Pilot shortage - myth or reality?

[Hangarshuffle]

I fly with BA, KLM, S7, Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Gulf, Saudi, Oman and more and have never been held up by any sort of announcement to the effect that I've been delayed due to staff shortages/ pilots. Trains in the UK, its a different story.
So from my POV, no shortage.

[Falck]

Pilot shortage???
That is what Airbus and Boeing say.
Think about it? If you produce toy airplanes. And you like to sell them worldwide? You know in order to sell them you
have to keep the price down. So you want to make sure if your toy airplane needs batteries that the batteries are cheap.
otherwise you will not sell your toyplane.
So you create a world with to many pilots on the market. Cheap batteries. That works both for Boeing and Airbus plus it works for the airlines.
In the end it is the passengers paying for the Boeing or Airbus in their ticket price.. And they like it cheap.
A lot of flying is needed for business but a lot is also luxury article. Holidays, citytrips etc. So if people cannot or are not
willing to pay the ticket price which they don't have to. That is a big portion of the Airline passengers. They don't have to fly.
You have to attract them on board with cheap tickets. Means cheap labor.

As well getting more women in the flightdeck. They can pilot just as good as man. But is only 97% or so of pilot
community. The reason to use the media and recruit more women in the Flightdeck is the same. As above.
Ask and demand. The more pilots no matter what gender the lower/cheaper their wages. If you can attract even 3% more
female pilots you don't have to increase the wages.

Airbus started their flightschool recently. Boeing was behind MPL with their Alteon training company. All in order to sell their toys.
As long as pilots have to pay for their training, there is to many.
It should be funded by the healthy Airline.

Falck

[cumulustratus]

Originally Posted by Falck

Pilot shortage???
That is what Airbus and Boeing say.
Think about it? If you produce toy airplanes. And you like to sell them worldwide? You know in order to sell them you
have to keep the price down. So you want to make sure if your toy airplane needs batteries that the batteries are cheap.
otherwise you will not sell your toyplane.
So you create a world with to many pilots on the market. Cheap batteries. That works both for Boeing and Airbus plus it works for the airlines.
In the end it is the passengers paying for the Boeing or Airbus in their ticket price.. And they like it cheap.
A lot of flying is needed for business but a lot is also luxury article. Holidays, citytrips etc. So if people cannot or are not
willing to pay the ticket price which they don't have to. That is a big portion of the Airline passengers. They don't have to fly.
You have to attract them on board with cheap tickets. Means cheap labor.

As well getting more women in the flightdeck. They can pilot just as good as man. But is only 97% or so of pilot
community. The reason to use the media and recruit more women in the Flightdeck is the same. As above.
Ask and demand. The more pilots no matter what gender the lower/cheaper their wages. If you can attract even 3% more
female pilots you don't have to increase the wages.

Airbus started their flightschool recently. Boeing was behind MPL with their Alteon training company. All in order to sell their toys.
As long as pilots have to pay for their training, there is to many.
It should be funded by the healthy Airline.

Falck

Truer words were rarely spoken. Well done for explaining large scale advanced economic machinery in terms everyone can grasp.

Aviation in Lady Europa is about to change drastically in my view. DY is struggling, ezy has stopped DEC recruitment and looks on their careers site as if f/o recruitment is down quite a lot as well. Ryr will need pilots for some time yet, and I guess they shall get them as the only large operator recruiting for all positions. Flag carriers are taking pilots, but not enough to keep disturbing the job market. Wow/germania/monarch/air Berlin gone with Thomas Cook apparently being put in the shop window and alitalia flying way too close to the sun for way too long.

I say gone will be the days of cadet to captain to trainer in the span of 6-7 years, probably never to be seen again as aviation in the eurozone has matured (loco at full possible expansion, legacy adjusted to correct market size)

Get in to a stable operator in the seat you want to be NOW. A recession is on the horizon, things may well look very different on the other side of it.

[MaverickPrime]

There is a lot of people saying “oh Delta skippers get $400k/yr” etc. You’ve got to remember that aviation in the US is very much a climb the ladder game. A lot of these guys started out in their teens or early 20s flying bug smashers and earning peanuts. There is an American guy on YouTube with 40 years experience and still doesn’t have enough seniority to fly LHS on the 777 at one of the majors. It’s the same in other parts of the world I.e. Aus/Nz.

In euroland it’s not so seniority driven and you can progress relatively quickly, even if you are hindered by recession or redundancy. People join airlines in Europe in their 40s and can retire as wide body captains. In Europe you start on a reasonable salary and you progress relatively quickly to captain with a good salary. The spread of earnings in Europe are not the same as the rest of the world, you generally don’t earn peanuts like a crop sprayer or the fortunes of a Dellta captain.

My my point is, if you were willing to sit down in front of excel and work out the career average salary of a US pilot versus a European pilot; you’d probably find they are very similar.

Anyway, if you are becoming a pilot for the money; you are crazy!

[longlayover]

I fully agree that some sort of recession is looming on the horizon, and we will see a change in the pilot job market, with fewer opportunities. However, there is a big difference, when we compare the last two recessions with the current or looming recession. We have to remember that in 2001 most airlines were heavily over staffed and that most authorities changed their regulations to allow pilots to fly until their 65th birthday. This left the industry with a huge surplus of trained pilots, which was not depleted when the 2008 recession hit, one of the worst recession in newer history. This lead to decrease in terms and conditions. The surplus of pilots is now very low, and number of flight students are considerably lower compared to the late nineties and the terms and conditions are slowly changing to the better. For those reasons I predict that the coming/current recession will be short and that we will see even better terms and conditions on the other side of it.

[PPRuNe Towers]

To add some perspective to the extent of the 2008 recession we were around and covering the entire period. Here's the 2008 stats for airlines going broke.

01/01/2008 Alpi Eagles

06/01/2008 Aero Airlines

08/01/2008 BRTJ BritishJet.com

23/01/2008 CST Coast Air

14/01/2008 FFP Prima Charter

30/01/2008 City Star Airlines

11/02/2008 VID Aviaprad Airlines

29/02/2008 Boston-Maine Airways

08/03/2008 BigSky

13/03/2008 GirJet

18/03/2008 DHI Adam Air

25/03/2008 QSC African Safari Airways

30/03/2008 Freedom Air

30/03/2008 Airclass Airways

31/03/2008 JAA Japan Asia Airways

29/04/2008 NTW Nationwide Airlines

28/04/2008 AAH Aloha Airlines

02/04/2008 AMT ATA Airlines

09/04/2008 OHK Oasis Hong Kong Airlines

27/04/2008 ESS Eos Airlines

20/04/2008 VCX Ocean Airlines

07/04/2008 SKB Skybus Airlines

05/04/2008 SYW Skyway Airlines

11/04/2008 SWX Swazi Express Airways

03/05/2008 Mihin Lanka

13/05/2008 AOL Angkor Airways

09/05/2008 EMX Euromanx

13/05/2008 FEA Far Eastern Air Transport

23/05/2008 Club Air

30/05/2008 SLR Silverjet

31/05/2008 CCP Champion Air

10/06/2008 Magnicharters

11/06/2008 Aerocondor

16/07/2008 Yeti Airlines

21/07/2008 Ankair

21/07/2008 One-Two-Go

29/07/2008 Riau Airlines

13/08/2008 GCO Gemini Air Cargo

04/08/2008 SER Aerocalifornia

05/08/2008 Avolar

05/08/2008 Nova Air

28/08/2008 OOM Zoom Airlines

28/08/2008 UKZ Zoom Airlines (UK)

09/09/2008 FUA Futura International Airways

09/09/2008 FGL Futura Gael

11/09/2008 Air Bee

12/09/2008 XLA XL Airways UK

15/09/2008 APKX Air Pack Express

15/09/2008 AeBal

17/09/2008 Dalavia Russia

06/10/2008 Galaxy Airlines (Japan)

