Pilot shortage coming or Not??
 

Do people think that there is a massive increase in demand for crew coming or as we come out of this recession that airlines will be more cautious with recruitment? I first thought that recruitment might pick up where it left off before the GFC, but not sure now. Airlines are recruiting, but will we get to the point where we see a shortage??

Has never happened in Australia and never will. Traditionally, there has always been far too many pilots for too few jobs. The first positive indication of a pilot shortage in Australia will be when the RFDS are forced to lower their minimum hours from 2500 to 1500 or less. And that ain't never gonna happen either.

The pilot shortage is a myth, it always was and always will be.
The only shortage you might see is in certain markets( CRJ FO's in China) for certain crew members but that in it's self does not constitute a shortage.
Don't believe what the training outfits tell you, they just want to get you in the door and hand over your cash.

As stated, there has never been and probably never will be a shortage of pilots in Australia, at least not at the lower experience levels. There are occasionally gaps in the regionals when a large number of captains get hired during expansion times for the big boys, but these are positions you need relevant experience to fill, and if that experience isnt available locally will be filled using work visas (think Qlink awhile back)

Shortage of people who can easily transition into the specific job, whose qualifications and experience are a good match to the requirements, who will perform well and be suitable for promotion. YES

Shortage of unsuitable people, those with the absolute minimum requirements who will require extensive training, have a high failure rate and be unsuitable for promotion (ie bums on seats) NO

Pilot shortage = Nigerian Get rich Quick Scam. There's a reason those Nigerian scams keep coming to your e-mail in box, that's because there is always some sucker out there that believes it and gets taken for his life savings. Same goes for the pilot shortage scam that most flight training units spout off about.

Some of you impatient up and coming pilots better hope Australia doesn't keep following the example of the USA



Hmmmm, you might need to fly Chieftains or 402's for a while.

Regarding the RFDS lowering their minimums below 2500 hours, that is still pretty low considering the demanding type of work they do.

It dosen't seem that long ago that nobody would let you near any sort of turbine below 5,000 hours.

CW,

I think that if you check again you will find that our American friends have legislated for 1,500 hours to be the minimum for RPT new-hires.

R16

'A37575' don't be too quick to say such things. True once upon a time the RFDS could pick & choose pilots with hrs like what CC said (5000) but those days are long gone as pilots of that caliber are shining the seats of the big birds these days with a LOT less.
A lot of the specific hr requirements of the RFDS comes from a contractual requirement not their own in house req's. We have CV's that you can't climb over but few are 'suitable' at the end of the day.
So in some ways yes there is a pilot shortage re our req's but generally now that the Airlines take very green pilots (as compared to many years ago) there are more pilots than jobs ATM.
'CC' is right once upon a time you couldn't go near a Turbine with less than a zillion hrs or even a PA31 for that matter but we have now much lower stsd's than days gone by for good or bad.

'CC' a lot of candidates whom come from GA that make it to the Sim level of the RFDS interview process fail because most fly under 'normal' conditions IE: day to day routine stuff with virtually no checking at Sim level that goes on for years so when they are faced with an Eng failure under a high work load situation in the Sim which I might add is a hand full anyway they fall over & bomb out. Basic IF skills as in on the dials with zero outside ref & rudimentary instrumentation is damn hard work!
Anyway there will always be a pilot shortage just depends on what level the bar is set:)

Wmk2

r16, the legislation originally called for 1,500 hours but an amendment went through reducing it to 800 hours.

Hardly relevant in Oz where anyone going into the regionals will have more time than that.

Contrary to most here I do think there will be a pilot shortage. Perhaps not in the next year or two but certainly in 5 to 10. The number of fanatics wanting to do pilot training as a career option is declining.

The profession is no longer regarded as being desirable and the concept of spending vast amounts of money to be rewarded with a miserable income in some fly-blown corner of the country for a year or two while attaining the minimum experience for an airline job where the T & Cs' are being eroded constantly is rapidly losing any attraction for the modern generation.

There will always be those who are fascinated by flight and will put up with the conditions but I believe there numbers are declining below what the airlines will need in the future. Then look for changes in the way Oz pilots are trained for the airlines. I suspect it will change to resemble the European model with airline type training schools and MCPL training.

Pilot shortages?

Depends on what your definition of shortage is.

If you refer to pilots requiring "5000 hrs" to get near a turbine and other such historical (employer/insurance) experience requirements, then posssibly.

If you refer to the number of pilots who meet the legal minimums as set out for the issue of a licence and to fill a crew seat, then never.

In all reality ask yourself: Do pilots still pay for type ratings? If you can answer yes, then clearly theres no shortage. Is this likely to change? No.

Maybe not in Australia. but a common phenomenon in Europe. 1987 and 1995 spring to mind as being particularly good years for pilots. Awful lot of ozmates swelled the ranks of Easyjet in the '90s.

I got my first turboprop job at 720 hours, first turboprop command at 2000 hours, first jet command at about 2800 hours. Many, many people stepped into their first heavy jet job with around a thousand hours, many had commands by 3000 hours. In the late nineties, we were hiring jet F/Os with 250 hours and an approved course.

My first turboprop job, they were so keen to get me that they offered to pay for my CPL flight test and Instrument Rating. When I joined, I remarked to the training captain that our course of ten should help ease the crewing problem. He replied that they had had 18 resignations the previous week, and did I have any friends in NZ who wanted to come over? At the time, they were doing recruitment drives in Canada, offering free validations.

So yes, there is such a thing as a pilot shortage, and it looks like a big one is on the way in Europe once the world works out that it isn't in recession any more... so if you have a Euro passport...

Excellent analogy Waren.

Nav.

A Euro passport?...............I wish!:{

...and for the bleedin' JAA to come into the 20th Century for a start and get reasonable about the transference of ICAO licences to their own precious piece of paper. :ugh: At present it is nothing more than a trade barrier but should we be surprised given the EECs' ongoing protection racket for their farmers? :mad:

I'll sell you my EU passport, buy a bugsmasher and fly when I want where I want. I wish...

At last count I believe Virgin Blue had at least 1000 applications on their books with Qantas, and Jetstar about the same. And applications to Northern Territory and WA operators still go into the bin without being read. Shortage of pilots in the future? I don't think so.

You can have mine! Who would really want to leave Oz?;)

Give it three months and there will be plenty of movement. A shortage no, but plenty of movement ala 2000/1 and 2007/8!:ok:

I reckon PLovett's post #12 is spot on. The profession is undergoing, and has been undergoing some fundamental changes for quite a few years now. There may be no shortage of "applications" but will there again be a pile of "suitable" resume's that one can't jump over? Especially for the second and third level operators.

In years gone past the stary eyed wannabes that couldn't make the distance eventually cut their loses and moved out of the game. There were however plenty of tenacious (some may say blindly fanatical) boys and girls who forsakeing just about everything else, continued to plod along in the hope that one day they would "make it", and eventually some did. The problem now is that these fanatical types are in much shorter supply. What we'll see in coming years is the growth in MPL and Cadet schemes. It is much more logical and less soul destroying if a new pilot to the game is garrenteed a job at the end, no matter what the income, and no matter what the initial expense. Airline managers love this because they now have a pile of applications that they can no longer jump over. Unfortunately, unless it's Qantas, there will be a different sort of pain waiting for the naive and/or the uninitiated, and I don't just mean the cadets themselves. If the regional airlines do not actively lead the way in creating a viable long term career within their organisations, then the cycle of schedule disruption and eventual reduction will continue.

But hey, everything's OK, we again have a pile of applications we can't jump over. :ok: