Pilot Shortage. Fact or fiction?
If I may. As Moderator of the Wannabes Forum I have a little insight into the current recruiting market in Europe for low time (under 500hrs TT) pilots.
Things have been very good for the last 3 years. At the moment things are markedly slowing. Interviews are happening but they generally end up filling holding pools more than they did last year.
If there were a shortage of JAA low time licensed pilots then it would be news to most Wannabes who are ALL toying with paying for their own type rating. Ryanairs terms and conditions are well worth inspection in this regard. If you harbor thoughts about your son or daughter entering a flying career you will be disheartened. To say the very least.
I see no shortage of pilots.
WWW
Things have been very good for the last 3 years. At the moment things are markedly slowing. Interviews are happening but they generally end up filling holding pools more than they did last year.
If there were a shortage of JAA low time licensed pilots then it would be news to most Wannabes who are ALL toying with paying for their own type rating. Ryanairs terms and conditions are well worth inspection in this regard. If you harbor thoughts about your son or daughter entering a flying career you will be disheartened. To say the very least.
I see no shortage of pilots.
WWW
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As I said in another thread, lets define pilot shortage: It all depends on the side of the employment fence one stands.
On the pilot side, a shortage is when pilots have no problem finding jobs, choosing their employer or place to work or can change employer at wish. An exceedence of pilots exists when the pilot cannot manage to get hired, or is stuck with the job with which he is unhappy.
Pilot shortage for employers, is when their ordered equipment gets delivered faster than they can train pilots.
On the pilot side, a shortage is when pilots have no problem finding jobs, choosing their employer or place to work or can change employer at wish. An exceedence of pilots exists when the pilot cannot manage to get hired, or is stuck with the job with which he is unhappy.
Pilot shortage for employers, is when their ordered equipment gets delivered faster than they can train pilots.
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Well, Ive been reading all your thoughts and comments on pilot shortage.
Maybe THE problem can be summarized by these words someone wrote above:
"The only shortage I know, is decent new-hire salaries among most airlines..."
I guess Im one of the lucky ones, good job, decent salary, time off. Just feel for those fellow pilots that are not so lucky.
Maybe THE problem can be summarized by these words someone wrote above:
"The only shortage I know, is decent new-hire salaries among most airlines..."
I guess Im one of the lucky ones, good job, decent salary, time off. Just feel for those fellow pilots that are not so lucky.
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SAM 17
I've seen your posts on other occasions and they all leave me wondering if you're quite real and what colour the sky is in your world... are we supposed to add the 1 to the 7 to get your age ?
I've seen your posts on other occasions and they all leave me wondering if you're quite real and what colour the sky is in your world... are we supposed to add the 1 to the 7 to get your age ?
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Airlines In The Brace Position
Air travel is booming as the world gets richer. But one issue looms: who will pilot all those planes?
Ted Aljibe / AFP-Getty Images
Grounded: Hong Kong's Dragon Airlines had to cancel flights due to a pilot shortage
http://www.newsweek.com/id/78116
By George Wehrfritz | NEWSWEEK
Dec 24, 2007 Issue | Updated: 12:46 p.m. ET Dec 15, 2007
Related:
• Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Ltd.
• Hong Kong
• Boeing 777
Airline travel is booming. so why are executives at Philippine Airlines so worried? Quite simply, the spike in global air travel since 2003 has cost them a precious commodity: seasoned pilots. The flag carrier has suffered 104 flight-crew resignations over the last four years, an attrition rate of more than 20 percent, due to poaching. Result: the airline has had to increase pay by up to 60 percent. They aren't the only one with troubles. Hong Kong-based rival Dragonair has reduced scheduled flights following an exodus of pilots due to pay and scheduling issues. "The fact is that there are currently more vacancies than there are pilots throughout the industry," says Dragonair spokesperson May Lam-Kobayashi.
While that's especially true in booming Asian economies, the pilot crisis is a global one. In a report issued in late November, the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that the industry would need some 17,000 new pilots annually over the next two decades to keep up with demand. The Asia Pacific Airline Training Symposium estimates that Asian airlines alone would require 6,000 additional pilots per year through 2020. Even tiny Ireland's three carriers will need a combined 570 pilots next year alone, says the chief executive of the Waterford-based Pilot Training College. It's a boom unmatched since the advent of jet travel in the 1950s. Over the next 10 years, if current estimates hold true, almost three times as many pilots will enter the industry worldwide than are currently represented by its largest union, the 60,000-strong Air Line Pilots Association (which encompasses the bulk of pilots currently flying in North America). "It's time to ring the warning bell," said the IATA director-general and CEO recently. "We must rethink pilot training and qualifications to further improve safety and increase training capacity."