09/10/2008 Lagunair Spain

16/10/2008 Flysur Spain

17/10/2008 LTE Spain

17/10/2008 Omskavia

17/10/2008 Interavia

17/10/2008 Tesis

17/10/2008 Vyborg Airlines

18/10/2008 Hansung Airlines

20/10/2008 Flysur

21/10/2008 Aladia (Mexico)

29/10/2008 Sterling AirwaysAirlines

31/10/2008 Air Comet (Chile)

31/10/2008 Kras Air

01/11/2008 Domodedovo Airlines

08/11/2008 Alma (Mexico)

11/11/2008 Inter Airlines (Turkey)

01/12/2008 European Aviation Aircharter

01/12/2008 Primaris Airlines

01/12/2008 Siem Reap Airways International

03/12/2008 Flightline

06/12/2008 OK Air

Rob

[WannabeBus]

Quote -Anyone who gives up an airline captaincy in his early 30s to sit on his ### for the rest of his life staring at a computer screen ought to have his head examined.

That would be me. Widebody Twin Captain, mid-thirties. Resigned over a decade ago to be own boss. No regrets

[CaptainProp]

If we don’t have a substantial financial correction in the next 12-24 months, one that’s massively changing the landscape, I think recruitment will continue as air travel is set to increase substantially over coming 10-15 years.

The fact that easyJet (as it was mentioned) is showing signs of not recruiting much at the moment means nothing. For most companies recruitment is semi-seasonal and come August / September they’ll start calling people in for interviews and OCCs as training ramps up again in preparation for 2020. This pattern is true for most airlines in Europe and it’s nothing new.

Will there be more companies going under? Most certainly, but the number of commercial aircraft and passengers travelling will continue to rise.

Don’t forget that even at a moderate fleet increase of say 4-5 % per annum companies like easyJet and Ryanair are adding 15-20 aircraft. Then there are all the smaller t-p operators, regionals, bizjet and cargo operators, legacy airlines etc etc. Add retirements and people who decide to leave the business altogether and it’s pretty clear that there will be plenty of recruitment going on also in the coming years. Just my two cents.

(Added)
.....but a real pilot shortage? Not a chance I’m afraid.

CP

[BluSdUp]

Shortage delayed!

CptProp
Right You are.
No real Pilot shortage!
Just shortage of Real Pilots!
Trust me, there are!
Regards
Cpt B

[KRUSTY 34]

Originally Posted by mryan75

Anyone who gives up an airline captaincy in his early 30s to sit on his ### for the rest of his life staring at a computer screen ought to have his head examined.

To those of us who have done the hard yards over many years mryan, your statement makes perfect sense. I know it does to me.

The above case, although extreme IMHO, probably highlights the overarching reason for the problem. A loss of wonder, fascination​​​​​, love whatever, in the profession by a much greater percentage of the population. Especially over the last 20 years.

Realistically there’s probably not much we will be able to do about that. So if it all comes down to money, there is only one viable long term solution.

Of course that would require a paradigm shift in the value placed on those who sit up the front.

[Shrike200]

Myth.

Anybody with reasonable T&C's grounding flights due to insufficient flight deck crew? Nope....

A few entirely self-inflicted shortages don't make the case for actual shortages. We're not even at the stage of first world countries fully opening up their job market to foreigners, which would definitely happen if there was a real shortage.

Edit to add: That previously linked article is a decently thought out piece of work, making some good points. I don't recommend this career to young people nowdays since it's frankly quite horrible for family life. The idea that one partner must stay home and run the household while the pilot works at all sorts of random hours and spends half the time away from home doesn't really appeal to anybody with a brain nowdays.

[compass360]

Originally Posted by mryan75

Anyone who gives up an airline captaincy in his early 30s to sit on his ### for the rest of his life staring at a computer screen ought to have his head examined.

anyone who gives up a well paying (higher paying) job in his 30s to sit on his ### for the rest of his life staring at an LCD/MCDU screen counting down the miles to go ought to have HIS head examined.

To answer the original question, if I look at my T&Cs, it’s definitely a myth.

[Easyheat]

I absolutely agree with shrike and compass. Hated flying low cost 800 hrs/year, with poor t&cs. Never again. 500 hrs/year is max now. My nightmare would be if any of my kids (soon teens) told me that they have decided to become pilots. What a no brainer decision.

