Pilot Shortage Research / Study
 

Hi ALL.

I'm looking for information on the world wide Pilot shortage. IATA say that they believe 17,000 Pilots are needed...

Can anyone point me to any hard facts on the web like a research paper or study?

Thanks
Adam :ok:

P.S I'm looking for some official / study on the number of current pilots and future demand across the regions / world wide... Got any ideas?

Type "pilot shortage" into the search box here on PPrune. I got 20 pages of threads.

Things to know about the so-called "pilot shortage":

1. The people who usually scream the loudest about "shortages" are usually, not surprisingly, flight training providers.

2. The other people who scream about "shortages" are often airline managers who are finding it difficult to find highly experienced Captains who will pay for their testing, type ratings, charts, etc...

It's like a corporation screaming "We can't find any senior executives!" and then you find out that they offer T & C's that no fast food worker would accept.

If there is a shortage, it's in highly specialized positions like Type Rating Examiners and Instructors... but 'shortage' of pilot in general.... total BS.

Looking for official numbers
 

Thanks, I'm looking for some official / study on the number of current pilots and future demand across the regions / world wide... Got any ideas? :ok:

Number of current pilots: Maybe the ICAO?

As for "future numbers": Be very careful because no one can predict that kind of thing. I've seen great numbers forecast, but then you find out the "study" that produced the future demand numbers was funded by industry lobby groups who have a vested interest in making things look "good".

The reality is the US and world-economy are really slowing down... most of the "forecasts" are based on the economy going up and up forever... how happy the universe would be if things went up and up forever...

Forecasting labour needs - an activity that I have been professionally involved with in the past - is little more than mysticism. The only thing you can know with anything like accuracy is the retirement (NOT the resignation) rate of the current workforce.

Every other variable is just a guess based on assumptions you can never be confident about. The two assumptions governing the current predictions are about retirements and demand growth.

The real question is 'are there enough people in the world who have the necessary skills and abilities to become pilots?' The answer is clearly 'yes', so everything else comes down to whether the industry can make the job attractive enough to recruit the numbers they need. The airlines are under such cost and competitive pressures right now that managers are psychologically incapable of confronting this issue. So they resort to making the same noises as their aeroplanes (whining).

Pilot numbers
 

Thanks for that... what about using the number of aircraft orders and trying to work backwards to try workout "over the horizon" view? But it's still very hard to try and find "real" numbers on how much pilots are there world wide.

Changshun, W. "China focused on safety improvements in spite of rapid industry growth," ICAO Journal, Vol. 62, No. 2, March/April 2007.

one has to remember to take into account... the unbelievably rising costs of fuel and its effect on the global economy.... may eventually slow down the growth of airlines.

just my two cents worth... :(