Safety concerns are, in fact, becoming a huge issue. While airline manufacturers can turn out new jets in mere months, a pilot capable of commanding a wide-bodied aircraft such as an Airbus 340 or Boeing 777 takes many years to groom. Airlines often opt to poach crews from competitors rather than train them, with top-tier airlines recruiting from their second-tier rivals, who in turn woo promising talent from budget or express carriers. Pilots are clear beneficiaries, of course; seasoned veterans piloting large jets can now command $15,000 per month in some markets.
That's a big change from the post-9/11 period, when the industry went through mass layoffs and pay cuts. Many pilots stopped flying altogether and chose new careers. Now, the shortage has grown so acute that airlines are putting unseasoned pilots into cockpits and calling for less stringent pilot certifications, even as skies and airports grow more congested. "The rush to push pilots through training and into cockpits raises obvious safety concerns," says Capt. John Prater, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, International, last August.
Airlines have initiated some corrective maneuvers. One common practice: raise the retirement age for pilots from 60 to 65—as the European Union did way back in 1996. More than 10 years on, the International Civil Aviation Organization (the U.N. body that regulates the airline industry, has followed suit) a move that has encouraged Philippine Airlines, for example, to rehire a number of old-timers on a contract basis. On Dec. 12, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to increase the retirement age for U.S.-based pilots to 65, with Senate approval pending.
Yet toggling retirement rules alone won't mitigate the captain crunch. Analysts argue that training systems established in the 1950s—in which the total number of hours a trainee logs flying solo in single-engine aircraft weighs heavily—is outmoded. Instead, they advocate greater use of flight simulators, more emphasis on flight schools versus in-house training programs and other measures to shorten the trainee-to-cockpit pipeline. Europe has pioneered the use of multicrew pilot licenses that allow trainees to forego some of the single-pilot requirements, shorten actual flight hours in exchange for more time in simulators and go from classroom to cockpit in about a year. "Pilots need to improve their capacity for reacting in the correct way when dealing with situations of particular stress, especially during takeoff and landing," says Jurgen Haacker, an operations director at IATA in Montreal. "It's not about reducing the amount of flight hours, but of providing trainees the capacity to react when they should do so—in critical moments.''
The first European trainees earned multipilot licenses in Denmark in September, and took jobs with Scandinavian budget carrier Sterling Airlines; more recently six Chinese cadets from two airlines have finished programs at home. But pilots unions have criticized the new multi-pilot-licenses system for turning out first officers that haven't flown enough. At an industry conference in August, Prater, the ALPA boss, said that the days of greenhorn trainees working for "burger-flipper wages" are over. And he warned that airlines have become too eager to fill cockpits with inexperienced crews. "At some express carriers, pilots now need as few as 250 hours of fight time [the very minimum hours required to obtain a commercial pilot license] to land a job [as a copilot] of a fast-moving, demanding jet. Unlike in the 1960s, when new pilots entering the system came to work as flight engineers and had time to observe and learn how crews got along and how the system works, new pilots today are going straight into the right [copilot] seat, and moving into the left [captain] seat in a hurry. And they're doing it in airplanes that are great machines, but can be unforgiving."
The problem is particularly acute in the developing world. Take Indonesia. Since 2000, its yearly passenger count has tripled to 30 million and the number of airlines has leaped from five to 25. By 2010, the government expects that the number of trips per year could more than double again. The country has suffered more than its share of fatal accidents, including two for upstart budget carrier Lion Air and a March 2007 crash of a Garuda Indonesia flight trying to land at Yogyakarta—which an official inquiry attributed to a series of errors made by a veteran captain and his rookie copilot. Twenty-one passengers aboard, five of them Australians, perished. "The aviation industry wants to see Indonesia succeed in this struggle [to improve safety]," says William Voss, head of the U.S.-based Flight Safety Foundation during a July summit on air safety held on the resort island Bali, at the same time warning that the "dramatic increase in traffic could lead to even more lives lost."
