Pilot shortage affecting flight safety, analysts say
 

Associated Press
Jul. 18, 2007 10:01 AM
BRUSSELS, Belgium - As the Garuda Indonesia Boeing 737 approached Yogyakarta's main airport, veteran Capt. Marwoto Komar instructed his rookie co-pilot to extend the flaps to slow the plane for landing.

Seconds later, the Boeing slammed into the runway at double the normal landing speed, careened into a rice paddy and caught fire - killing 21 people. Initial findings from the probe into the March 7 crash suggest a misunderstanding between the pilot and his first officer may have contributed to the crash.

Analysts say such apparent miscues are a troubling sign that a worldwide shortage of experienced pilots is starting to affect flight safety.
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The shortage is the result of extraordinary air traffic growth in the Persian Gulf, China and India; the rise of lucrative low-cost carriers in Europe and Asia; and the sustained recovery of the U.S. airlines from the industry recession caused by the Sept. 11 attacks.

"There is a giant sucking sound, luring pilots to rapidly expanding airlines such as Emirates and Qatar and the budget carriers," said William Voss, head of the Flight Safety Foundation. When experienced pilots leave developing countries in Asia and Africa for the Gulf, those countries must hire replacements fresh out of flight school, he said.

And poaching of pilots and mechanics is expected to intensify as Asian markets like China and India burgeon.

Around Asia, flyers from national airlines such as Garuda have deserted for better paying jobs with new and successful budget carriers, such as Malaysia's AirAsia. In Europe, Belgium's largest carrier Brussels Airlines recently complained of losing an average of 10 captains a month to pilot-hungry airlines in the Gulf, and have requested government intervention.

In the United States, where thousands of veterans were laid off after Sept. 11 and left the industry, regional carriers have been giving jobs to first officers with considerably less experience than would have been required 15 years ago.

At some airlines, such as Northwest Airlines, pilot shortages have led to record-breaking flight cancellations in recent months. In the last full week of June, it canceled about 1,200 flights, or about 12 percent of its flight schedule, because it could not provide sufficient pilots to replace those who were grounded after reaching maximum allowed hours.

After that, the airline said it would continue recalling all of its furloughed pilots and hire additional pilots.

Figures released by International Air Transport Association show that global air travel will likely grow 4 to 5 percent a year over the next decade, though the aviation boom in India and China is expected to exceed 7 percent.

The Persian Gulf, the fastest growing region for both passengers and cargo, registered growth of 15.4 and 16.1 percent respectively in 2006. Reflecting this expansion, in the first half of this year Boeing and Airbus received a joint total of 1,100 new orders.

"Airlines such as Emirates, Qatar or Etihad are getting a new Airbus 330 or Boeing 777 each month, which means they also need to take in pilots at a phenomenal rate," said Gideon Ewers, a spokesman for the London-based, 105,000-member International Association of Airline Pilots Associations (IFALPA).

India and China alone will need about 4,000 new pilots a year to cope with their growth - the same number now employed by Germany's Lufthansa. Airlines need 30 highly trained pilots available on average for each long-haul aircraft in their fleet, or 10 to 18 for short-haul planes.

Traditionally, new pilots come up through flight training academies with a strict regimen of classroom training and 50 to 60 hours flying for a Private Pilots License. It takes another 250 hours flying plus a battery of tests for a Commercial Pilots License, which allows the pilot to fly on instruments, rather than only visually, and on airliners with more than one engine. A total of 1,500 hours of flight time are required for a license to co-pilot a commercial jet.

According to the latest available figures, there are 1.2 million pilots worldwide, but just 14 percent have the professional Airline Transport Pilots License.

Paradoxically, flight schools now complain they are understaffed as instructors get hired by regional carriers who have lost pilots to expanding airlines.

In an effort to retain experienced pilots, aviation authorities in some nations - including the United States - are considering extending the mandatory retirement age from 60 to 65 years.

"It makes no sense to force experienced, qualified and healthy pilots to retire while airlines are scrambling to fill those seats," Voss said.

Other airlines and government regulators plan to moderate their standards, allowing new graduates to co-pilot with experienced captains. But this places greater stress on the command pilot who must fly multiple segments while monitoring a copilot's performance.

"The reality is that when airlines are short of pilots they may be tempted to roster their pilots up to the maximum flight time allowed by regulations," Ewers said. "Naturally, fatigue may then become an element."

The London-based International Airline Passengers Association said in a statement it cannot tolerate lowering safety standards and is campaigning for global safety regulation so all airlines meet the same criteria.

The critical shortfall has led the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization to introduce a shortcut - the Multi-Crew Pilot License - where a trainee, supervised by a pilot and co-pilot, will fly a wide-bodied jet within 45 weeks, about what it takes to obtain a driving license in most European countries.

Some pilots' associations have expressed concern that such quick-fix training schemes, where candidates don't accrue any solo flying, ignore the broader safety issues.

