:26

As long as those Pilots are under 55.

wiggy

31st Aug 2018, 14:08

I would expect 2-3 years iof transition where Pilots are present in the cockpit but from first introduction I would expect 10 years before we have automated fleets in many countries.

Circa 2040 is probably not unrealistic.

? So you are expecting to see the first autonomous but manned flights in passenger operation in 10 to 12 years from now, with automated fleets in many countries by 2040?

DODGYOLDFART

31st Aug 2018, 14:14

Don't forget guys that the automation will not be just in the aircraft but also on the ground as well. This will require common international standards for infrastructure and I do not see that happening over night.

Falck

31st Aug 2018, 14:41

It is a selling argument for Boeing. If you produce toy airplanes. And you want to sell those all over the world.
you have to make sure that there are enough batteries to go with your toyplane. Otherwise the toyplane does not work.

So, Boeing is makeing sure that the supply of pilots will not dry out by promising big pilot numbers.
As long as there are pilots sleeping in carparks and paying for their training there is no pilot shortage. Boeing likes
to keep the market as it is. Cheap pilots/Batteries will sell their toy airplanes better than expensive Batteries/Pilots.
Same is valid for Airbus.

MPL was invented by Boeing. With their training provider Alteon. If you want to sell Airplanes, you need pilots.
cheap and a lot.

Falck

Rabski

31st Aug 2018, 17:40

? So you are expecting to see the first autonomous but manned flights in passenger operation in 10 to 12 years from now, with automated fleets in many countries by 2040?

Dreamland.

The entire infrastructure needs to be in place, worldwide, before full automation becomes reality, and it's not going to happen that fast.

Automation is fine when everything goes to plan. It's all fine and good saying that when a robotic production line goes t*ts up you can push a red button and it all stops, but it's not quite that simple if you're at 20,000 ft with one engine out and aiming for the nearest long enough runway with serious crosswinds.

Chronus

31st Aug 2018, 17:54

Seems bbc got it from:

https://www.boeing.com/commercial/market/pilot-technician-outlook/2018-pilot-outlook/

But the numbers don`t match. For Asia-Pacific it is 261,000 and for World Demand 790000.
Maybe they are working on a mass production assembly line to produce pilots. More likely is this forecast will be the excuse for pilotless aircraft. Namely the numbers required not achievable so the only way ahead is full automation with ground control for back up.

FBW390

31st Aug 2018, 18:07

I understand many students are not interested to invest in the huge cost and difficulty of training when the salaries they could expect later are not that high…Or simply really low…

The airlines are short of pilots ? Well, why don’t they start paying for the training of their own ab initio students ?

And to keep and attract good, rated, experienced Captains and FOs, why don’t they increase their salaries, Terms and Conditions ? They prefer buying new airplanes and watch them idle on the apron ?

About China, why do they make an insanely difficult Medical ? An insanely difficult sim check ? An insanely difficult amount of paperwork to fill ?

There is no shortage of pilots for the airlines that really pay and respect their cockpit crews. And they’re not only national carriers…

ZeroOneTwo

31st Aug 2018, 18:45

It’ll be interesting when the lack of pilots constrains airline growth, how the OEM’s react with increased automation and the single pilot idea becomes a practical reality...a conundrum also for the unions...interesting times ahead

RexBanner

1st Sep 2018, 16:12

Funny how this conversation rears its head every five years, ten years, 6 months, take your pick. But yet each time we’re no closer to it than we were before.

RVF750

1st Sep 2018, 17:49

Just remember, that an F/O is a trainee Captain. Without the ability for on the job learning, the single crew aircraft will have be designed for 200hr pilots to fly. it has to be. Thus it's not today's Captain's who need to worry, but today's F/Os. They're the future Captains who will be redundant....

Scary, isn't it....

RexBanner

1st Sep 2018, 21:17

Not scary at all. Ain’t gonna happen any time soon. Not wishful thinking, it’s fact.

racedo

2nd Sep 2018, 01:04

Not scary at all. Ain’t gonna happen any time soon. Not wishful thinking, it’s fact.