Certainly there's no end in sight to the transport boom. At the Dubai Airshow in November, Emirates Airline ordered a staggering 81 Airbuses (11 of them double-decker A380s) and 12 Boeing 777s, spending a total of $23 billion. Together, the two main airframe makers are expected to sell a record 2,100 planes worldwide by the time the 2007 books are closed. And pilot pay keeps rising. After a two-year negotiation, Hong Kong's Dragonair offered its pilots a 20 percent raise in mid-December, affirming that pilots are in the driver's seat.
With Antonio Oliveira E. Silva in Paris And Marites Vitug in Manila
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
Air travel is booming as the world gets richer. But one issue looms: who will pilot all those planes?
Ted Aljibe / AFP-Getty Images
Grounded: Hong Kong's Dragon Airlines had to cancel flights due to a pilot shortage
http://www.newsweek.com/id/78116
By George Wehrfritz | NEWSWEEK
Dec 24, 2007 Issue | Updated: 12:46 p.m. ET Dec 15, 2007
Related:
• Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Ltd.
• Hong Kong
• Boeing 777
Airline travel is booming. so why are executives at Philippine Airlines so worried? Quite simply, the spike in global air travel since 2003 has cost them a precious commodity: seasoned pilots. The flag carrier has suffered 104 flight-crew resignations over the last four years, an attrition rate of more than 20 percent, due to poaching. Result: the airline has had to increase pay by up to 60 percent. They aren't the only one with troubles. Hong Kong-based rival Dragonair has reduced scheduled flights following an exodus of pilots due to pay and scheduling issues. "The fact is that there are currently more vacancies than there are pilots throughout the industry," says Dragonair spokesperson May Lam-Kobayashi.
While that's especially true in booming Asian economies, the pilot crisis is a global one. In a report issued in late November, the Geneva-based International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced that the industry would need some 17,000 new pilots annually over the next two decades to keep up with demand. The Asia Pacific Airline Training Symposium estimates that Asian airlines alone would require 6,000 additional pilots per year through 2020. Even tiny Ireland's three carriers will need a combined 570 pilots next year alone, says the chief executive of the Waterford-based Pilot Training College. It's a boom unmatched since the advent of jet travel in the 1950s. Over the next 10 years, if current estimates hold true, almost three times as many pilots will enter the industry worldwide than are currently represented by its largest union, the 60,000-strong Air Line Pilots Association (which encompasses the bulk of pilots currently flying in North America). "It's time to ring the warning bell," said the IATA director-general and CEO recently. "We must rethink pilot training and qualifications to further improve safety and increase training capacity."
Safety concerns are, in fact, becoming a huge issue. While airline manufacturers can turn out new jets in mere months, a pilot capable of commanding a wide-bodied aircraft such as an Airbus 340 or Boeing 777 takes many years to groom. Airlines often opt to poach crews from competitors rather than train them, with top-tier airlines recruiting from their second-tier rivals, who in turn woo promising talent from budget or express carriers. Pilots are clear beneficiaries, of course; seasoned veterans piloting large jets can now command $15,000 per month in some markets.
That's a big change from the post-9/11 period, when the industry went through mass layoffs and pay cuts. Many pilots stopped flying altogether and chose new careers. Now, the shortage has grown so acute that airlines are putting unseasoned pilots into cockpits and calling for less stringent pilot certifications, even as skies and airports grow more congested. "The rush to push pilots through training and into cockpits raises obvious safety concerns," says Capt. John Prater, president of the Air Line Pilots Association, International, last August.
Airlines have initiated some corrective maneuvers. One common practice: raise the retirement age for pilots from 60 to 65—as the European Union did way back in 1996. More than 10 years on, the International Civil Aviation Organization (the U.N. body that regulates the airline industry, has followed suit) a move that has encouraged Philippine Airlines, for example, to rehire a number of old-timers on a contract basis. On Dec. 12, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to increase the retirement age for U.S.-based pilots to 65, with Senate approval pending.
