Never believe what the Aircraft Manufacturers say, all they are trying to do is stir up a market for their product and has nothing to do with reality:ok:

Thanks for that. I've been reading these forums and it just made my jaw drop to read something that was so against what all you guys in the know are saying.

I mean 22,000 ? wow that is abit unbeleivable.

Don't forget that there are tons and tons of old aircraft out there and least some, if not most of them, need to be replaced. That accounts for a lot of those aircrafts on order. Although everyone knows that between 20 and 30% of all orders will not be bought in the end.

I think the most important thing for a pilots first job is flexibility... If your willing to be very flexible and seek jobs anywhere then you will get your first job, and then its alot easier to go from there on. I dont think we are looking at the end of pilot recruitment as many people make it seem, but your chair will always be shaking. Even the strong airlines, with lots of cash are having major difficulties as we speak. It has to do with risk assessment... do you really wanna pay all that money to do an AMAZING job, but be worried of your job status almost all the time?

SVoa

The first twelve years of my flying life were as a fighter pilot in the R.A.F. ,followed by twenty two years in civil aviation. I have to say those first twelve years were the best in my life and I'm wondering why more Wannabees don't choose that way into a flying career...You do get trained for free :)

The indicator
 

Once about every 10th year pilots are talking of a big shortage. Airlines do not know how they will expand because of lack of pilots. Golden times for pilots. Finally, we think it is payback time,the greedy top management will do anything for us. But every time the economy slows down so there will be a surplus instead. Talk about pilot shortage is only an indicator for recession.

Surplus short term - airlines will go out of business. Airlines will have to learn to make money at 90 - 130 a barrel, they will drive down costs including pilot t&c less people will be able to afford to train and it will be a less attractive job = Long term shortage t&c will go back up.

Sound familiar?

Whatever, things are not looking too good right now and its just possible that airline travel could be knocked back 30 odd years and become rather expensive again which would be a great shame - thats looking rather more likely by the day. My personel opnion is there is much pain to come. Hate to sound negitive - not my style, but the fact is that futures are being traded at considerably more that current prices, and demand is still outstripping supply

Previous post join the service - good advice, great life.

Best Rgds

Contango
 

I think Contango is the word for the current oil price - futures versus spot.
It's not looking good is it.
However, completely agree with Peter and Slick; arguably you'll get better training and find out a lot more about corners of the envelope most people only dream (or have nightmares) about!


(Arguably, you might also have to get involved in illegal wars and risk your life killing innocent people - whilst flying obsolete and only tolerably safe airframes.....)

FLY NAVY

It all boils down to oil really. Oil being a finite resource, it has a finite life. The $64,000 dollar question is when does the price of oil make it uneconomical for airlines to fly. I'm convinced that the end is nigh for oil, but not for 30+ years. Having said that I would suggest you follow what the guys with the oil are doing i.e. The Gulf States. They are best placed to know how much oil they have left and the one thing that I see from all of them is orders for A380's. Forward planning? I don't know the economics of airlines but I would hazard a guess that it will be cheaper to fly one A380 with 500 pax than two smaller a/c with the same number of pax. That, of course leads to half the aircrew, but doesn't spell the imminent end of aviation.

A difficult decision for a wanabee and not one that I would relish. So "Toujours" all I can say is if you have your heart set on being a pilot then go for it but, bear in mind that your choice of a/c and airline may determine how long you can stay in the game.

On the beach

Agreed, except for one slight flaw. We can't all get into the military. You don't choose them they choose you. You were very lucky. Most of us don't fit the uniform no matter how much we want to wear it.

As for the pilot shortage/surplus, this is the old perennial question. But I always felt it was meaningless. Even when there is a supposed surplus, pilots find jobs. But conversely during supposed shortages. The airlines rarely fall over themselves with incentives to would be recruits. I've been knocking around this business for many many years and I've always found that would be pilots find work eventually. Sometimes it takes longer, sometimes not. And for experienced pilots, sometimes they have go further for work. Sometimes it lands in their laps.

Wearing yourself out worrying about impending shortages or surpluses is pointless. It's just not that predictable.

Drivez
 

When you have time take a look at this stuff, I think it will explain a lot:

http://www.airbus.com/en/corporate/gmf/

You will also see that past downturns look like just tiny wobbles on the historical traffic growth curve.

Product planning timeframes mean the manufacturers have no choice but to look a long way ahead. The forecasts are not slashed every time there's a recession, however real and painful it may be at the time, because growth resumes in due course.

The question below is part of an interview with Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer on the Times website. It clearly shows that (at least according to JvdV) we should not expect too much of increased production or alternatives. Instead, we should focus on conservation and efficiency as an answer to the tight supply/demand balance. He basically acknowledged peak oil. This will probably not be an tiny wobble on the aviation growth curve.



Question: For decades, science has clearly understood the inevitability of both “peak oil” and climate change. Nothing has been done and both are now here. It is clear who the winners and losers are. To illustrate, EACH American pays about $1,400 per year as a premium for oil being scarce. The cost of a massive transition from petroleum-based power to electrical power, using solar thermal generation, can be estimated to have been less than $1,000 per year (at a premium of about 5c/kWh). Can you see any redeeming features, except profits, in this situation?