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2018/08/31/unmanned-airport-control-tower-colorado/

yup its at a place with no tower now but 90,000 movements a year.

CurtainTwitcher

2nd Sep 2018, 05:54

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2018/08/31/unmanned-airport-control-tower-colorado/

yup its at a place with no tower now but 90,000 movements a year.

At the bottom of the article there was another link to the project. If you navigate through to the project technology page (https://www.codot.gov/programs/remote-tower/programs/remote-tower/TheTechnology), you get this:
The concept behind the Colorado Remote Tower Project is the first of its kind to integrate both satellite-based aircraft surveillance technology together with ground-based video technology. This advanced technological approach is designed to give air traffic controllers a comprehensive view of air traffic on the airfield and in the airspace surrounding an airport - all from a remote location, and only when operational demands necessitate this level of air traffic

This appears to be a remote version of a tower to save money. All that has happened is the controller is physically somewhere remote to the airfield. This was attempted at Alice Springs in 2011 (http://www.australianflying.com.au/news/airservices-australia-to-trial-remote-tower-technology), and abandoned with the camera's removed, not sure what the issue was.

There is a big difference between remote control (as we do right now with most ATC, ie Centre, Approach etc) and automation of the actual ATC function.

FBW390

2nd Sep 2018, 07:32

a driverless car, train, metro, boat: when there's a problem, a connection failure, they stop! No problem!
A control twr is a fix device...
But as you know an airplane can not stop where it is if everything goes wrong; it always has to fly, and fast, and be steered somewhere. What happens if you lose the remote control?
It happens to me very frequently to lose datalink communication. Not a problem if the pilots are in the cockpit! So it might happen in 40 or 50 years, but in the next 20 years, there will be a pilot shortage! Mostly we start to see a shortage of good pilots!

FBW390

2nd Sep 2018, 07:34

I mean, in 40 or 50 years, yes, maybe, the technology will allow pilotless planes; but not now.

italian stallion

2nd Sep 2018, 08:42

But yet they make it near impossible to pass their outrageous assessments....well park your planes then, and that goes for other carriers too not just in Asia.

racedo

2nd Sep 2018, 21:09

At the bottom of the article there was another link to the project. If you navigate through to the project technology page (https://www.codot.gov/programs/remote-tower/programs/remote-tower/TheTechnology), you get this:

This appears to be a remote version of a tower to save money. All that has happened is the controller is physically somewhere remote to the airfield. This was attempted at Alice Springs in 2011 (http://www.australianflying.com.au/news/airservices-australia-to-trial-remote-tower-technology), and abandoned with the camera's removed, not sure what the issue was.

There is a big difference between remote control (as we do right now with most ATC, ie Centre, Approach etc) and automation of the actual ATC function.

What they also said was someone from a remote station could monitor a number of airports.

Big Pistons Forever

2nd Sep 2018, 21:41

Pretty much every technology in aviation started with the military, so if you want to see where civil aviation is going to be in 15 years look at the military now. What I see is the precision strike mission is now being executed by drones. If the technology exists today to acquire and engage a target with a drone operated by a guy 10,000 miles away then it exists to fly and A to B airliner flight. The question is only how long is it going to take for this reality to be adopted by industry.

As for the idea passengers won't fly in a pilot-less airplane, well if the fare is $ 5 cheaper they will jump on.

As a person who has been flying for 40 years, 31 of that commercially I take no joy in this situation but I also accept its inevitability.

Lookleft

2nd Sep 2018, 23:33

AFAIK the military drones are single engine so no control difficulties if the engine fails and no fatalities so no big deal. How long does it take to develop a new airliner from scratch? 15-20 years and one without any pilots on board even longer. So no pilot needs to be worried until Airbus,Boeing,Embraer, Mitsubishi etc have actually committed to producing a pilotless airliner and at least one airline has put cash down for a spot on the production line. Even with the oft quoted "Planes just land themselves" by the less educated amongst us the weather criteria is very limiting. Also AFAIK there is no commercial aircraft capable of an automatic takeoff, one of the two crew has to pull back on whatever constitutes a control column and the other crew member is monitoring what is going on with the aircraft.