Yet toggling retirement rules alone won't mitigate the captain crunch. Analysts argue that training systems established in the 1950s—in which the total number of hours a trainee logs flying solo in single-engine aircraft weighs heavily—is outmoded. Instead, they advocate greater use of flight simulators, more emphasis on flight schools versus in-house training programs and other measures to shorten the trainee-to-cockpit pipeline. Europe has pioneered the use of multicrew pilot licenses that allow trainees to forego some of the single-pilot requirements, shorten actual flight hours in exchange for more time in simulators and go from classroom to cockpit in about a year. "Pilots need to improve their capacity for reacting in the correct way when dealing with situations of particular stress, especially during takeoff and landing," says Jurgen Haacker, an operations director at IATA in Montreal. "It's not about reducing the amount of flight hours, but of providing trainees the capacity to react when they should do so—in critical moments.''
The first European trainees earned multipilot licenses in Denmark in September, and took jobs with Scandinavian budget carrier Sterling Airlines; more recently six Chinese cadets from two airlines have finished programs at home. But pilots unions have criticized the new multi-pilot-licenses system for turning out first officers that haven't flown enough. At an industry conference in August, Prater, the ALPA boss, said that the days of greenhorn trainees working for "burger-flipper wages" are over. And he warned that airlines have become too eager to fill cockpits with inexperienced crews. "At some express carriers, pilots now need as few as 250 hours of fight time [the very minimum hours required to obtain a commercial pilot license] to land a job [as a copilot] of a fast-moving, demanding jet. Unlike in the 1960s, when new pilots entering the system came to work as flight engineers and had time to observe and learn how crews got along and how the system works, new pilots today are going straight into the right [copilot] seat, and moving into the left [captain] seat in a hurry. And they're doing it in airplanes that are great machines, but can be unforgiving."
The problem is particularly acute in the developing world. Take Indonesia. Since 2000, its yearly passenger count has tripled to 30 million and the number of airlines has leaped from five to 25. By 2010, the government expects that the number of trips per year could more than double again. The country has suffered more than its share of fatal accidents, including two for upstart budget carrier Lion Air and a March 2007 crash of a Garuda Indonesia flight trying to land at Yogyakarta—which an official inquiry attributed to a series of errors made by a veteran captain and his rookie copilot. Twenty-one passengers aboard, five of them Australians, perished. "The aviation industry wants to see Indonesia succeed in this struggle [to improve safety]," says William Voss, head of the U.S.-based Flight Safety Foundation during a July summit on air safety held on the resort island Bali, at the same time warning that the "dramatic increase in traffic could lead to even more lives lost."
Certainly there's no end in sight to the transport boom. At the Dubai Airshow in November, Emirates Airline ordered a staggering 81 Airbuses (11 of them double-decker A380s) and 12 Boeing 777s, spending a total of $23 billion. Together, the two main airframe makers are expected to sell a record 2,100 planes worldwide by the time the 2007 books are closed. And pilot pay keeps rising. After a two-year negotiation, Hong Kong's Dragonair offered its pilots a 20 percent raise in mid-December, affirming that pilots are in the driver's seat.
With Antonio Oliveira E. Silva in Paris And Marites Vitug in Manila
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
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Polot shortage
Whether there is a pilot shortage is debateable depending on where you are sat, but certainly the recruitment of newly trained pilots from OAT looks buoyant.
Figures from Oxford Aviation's website show:
07 - 247 to Dec 17th (up 49% on 06 & up 36% on 05)
06 - 166
05 - 182
I don't know how the other schools are fairing, but I expect similar high figures.
At least there is some encouragement for all those looking for that first job.
Skintman
Figures from Oxford Aviation's website show:
07 - 247 to Dec 17th (up 49% on 06 & up 36% on 05)
06 - 166
05 - 182
I don't know how the other schools are fairing, but I expect similar high figures.
At least there is some encouragement for all those looking for that first job.
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While bean counters remain in control we will continue to see short term thinking and the disposal of 'assets' eg experienced pilots. The bean counter can only see pilots as a liability to an airline. Forget the cost of training .that comes from the budget of training therefore not my problem. The structures of airline managements lead to a problem of one bean counter fighting the next bean counter in another department obsessed with coming in under budget. Budgets are meant to be used. It should not be a macho pissing contest to impress directors how much can be saved from one year to the next. The rule should be : Under Budget .......Bollocking...... Over Budget .......Bollocking On Budget......"you young bean counter can sleep with my daughter."
ATB
SA
ATB
SA
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The recession which is now bursting upon the western world will change this problem. Western airlines will be wanting to lose people and the middle eastern and (some) oriental ones, will wish to gain people.
