SkyWest

I'm genuinely surprised by what I witnessed today at the field where I started my flight training about nine years ago. I took my family up to have dinner and couldn't believe what I saw. The field was almost completely empty! When I was in flight training there were planes everywhere night and day, seven days a week. There would be a constant stream of arrivals and touch-and-goes spaced just moments apart on two independently tower controlled parallel runways. I remember on any given night, you could stand outside the terminal restaurant and look off towards the finals and see two separate lines of landing lights sequenced for both the south and north runways. There'd be airplanes parked from end to end, wingtip to wingtip all up and down the ramp and you could always hear the constant hum of engines running. Cessnas, Seminoles, and Archers would dominate the field full of students and instructors from two competing flight academy schools taxiing in to tie down or out to the run-up areas. It was constantly abuzz and full of life if not overly congested and almost dangerously over crowded.

Today... In two and-a-half hours, I saw two airplanes and one helicopter move on the field. There was absolutely no one tied down on the main ramp. It was completely empty from one end to the other. It was silent. The sign above my old flight academy's entrance now simply read "flight training" and there appeared to be about two thirds of the fleet remaining. It used to be impossible to find a place to park in front of the school. We'd have to go back to the back lot behind the flight line. Today, there were three cars in the entire parking lot. This was about as unbelievable a change as I thought I'd ever see. It truly reminded me of the fate of an old mining town. The other school appeared to still have an academy feel to it but it too had definitely seen more action before. It had evidently been bought out by another owner and I saw a couple of sharply dressed Asian students emerge from the lobby. They appeared to be finishing up for the day and I think may have been flying one of the two airplanes I had seen taxiing in earlier. It appeared that, if anything, this school might have been surviving by taking on some international students. I saw zero Westerners on the field, other than old timers (although it was getting late in the day). Even as it was getting later though, I remember us going well into the evening hours with heavy flying activities seven days a week. We'd often come back in from training flights after the lobbies had closed for the day at around 2100hrs. This was around 6PM and at least one of the facilities was already closed and dark.

The difference was night and day. It seemed like the type of thing you might expect to see after twenty or thirty years but I really am talking about a short nine year period here. Things have, most assuredly, changed. There's been a-lot of talk about this pilot shortage stuff recently and I wasn't a real big believer until tonight. Now... I'm not so sure. What I saw out there was enough to get me thinking about it anyway.

I don't know about the global economy or what we might see on Wall Street tomorrow but I can tell you first hand that what I saw today was a much different aviation training environment than what I remember from less than ten years ago. Wow!

SkyHigh

Don't forget that it can, and will, all come back in a flash.

Skyhigh

SkyWest

I don't doubt that for a split second. I guess my point was that I didn't realize how far gone it already was. I've heard/read people talking about it but hadn't really witnessed the actual change until this afternoon. I'm not even sure I really know what effect it's supposed to have on the overall industry anyway. ...interesting though.

brianb

It won't come back in a "flash"! As you have said before Sky, flying is not the career it used to be, costs are high, pay is low, benefits are in decline and people just don't care anymore. You have encouraged folks not to take up flying as a career in your previous posts, perhaps your wish is coming true.

TheReelDeel33

Agreed. When I first started posting on this forum, I was already pretty well established in my flight training. I found alot of advice and decided I still wanted to pursue it, and just made sure I had ample and well suited back up plans in case a career in this industry doesn't work out.

Reading some of the posts on this forum, Sky Highs posts in paticulair, was scary. If I hadn't started my training already when I began reading post after post about professional pilots who are no longer flying based on what seems to be a pure hatred for the job, it might have been enough to get me to not pursue it in the first place.

SkyWest

***I hastily posted the following reply earlier. My assumption was incorrect and I should have read the replies more carefully. Thanks for the input.***

Are you serious? Come on guys! I don't have many previous posts. I would always encourage people to follow their dreams and I love flying as a career. When I went there I was hoping to see things were cranking right along as they used to be. I took my kids so they could watch the airplanes where their dad learned to fly. They love this stuff and I wanted to share it with them. I'm not negative.

What I found was so profoundly different that I just had to share it and hopefully get some friendly feedback. I wondered if others had witnessed similar trends or if it was simply a local phenomenon. I should have been more succinct but I wanted my experience to be descriptive and interesting, to be perfectly honest. I really didn't expect to be attacked for this.

USMCFLYR

SkyWest -

No one has attacked you.
Read the bolded part above in brianb's post. His post wasn't directed at you. He was directing his post at Sky High - the person who first posted in response to your OP.

USMCFLYR

SkyWest

My apologies, I should have read that more carefully.

Diver Driver

In 2009, there were almost 1,000 (11,350 total) more commercial pilots minted than 2008, where 10,525 commercial licenses were issued. That's more than were issued in 2007, which was 9,318 AND more than were issued in 2006 (8,684).

The trend is, more commercial pilots being certified with each passing year. It may look 'dry' at some local airfields, but I really have a hard time believing that there will be a physical shortage of pilots. I think we will see a shortage of pilots willing to work for regional wages, but if that situation is improved, (which isn't going to happen), they will be lining up. Just the humble opinion of a multi-furloughed, slightly bitter, partially cynical, probably-career-FO.

SkyWest

Nice to see some actual numbers; I've kind of had a hard time believing that as well. I wonder if I was just seeing more of a reflection of troubled times for these two particular schools yesterday. What I witnessed on a visit to one airfield doesn't necessarily represent a microcosm of the industry as a whole. It really was different for me "back in the day" but companies do expand and contract for a multitude of reasons, including poor management during recessionary financial times.

On the other hand, it may be just that. Perhaps we are, in fact, seeing a huge and immediate draw back in domestic commercial flight training in 2011-2012. Stranger things have happened.