[The Ancient Geek]

Rather let them spend a few years hacking around the game reserves, great life for a young single CPL with plenty of variety. Flying jets up and down the same route is boring.

[physicx]

Myth

There are plenty of pilots right out of school and in GA. Back in the day all you needed was CPL 200 Hours and you would be snatched up and trained for ME/IR + type rating.
Now you need CPL/ATPL 1500 plus hours, a type rating, time on type, a university degree, pay to fly, pass psychometric etc etc the list goes on!!!!

The shortage is created by flight schools and airlines to keep up business and pay low (insurance companies too).
Laws of demand and supply: If pilot supply increases and demand remains unchanged, then it leads to lower pay.

Some of us have been struggling to survive as pilots. We made a high investment on our training with low/nil returns! While your accountant friend made a low investment and is enjoying high returns.

There is no shortage!

[cumulustratus]

Originally Posted by physicx

The shortage is created by flight schools and airlines to keep up business and pay low (insurance companies too).
Laws of demand and supply: If pilot supply increases and demand remains unchanged, then it leads to lower pay

​​​​​​IF(!) the pilots allow the pay to go down!

Sticking together, across airlines and across countries, refusing to allow bad times in the business affect our T&Cs, is possible.

Do airlines pay less for the fuel because times are bad? Do they pay less for the aircraft? For the catering? For capex? NO! They pay the market rate!

The market rate of a pilot shouldn't be dictated in a board room, but in the intra European pilot union conferences! If the pilots bodies stick together, they dictate the market rate of their labour. Management will always attempt divide and conquer in order to drive down conditions, and way too many professional (!) pilots are far too eager to help them out. And then they b*tch and moan.

[Impress to inflate]

Found this on linkedin

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/world...0WgCL2oZQqooI1

[boeingeng]

Originally Posted by cumulustratus

​​​​​​

The market rate of a pilot shouldn't be dictated in a board room, but in the intra European pilot union conferences!

Surely the market rate of a pilot is decided in exactly the same way as everyone else - by supply and demand. If there are enough kids who dont think that loading themselves up with 50k of debt is a great idea then there will be a pilot shortage and T&C's will rise.

[iggy]

Originally Posted by boeingeng

with 50k of debt

50k only? More like 300k, counting with the TR and line training. In PTF airlines there are 600 guys waiting in line with the cash ready. I don't see any shortage here.

[cumulustratus]

Originally Posted by boeingeng

Surely the market rate of a pilot is decided in exactly the same way as everyone else - by supply and demand. If there are enough kids who dont think that loading themselves up with 50k of debt is a great idea then there will be a pilot shortage and T&C's will rise.

I knew someone would bite and write that. This is such a common thing to hear, especially in our community. But this is false, because it would mean that you see yourself as nothing more than a easily attainable commodity - but it isn't that simple. If the price of oil starts going down, does opec keep producing the same amount of barrels or do they adjust their output? You know the answer, and it's because they have the power to affect the market price by adjusting supply.

Its also false, because we cannot be replaced by average Joe on the street. So if the workforce in an airline disagree with T&C's, they can retract their labour, which also stops the training of their replacements (which by the way is a very slow process due to the nature of our business)

This is a process that was established in the beginning of the previous century, and there are usually very strong laws around Europe to protect the workers in that regard. It's the foundation of a healthy power balance between the provider and customer of the labour.

Personally I find that people from the UK in particular are very reluctant to accept this principle. It seems to be some odd remnant of the Thatcher era, where people seem to think that the profit of the company is the sole concern for all employees.

We're no different from people working in a mine or on a production line in a factory. We can all be replaced with cheaper versions of ourselves, it's up to us to stick together and make sure that costs more (for example by refusing to train our replacements or completely withdrawing our labour if management even try to replace us) than increasing our T&C's to a healthy level which reflects our responsibility and productivity.

Why is a medium size jet captain paid nearly twice as much ( gross, currency equivalent) in the US compared to comparable airlines in Europe? It sure isn't because the US guys fly twice as much.