Sorry if that sounds too gloomy, it's from having observed two recessions at first hand that leads me to that point of view
Sorry if that sounds too gloomy, it's from having observed two recessions at first hand that leads me to that point of view
I am waiting for the promised salary increases due to THE SHORTAGE!
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I think that the mathematics of our gorgeous little planet talk by themselves. Yes ,there is shortage; but there is no shortage in PPL pilots trying to become CPL's etc...There is a shortage of already qualified,2000TT+ pilots with turbine time and TR.
Simple and true.
But it is in human nature that we all like to turn around the facts, since we are trying to believe and hear only what we would like to hear and that's pretty much what we came down to. Hey; isn't that called a confirmation bias?
As well as how can we believe in all the bollocks from flying schools about how great it is to be a pilot?We have all been there haven't we? If they wouldn't bull**** us they wouldn't make any money and since they are the bottom feeders of the aviation in a way (not getting any gratitude for their work really at the end of the day) we treat them as such.But we fell for it and we are here now, so I guess the endless story about becoming a pilot became a story of becoming a survivor.
Simple and true.
But it is in human nature that we all like to turn around the facts, since we are trying to believe and hear only what we would like to hear and that's pretty much what we came down to. Hey; isn't that called a confirmation bias?
As well as how can we believe in all the bollocks from flying schools about how great it is to be a pilot?We have all been there haven't we? If they wouldn't bull**** us they wouldn't make any money and since they are the bottom feeders of the aviation in a way (not getting any gratitude for their work really at the end of the day) we treat them as such.But we fell for it and we are here now, so I guess the endless story about becoming a pilot became a story of becoming a survivor.
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BA recruitment
Not implying there is a shortage of pilots here but I know for a fact that here at BA we weren't exactly flush with applicants making it through for courses, and a percentage who did never actually joined and went elsewhere.
New recruitment figures look very healthy for wannabees due to expansion and new part time options. A figure of 280-300 for next financial year is being circulated, plus serious discussions of a new training scheme/ part sponsorship.
New recruitment figures look very healthy for wannabees due to expansion and new part time options. A figure of 280-300 for next financial year is being circulated, plus serious discussions of a new training scheme/ part sponsorship.
Ryanair defies crisis with plan for 50 new routes
Ryanair defies crisis with plan for 50 new routes
Presumably they will need pilots to fly these extra a/c?
Presumably they will need pilots to fly these extra a/c?
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Skintman -
Not trying to destroy your hope but don't believe everything you read. These figures have always been questioned by many and still are open for debate.
If you look at other websites / read around your see many are struggling to find jobs and it is worrying that the likes of CTC have closed their doors (at the moment). Even more with qualified CTC pilots waiting 12+ months in a holding pool who’s partners are some of the fastest 'growing' airlines in Europe.
From who I have spoken to and what I have read, there is no pilot shortage.
OAT figures
Not trying to destroy your hope but don't believe everything you read. These figures have always been questioned by many and still are open for debate.
If you look at other websites / read around your see many are struggling to find jobs and it is worrying that the likes of CTC have closed their doors (at the moment). Even more with qualified CTC pilots waiting 12+ months in a holding pool who’s partners are some of the fastest 'growing' airlines in Europe.
From who I have spoken to and what I have read, there is no pilot shortage.
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" A worldwide shortage of pilots is putting less experienced fliers at the controls of passenger jets and forcing some airlines to cancel flights for lack of crews.
In the US the pilot squeeze is being felt mostly at regional carriers.."
(continues)
The Wall Street Journal 20th Dec 2007.
Happy Christmas all
In the US the pilot squeeze is being felt mostly at regional carriers.."
(continues)
The Wall Street Journal 20th Dec 2007.
Happy Christmas all
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cancel flights for lack of crews
hiring pilot is more expensive than keeping planes grounded, but it doesn't mean the aircraft are fully grounded waiting for his pilots, they just don't book more seats if the planes are full..
like in a restaurant, when the room is full, you wait outside or go eat somewhere else, they are not going to close the restaurant, because they need more chefs!
SO DON'T BELIEVE THERE IS A PILOT SHORTAGE AND PLANES CAN NOT FLY...IT IS A LIE!
the real shortage is for dentists where people wait 8-12 hours in line in the street to extract a bad tooth...if you want make a good living and make money, you know what to do!!!
