stbloc

Article point out they are going to need 42000 pilot over the next 10 years. I've been hearing this for a while, when will it materialize.

Future pilots may not be up to snuff, NTSB warned - Yahoo! News

rickair7777

They have been saying this for decades...there has not been a pilot shortage at the major level in about 50 years (if there ever was one).

The flight training industry (led by the big aviation universities) is constantly priming the pump with this rumor.

TheBills

Im surprised people say this shortage wont happen, and where is it? Surely people realize why its not happening right now right? Nobody is retiring, and the airlines were/are shrinking. When people start retiring there will be a shortage just like there was in 06, when most everybody was recalling and hiring. How quickly we forget.

saab2000

There is no current shortage. We recently hired a couple dozen pilots at my company and supposedly had hundreds of qualified applicants. But the dynamic is likely to change in the next couple years.

I recently had a US Airways jumpseater. He said that they are already running into significant pairing difficulties because of pairing pilots over 60 together on long-haul flights. They may not fly together below 10'000 feet. Some are retiring and at airlines already stretched thin it doesn't take many to break the chain. In a maximum of 30 months we will start to see mandatory retirements, and in large numbers monthly at airlines like AA, US Airways, UPS, FedEx, United/Continental, etc.

It doesn't take a genius to see that there will be opportunities. There may never be a shortage at the major/legacy level. But there will be changes in the industry. Of that everyone may be certain.

Riddler

I love that article - when referring to the Colgan crash:
"The safety board said the crash occurred after the plane stalled because the pilot pulled back, instead of pushing forward, on a key piece of safety equipment."

Um, yup, I guess that the yoke is a key piece of safety equipment. Call it a yoke, call it the stick, call it the control column. Whatever.... but when you call it a "key piece of safety equipment," it really shows that you have no business writing about the airline industry.

So when that same source says that we need 42,000 pilots, all of the sudden they're credible? Ha!

block30

I am still infuriated that these articles keep blaming individual pilots. I'm not saying we pilots are not accountable on the job. We are. But so the heck is our leadership.

The workforce (pilots, etc.) needs to be set up for success on the job by their leadership. We have been set up for failure for a length of time and are reaping what has been sown. Period.

BarbieTrash

It will never materialize...Something will always happen to cripple the industry every 10 years or so. This allows a pool of qualified pilots desperate to get away from the rat race and realize their dream to fly for a living to form. This pool miraculously happens to be just enough for the majors to drink from after they recall all their Furloughs...And then the cycle repeats itself...The career is destined to be a top heavy beast ready to topple over at any moment. Only to be saved by a couple thousand weak low paid toothpicks to prop it up for another 10 years of hell. Until this changes (and it won't anytime soon) there will be no shortage...
Get in line toothpick, the beast needs to be propped up, don't tick him off or he will vote away your pay and benifets to finance his third divorce and save whats left of his pension.
GOOD LUCK

FloridaGator

Was everyone told about a huge pilot drought and upcoming pilot shortage in college? Yes there was a ton of hiring between 1998 and 2000 but....

09/11/01 furloughed nearly everyone that was hired during those years.

Then, nearly every airline declared bankruptcy.

Our do-nothing congress finally did something... and screwed us by raising the retirement age. Doesn't everyone want the mandatory age raised when they have achieved maximum seniority right before they turn 60? It didn't surprise me that it happend for the Baby boom generation.... when you're the biggest generation, you can whine the loudest.

And now a global recession.

I agree that if the status quo is maintained there will be a huge pilot shortage. What concerns me is that in the last 10 years... nothing has remained status quo and I have no reason to think that 2020 will look anything like 2010.

If there is considerable consolidation from UAL and CAL.... there will be less overall pilot jobs accounted for at the combined carrier.

If there is a liquidation of a struggling carrier. ie Chapter 11 reorganization has been previously accomplished with no profitable result... a refiling for bankruptcy could eventually lead to a Chapter 7 liquidation.

The day of 7 or 8 flights a day between city pairs (4 mainline and 3 or so regional jet) could be gone for a long time. Less flights per day (2 or 3) in bigger equipment cold be what we find in the foreseeable future. Less airplanes, less pilots.

I hope that there finally is a pilot shortage. That is better for bargaining and career movement. However, it seems that there could be a few snags in the pilot drought rumor.

LavChange

There will never be a pilot shortage because articles such as this fail to mention all of the downward economic pressures facing the airline industry such as rising oil prices, environmental concerns, high speed rail links, increased capacity on decreased frequency, etc, etc.

makersmarc

The pilot training bubble has burst, or is about to. Folks are figuring out that those $100K loans they took out for pilot training are not the investment they thought they were, and the word is starting to get out. One difference between this and the housing bubble is that student loans can't be wiped out through bankruptcy.

Here is an interesting article about the education bubble:

Glenn Reynolds: Higher education's bubble is about to burst | Washington Examiner