It is all possible in theory but the reliability and redundancies required and its integration with ground based infrastructure are a long, long way from being resolved.

theNotoriousPIC

2nd Sep 2018, 23:51

I'd happily go fly in China. All I need: free type rating, commuting contract, 180/360 yearly working period, matching 401k with health and travel benefits, a paycheck in USD, and a corporate culture that views an FO as equally important as a CA.

Otherwise, why leave my current regional job in the US?

tdracer

3rd Sep 2018, 01:56

I think most of you are over-reacting. We're not going to see pilotless commercial aircraft in 20 years. There is an outside chance that we see initial implementation of single pilot aircraft (automation good enough that it can take over and land an otherwise reasonably healthy aircraft it the pilot becomes incapacitated) - but there is no way pilotless will happen in the next twenty years (although I remain convinced it'll happen eventually).
This is simply Boeing throwing out a warning shot that, if nothing is done, we're looking at a pilot shortage. Purely self interest - they can't sell new aircraft if there are not enough pilots available to fly them, and since Asia is where the fastest growth is occurring, it's where the need for new pilots will be the strongest.
This is really nothing new - ~ 40 years ago Boeing (and others) were predicting an acute shortage of engineers by the year 2000. They knew that if qualified engineers were in short supply, they'd have to dramatically increase engineers pay. But by predicting a shortage, and providing financial incentives to STEM education, they were able to encourage lots of young people to go into engineering. As a result, the predicted shortage never occurred and engineer pay (when corrected for inflation) isn't a whole lot different today then it was 40 years ago (basically, good engineers will never go hungry, but are unlikely to ever get rich either - rather it remains basically a solidly middle class occupation).
I expect we'll see something similar happen for commercial pilots...

krismiler

3rd Sep 2018, 02:05

The capability exists for automatic take off but as there is little benefit, unlike auto land, the technology hasn't been adopted.

Pilot less aircraft would work if nothing went wrong which required a response to an event which hadn't previously been programmed into the artificial intelligence controlling the aircraft and we are a long way from that level at the moment. The first step would be control by a human operator on the ground and even this is still a long way off. Military drones need to be controlled by an operator nearby for take off and landing as the lag in response times is unacceptable. The drone over Afghanistan being piloted by an operator in a base in Nevada needs to be handed over at the end of the mission to someone onsite who bring it back onto the ground.

Airlines would need to station their own pilots at every port they fly into or train and licence local operators to provide coverage. Enroute control could be done from home base as response times aren't as critical in the cruise.

16024

3rd Sep 2018, 19:28

friartuck

4th Sep 2018, 08:29

The problem is worst at US airlines. Flight says American will lose 60% of its pilots by 2030, United 57%, Delta 54%

Captain Dart

5th Sep 2018, 01:50

I will be in the cold, cold ground long before any robot can pick its way through the ITCZ safely and with maximum passenger comfort and minimum practical track deviation. Some of those dang CBs just don't show up on radar (visions of a tin man craning toward the windscreen with the cockpit lights turned down). And Manila will still be using HF radio...

Icarus2001

5th Sep 2018, 07:31

And Manila will still be using HF radio... Yes, and Australia...

RexBanner

5th Sep 2018, 16:12

Autonomous jet airliners won't ever happen.
Repeat this over and over.
Cut it out and stick it on your wall. In a frame.
For the oldies among us it doesn't matter anyway. For anyone young enough to be thinking about a career break in China, for example, you will get to see the end of jet airliners.
And you can look at those words, in the frame and say "He was right."

if we're talking about the masters of automation (i.e. Airbus) lets look at the reality. In the near enough thirty years since the first A340 was rolled off the production line, aside from the obvious efficiencies driven by new technologies, what major automation advances do we have in the flight deck of the A350? Brake to Vacate and Automatic TCAS. And we're getting to pilotless aircraft within the same timeframe based on that rate of "progress"? Give me a break.

paperHanger

5th Sep 2018, 20:04

Icarus2001

6th Sep 2018, 01:52

Yes I am aware of that. Not in service yet which makes my point. They are still decades away from autonomous ships. Aircraft with passengers, possibly never.