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I find myself still flying corporate on the "wrong" side of age seventy, why? the insurance industry understands that one may be able to put low time pilots in the right seat of a scheduled airline flying regular routes into destinations with all the aids and intense supervision but its a different world when one is flying into thirty different fields a month from 3000 of compacted snow with no aids at all to New York at the rush hour, combine this with the lack of weather reporting, nav aids , or ground suport{do your own de ice, fueling ect} in these circumstances a pilot needs a little more than the training and experience gained at some "puppy farm" in Florida!Not to knock the schools but they to are seeing experienced staff sucked up by the shortage in the industry thus there has been a further erosion of training standards.The solution? other than a grubby little war, which is how my generation got trained, we need a national policy to promote flight training, not what is going on in Canada at this time where in Ontario Government policies are causing flight schools to either shut down or cease comercial flight training.In the case of our outfit Im busy training my staff as fast as we can to replace me, have been trying to retire for ten years now!
When I was a young PPL holder in the late 1980s I remember the airlines phoning up the flying school asking if they had any pilots looking for a job with approaching 700 hours (at the time this was the requirement for a CPL via the self-improver route). We are talking about good airline such as Britannia. That was a pilot shortage. This is not.
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Pilot Shortage
Aviation is different then most industries, that if an experienced pilot and an inexperienced pilot walk into the same interview, its a crapshoot who gets the job. Still havent seen interviews where it's a lock for the pilot with solid hours, good background, can just get a flying job. Atleast with majors, they are still picking who they want out of the commuters.
Commuter pay is terrible but it can actualy be reasonable if one sticks around a while.
I have wondered how an airline can buck the 1200 IFR rule and put 500 hour pilots in airline seats, but they have and still do.
Many of us in corporate thought that the insurance companies would help dictate hours, and thus force employers to hire people with experience, didn't happen, they just raised the premiums, and the owners just hired cheaper pilots.
I suppose for a low time pilot willing to move anywhere, and keep plugging away, he'll find a job. For those that want to actualy make a living at this, have a good lifestyle, a good retirement, the good jobs I find are just like 'good' anything, hard to find.
Commuter pay is terrible but it can actualy be reasonable if one sticks around a while.
I have wondered how an airline can buck the 1200 IFR rule and put 500 hour pilots in airline seats, but they have and still do.
Many of us in corporate thought that the insurance companies would help dictate hours, and thus force employers to hire people with experience, didn't happen, they just raised the premiums, and the owners just hired cheaper pilots.
I suppose for a low time pilot willing to move anywhere, and keep plugging away, he'll find a job. For those that want to actualy make a living at this, have a good lifestyle, a good retirement, the good jobs I find are just like 'good' anything, hard to find.
Saddest Aviator described the naked truth about many airlines.
Lemper's perspectives are also quite accurate.
Many small airlines are indifferent to the fact that many brand-new First Officers' zero experience, other than about 60 hours with a Check Airman during IOE, equates to the fact that their next captains with whom they fly are flying SOLO.
The mgmts care nothing about the fact that only one pilot in those c0ckpits has experience.
At 440 knots, around all types of weather through intense east coast airspace, i.e. DCA, PHL, EWR, LGA, JFK, BOS.
ORD, DFW and MIA can also be challenging.
The huge amount of insurance coverage for what insurance companies call a "hull loss" (a bloody, nightmarish crash) lets Upper Mgmts 'off the 'hook' of responsibility and liability.
This is the basic priority and objective is for these "gentlemen".
Lemper's perspectives are also quite accurate.
Many small airlines are indifferent to the fact that many brand-new First Officers' zero experience, other than about 60 hours with a Check Airman during IOE, equates to the fact that their next captains with whom they fly are flying SOLO.
The mgmts care nothing about the fact that only one pilot in those c0ckpits has experience.
At 440 knots, around all types of weather through intense east coast airspace, i.e. DCA, PHL, EWR, LGA, JFK, BOS.
ORD, DFW and MIA can also be challenging.
The huge amount of insurance coverage for what insurance companies call a "hull loss" (a bloody, nightmarish crash) lets Upper Mgmts 'off the 'hook' of responsibility and liability.
This is the basic priority and objective is for these "gentlemen".