Answer: Jeroen van der Veer:

It is true that “easy oil and gas” - or conventional oil and gas that are relatively easy to extract - will not be able to match the pace with which demand is growing. The main reasons are the maturing of existing fields in many parts of the world, the scale of the investments required to enhance oil recovery from these fields and to bring new projects on stream, and of course the limited access for the international energy industry in some countries.

I have been warning for sometime about the end of the “easy oil” era, and I think the message is slowly beginning to sink in. And so is the logical consequence: we need all the energy we can get.

What is less obvious to many people is that even if we develop and deploy all the energy we can together - including unconventional oil and natural gas, including alternative energy, including nuclear and including more coal - we will still struggle to match demand. Unless we can curb the consumption of energy through radically more efficient technology.


Full interview:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...cle3985479.ece

I Think there's a continous 'Glut' of Line pilot's worldwide, Irrelevant of their experience.

Listening over the airwaves, I would say a good 65% are foreign pilot's flying uk airliners.

Aside from that, I think the one's to probably be the first to walk the plank, Will be the Flying Schools.

I know one of my local Schools is closing now on a monday, As the demand for training has obviously fallen, Due in part to the credit wave that has come.

At the average price of 105.00 p/h that prices a good 85% of the population out initially.

As the well known phrase says Flying is a rich man's game, And I don't think this will ever change, I hope it will.

Obviously there are exeptions to this, That being if you are very very fortunate to acquire any kind of sponsorship, But that is these days very very few as we all know.

Flying aircraft is not exactly the average job is it.

IMHO the human race is generally reactive and not proactive. Therefore unless something really goes wrong with the world economy or climate then people will still want what they have now come to accept as the norm and that is cheap weekend flights to BCN, PRG etc. etc. That is why we should champion the likes of Michael and Stellios. They were the ones that bought cheap flights to the masses. We're not in it to go backwards to the middle ages after all. So, woe bitied (?) any government that tries to stop us. They'll just see it as an excuse to tax us more anyway. It's not in their interest to stop aviation and throw thousands on the dole queue.
The aviation market as anyone who has been in the business for as long as I have ( both ground and now flight deck ) will tell you things are cyclic. There will always be movement and jobs in the turboprop market but the plum jet jobs will be harder to get during the 'lows'.
My advice is for anyone starting out now only do it if you can afford to lose the money on, say, a bet. We are about to go into a lull for a couple of years I think and a lot of people are at the moment sitting tight. Nice for the airline bosses looking at the current T & C's of their pilots.
It will return though have no doubt. The next peak may be some time into the next decade though I'm sorry to say.
Best of luck though if you're a 'wannabe' .

The thing to remember with oil is that we may well invent a new technology before we even get close to running out of the black stuff :ok:.... Don't forget the Stone age didn't end because we ran out of stone, and neither did the bronze or iron age end because we ran out of them :ok:....

Neccesity drives change, my money is on hydrogen fuel cells.....:cool:

As for the future of wannabe's, I am in a predicament to take the plunge and chase my dreams of being a commercial pilot, or stick with being an engineer, all of which are still based around aviation so I am screwed either way :}:{

Amen to the fuel cell technology! I wish that they would not keep pumping the electricity that is generated by renewables straight into the National fcuking Grid! This ad-hoc technology does nothing to lower emissions from power stations that take a day to start. ('scuse my language and outburst. I think that 's for another debate.):ugh:
H2 is the way forward, I agree, and it should be stored for use as and when and the best way to get it for storage is from renewables as and when they are available.
Good luck if you go for it. It's better than ess-ee-ex when things get tasty.

Do you think those who will lose their jobs due to merger or ariline shut down will rush to asian countries and at any condition work for asian airlines?

In the short term recession and the sky high price of oil will undoubtedly cause a sharp drop in demand for flying followed by the inevitable and painful contraction of the industry. But contrary to what all the doomongers are saying oil is not yet going to run out and after the rain the economic sun will shine once again. It may take 5 years to get over the aftermath of NuLabour's economic mismanagement and overtaxation but things will eventually recover. China's super economic growth will also slow taking the pressure off oil demand. The public has a taste for air travel (and cars for that matter) and no matter what the politicians do they wont get the genie back in the bottle. In due course it will be business as usual :ok:

Peak Oil
 

Still a very subjective theory. Saudi Arabia (KSA) have the largest oil reserves, no one really beleives they are what they say they are, but that is "conventional oil". Canada's oil sands have 1.7 trillion barrels of oil of which 10% is commercially viable at $64/barrel with present technology....what was the last quote for oil....? 10% of the known tar sands reserves at 3M barrels/day will last for 170 years. The Steam Assited Gravity Drainage SAGD process now has the ability to extract up to 60% of the oil from the tar sands. It's all a question of price and return on investment. Bottom line, the oil is available to fuel the aviation industry but how much will we and the traveling public be willing to pay?

World demand 2006 was 86M barrels/day and will be 118m barrels/day by 2030. Simply put, 1.7 trillion would last 40 years at 118 million barrels a day consumption.

The oil crisis
 

Gordon Brown: We must all act together

"The oil crisis is a global problem requiring global solutions."

"The global economy is facing the third great oil shock of recent decades."

"The cause of rising prices is clear: growing demand and too little supply to meet it both now and - perhaps of even greater significance - in the future."

etc, etc.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ordonbrown.oil



Hmm... this kind of language makes me think... where is my cognac?