One other thought, crew costs are about 13-15% of aircraft operating costs. Surely cabin crew would go first? The argument being there are no staff on a train or bus to show you where the exits are so why do you need them on an aeroplane? Replace them with a vending machine?

These are not my thoughts by the way. Just floating the business argument.

ShotOne

6th Sep 2018, 13:31

Come on, autonomous trains are not even generally accepted (no, the Gatwick shuttle doesn't count)... All the operator has to do is stop or go, any issues just stop and wait for a technician. And remotely-piloted military types suffer, by far, the highest accident rate of any aircraft on the inventory.

We keep hearing how short of pilots we're supposed to be, so why are conditions so dire for new starters to the industry?

tdracer

6th Sep 2018, 20:49

Come on, autonomous trains are not even generally accepted (no, the Gatwick shuttle doesn't count)...
You'd be surprised - and no they are not limited to airport shuttles. One of the big bottlenecks for autonomous trains is the train drivers unions have fought (successfully) to keep their jobs, even when they aren't actually in control of the train. If they can't get rid of the engineer, there isn't much incentive to spend the money for autonomous control.
BTW, late last year, there was a passenger trail derailment between Seattle and Portland when the engineer took a 35 mph curve at nearly 80 mph. Several people died. They were planning to install an automatic train speed control (that would have automatically slowed the train and prevented the derailment) - but hadn't gotten around to it yet. The public outcry was such that they had to promise to implement the automatic speed control before restarting the route...

theNotoriousPIC

6th Sep 2018, 20:56

I agree that aircraft automation hasn't significantly changed, in fact airlines in the US at least are emphasizing hand flying skills much more now than they were 20 years ago. But history does not look favorably upon those who hide from progress. One day airplanes will fly themselves and surgeries will be performed by robots and schools will be taught by programs. Will that day happen in 20, 30, or 40 years? Who knows? If I only get to spend 20 years as a pilot it will still have been worth it.

CurtainTwitcher

7th Sep 2018, 00:31

Silicon Valley Takes a (Careful) Step Toward Autonomous Flying (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/technology/autonomous-flying-emergency-silicon-valley.html)

Final paragraphs:
Still, the biggest hurdle may be convincing regulators and the public that autonomous flight is safe.

“There are a lot of start-ups doing this,” Igor Cherepinsky, director of autonomy programs at Sikorsky, said. “Quite a few of them are naïve about what it will take.”

See my other post today on why any computer based device is vulnerable to hacking: Reflections on Trusting Trust (http://https://www.pprune.org/rumours-news/613073-ba-hacked-but-theyre-deeply-sorry.html#post10243174)

Icarus2001

7th Sep 2018, 03:22

I say it again, when MOST of the worlds trains and MANY of the worlds ships are autonomous, then, and only then will the general public be willing to accept an aircraft with no humans up the front. Single pilot may well come first as a stepping stone, maybe.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmforum.com-vbulletin/600x700/cac_fc91d6f2a7cf5097b36958de037054ecfa307402.png

KenV

7th Sep 2018, 13:21

BTW, late last year, there was a passenger trail derailment between Seattle and Portland when the engineer took a 35 mph curve at nearly 80 mph. Several people died. They were planning to install an automatic train speed control (that would have automatically slowed the train and prevented the derailment) - but hadn't gotten around to it yet. The public outcry was such that they had to promise to implement the automatic speed control before restarting the route...There is a vast vast difference between an automatic speed limiter over a short section of track and a fully autonomous train. In the case of a train, literally only one variable would be autonomously controlled, speed, and no one yet trusts a computer to do that completely autonomously, even just for freight. It will take much much more before anyone trusts a computer to autonomously control a passenger aircraft where literally dozens of variables would need to be controlled simultaneously. And not just controlled, but coordinated.