"Although all airline pilots are trained to the same standards ... there are certain intangibles that only come from experience," said Patrick Smith, a U.S.-based airline pilot and aviation writer. "The idea of some kid flying a 737 around Africa with 300 hours of total time is a bit scary."

Beat me to it! I was just about to post the article.

However, the Garuda incident is not a good example as it appears it was the first officer who was telling the 'veteran captain' to go around from an unstable approach, but the captain ignored him.

I'm not sure if lower houred first officers is the issue. Low hour first officers have been getting jet jobs for years, the quality of the training is more of an issue. And using the MPL as a case is irrelevant and the MPL pilot will have had some very valid training.

To me, this articel speaks more about the pilot shortage which is already here and is set to get much much bigger.

And yet pay rates remain depressed below 2000 levels.

Something just doesn't add up.

Mebbe worth checking out this for IFALPA's MPL position....

http://www.ifalpa.org/positionstatem...ce%20(MPL).pdf

What a pile of tripe.

V1R

Paying for Line Training
 

After paying for licences, type rating and now A320/B737 Line Training.

Long way from the natural selection of instructing, air taxi, night freight route.

Just a thought.

V interesting article - if I were a wannabee, I'd be loving the read!

Brussels Airlines - presumably, if they paid a decent wage they wouldn't be losing 'ten captains a month' - supply and demand and all that stuff..........

The comment from the US aviation writer about certain '...intangibles only coming with experience' is IMHO a very perceptive comment!! Wait for the MPL/MCPL advocates to come and try to demolish this opinion/assertion!!

The IFALPA article is revealing if you read between the lines - the fact that they are articulating potential problems with the product of the MPL/MCPL process is significant........

So, the case of GA200 is an example of pilot shortage because a rookie pilot reminded the veteran captain (whose behaviour at that day is out of character) to save the day but the captain decided to continue and end up in a tragedy?
*bangs head on table*

Sure it's a concern, but bloody hell, reword that damn example to make it revant! Geezzzz....

PK-KAR

I propose the following:

Pilots are trained cost free by interested airline
Pilots are alotted a Career Total of Fight Time from ab initio to end of career
When the CTFT is reached the pilot is retired with benefits, to be established, but based on productivity and profit sharing etc
For example: I begin at age 22....hired and trained. My CTFT is, say, 18,000 hours. Flying 800 productive hours per year should come to about 21 years or so
At 41 or thereabouts I can retire with full benefits, young pilots take my place, and i can spend time with my kids and wife at home that would be normal and probably reduce divorce and uncontrollable kids.....

I propose the following:-

That the airlines set up a centre of excellence for training future pilots providing an integrated course of ground, flying and simulator training.

Funny - seem to remember there was a place called the College of Air Training, Hamble which was set up to do precisely that?

I seem to remember the same situation around 1998 - claims of inexperienced pilots being promoted too early and commentators then whingeing on about safty standards! The only difference then was that airlines were prepared for your type rating training against a bond. They expect you to pay for that as well out of your own pocket today.

P.P.

Let’s stop barking up the non-existing tree, it’s embarrassing and naïve……….
The world’s population wants air travel and wants to travel for peanuts. The world wide industry needs air travel and it wants it cheap, to maximize profits. Each country wants its citizens and industry to be happy, so they encourage the regulators to “help” the national airline industry to satisfy this demand. To reduce cost, the first measure is generally to increase unit numbers, in this case airplanes. The airlines start massive buying and bargain manufacturers into cut throat price cuttings, which are then generously covered by taxpayer’s money, with compliments of the government to the home industry (thanks for the campaign contribution, by the way). Then they work their existing flight staff to the utmost limit, train huge numbers of new ones with minimum syllabi, all with the incompetent consent of local regulators who are way out of their league, very often un-promoted and unhappy ex-airline clerks. The government couldn’t care less, everybody’s happy, except maybe some airline employees representations, who are most probably the only ones seeing the whole picture and able expose this scam. But their concern would implicate more and proper training/regulation, this means more cost, so discredit them and dump it. The press is of no help either. They need headlines, so why support the right thing, namely more safety? It would bar them from scoops and sensational pictures.
“Safety” has become a word as hollow as “democracy”. But because the chances of being victim of the perversion of either of these terms are slim, nobody gives a toss.

GMDS - I really cannot fault that!

Royhudd,

Exactly the point I was trying to make on another thread.........

People making job changes in their late 20's & 30's, then responding to glossy brochures and 'buying' themselves an 737 job with ****ty companies like Ryanair. There is no skill in that method. It can hardly be called an achievement to pay for line training!!

We can take comfort in the fact that those who buy themselves a job are rarely the kind of pilot real airlines hire. Luckily we don't often have to work with the likes of these people, but rather sit next to someone who may be ex airforce, or done the hard yards through GA.

I regret to say it, but the only thing that will really get the regulators to sit up, take notice and alter the current status quo is a large airline "incident" with major loss of life, possibly involving members of the public under the flight path in a major western country. The cause of the incident will need to be squarely placed in the fatigue/lack of training/over zealous security or similar bracket.

P.P.

P. Pilcher and Roy Hudd are both spot on the money in my opinion. However, it was the European airlines, led, I believe, by British Airways, who started the rot with insisting on taking only cadets who had passed through their own ab initio training schemes and who had "not learned any bad habits" out there instructing or in air taxis. I appreciate that there isn't as big a General Aviation industry in Europe as there is in the US, Canada and Australia, (and perhaps that should be "was", as it has been thoroughly gutted in Australia of late), but I still believe there is nothing better in culling out the dross while giving command and commonsense experience to a young pilot that a trainee will never get in in-house airline training than 1000 to 1500 hours of GA flying before he or she gets to sit in a jet.

With the current shortage, the airlines are beginning to reap what they have sown by making the job so unattractive, both in lifestyle and in remuneration terms, that they simply aren't getting enough youngsters willing to put themselves through the mill for so little perceived reward. However, we, the pilots - or a significently large number of us - have not helped the situation over the years by stabbing our colleagues in the back by being so willing to work for peanuts just so we could fly a big jet by undercutting groups of colleagues who have attempted to stop the rot by taking industrial action. The way so many European charter pilots almost gleefully flocked to Australia for a paid summer holiday back in 1989 to totally destroy the Australian pilots' position in their fight againt unreasonable company practices is a case in point.

Non-pilot speaking
CaptKremin That's because you are not an accountant. :hmm:

ADFS That cosy idea is about 40 years out of date.

GMDS = Spot On!
These are the same kind of shortages that we seeing other areas, such as medicine. In IT, I have seen this: Mgmt want to save money so experienced person will not agree to do the job at that price. They then hire inexpereinced person who is rather cocky about his computer skills. He might scrape through but the company will have a rough ride or, the project is a disaster and they then have to spend the money that they originally agreed not to spend, in order to fix it. Does this sound familiar? Of course, in IT, when the project goes wrong, it is already on the ground ...

P.Pilcher Yes, exactly what I have been saying for some time. The problem, though, is to identify the fatigue element and apportion blame when appropriate.

There have been a number of threads where it is apparent that FC believe that the airline mgmt will reach for their prepared speech. (I have shortened the ten page document prepared by their lawyers):
This pilot was fatigued.
They should have declined the duty.
They know that we place the safety of our clients and staff above all else and are always sympathetic to people that are fatigued.
Since they did not absent themselves from duty .. it was their fault.

Meanwhile, in the background, you will hear many of their employees talking of the threats wielded if you DO report as fatigued.

So, yes, some people must die before anything changes because the only things that changes peoples minds are money and death.

Wiley
You are living in a dream world if you think this has ANY relevance to the argument put forward.
This is a discussion relating to lowering standards of training and experience, not about the over inflated pay packets and ego's of pre 1989 oz airline flying:=

The current shortage of pilots is a major problem, no doubt about it. The worst affected are the 3rd tier airlines, who lose pilots to the first and second tiers, and then struggle to find suitable pilots.

But even worsely affected are the training schools, who desperately try and hang on to their instructors, but are largely fighting a losing battle. We now have a situation where, if you want to become a humble (but most valuable) aero club instructor, you have to do the CPL course first and then do an instructors rating on top. Costs plenty and takes a long time.

You can imagine, that after going through all that training, you are tempted to forgoe the aero club experience and go straight into the right hand seat of a Q400, or at least some sort of commercial operation.

Professional flight schools are now having to pay a lot more for their instructors, yet are still very short of them. the result is that the system just isn't working efficiently.

But let's assume that this all settles down, there still remains the problem of the bigger and more glamourous airlines taking pilots off the smaller airlines. I know it has always happened, but now that the cost of training to a Frozen ATPL/IR has gone up so much, and there aren't many ex Air force guys available, the smaller airlines - and maybe some larger airlines, too - are having real trouble getting enough pilots.

I don't agree with Wiley who said that Hamble was a bad idea. I think the opposite; I think it was an excellent idea, and it is a great pity that BA have abandoned this method of recruiting pilots. (Mind you, I accept that BA don't have 748s, ATPs, etc any more, and I think they would have to farm out pilots for two or three years to a smaller airline - rather like Premiership football clubs loan out their young players to Championship clubs.)

BA can afford to train up pilots. So can Virgin, T'Fly, Monarch etc. If they want pilots for the future, they should do their bit to get pilots trained, not just wait for pilots to come to them.

OK, knowing Ppruners, many will argue the finer points, and I accept that I have not made a full case, but I do think the fundamental, and developing, problem is with the training schools and the (soon) crippling cost of training up commercial pilots.

With the greatest of respect, like most of the arguments one reads about "shortages" of Doctors, Engineers, tradesman etc.

The problem is not a shortage of pilots at all. It is a shortage of pilots prepared to work for the pay offered.

I can think of many bright young people who might like a flying career....but when they compare lifestyle, risks and personal cost against the rewards....they decide on other careers instead.

To put it another way, it is a shortage of pilots prepared to work for peanuts, under continuously deteriorating employment conditions.