So many dropped out permanently and they won’t be coming back. Those who have given up flying have generally told me they don’t miss it. They don’t miss the hassle, and they have forgotten the good bits. And those who gave up after many years’ flying but who didn’t put an effort into the “social” aspects (flying with friends and meeting up) will have very little to miss – because they have been to so many places, and it is the social aspects which keep one going in the long term.
But there are clearly many who haven’t stopped but just pushed flying way down their list. Will they get back to it?
Some bad condition here on the south-east of France, on the cost, with crappy Vis and shakky easterly winds, doesn’t help. Skyrocketting price of avgas does matter also.
What you say is true, but moreoever with increase price of Avgas and club fleet that are getting older and older, France may follow the move to UL, as done in Italy and Spain… Our C172 is blocked in Bastia since 3 week for a blown cylinder, and I suspect that club hasn’t enough money to sort it out, as it has 2 DR400 in the hangar that also need parts.
My aircraft is still out until further notice, nothing to do with Covid but a simple near-gear up landing and the fact that Hartzell can’t or won’t deliver a new prop. My intention is to come back to flying, if my time and schedule allow and if I have enough money left after this whole exercise.
Now that coronavirus is nearly over, are people going to get back to flying?
Maybe the Covid measures are over for now, Covid is nowhere near over. I fully expect that new measures will be imposed fairly soon, seeing that numbers are on record high and the consequence of relaxation of the measures are predictably horrid. I am quite sure that we have not seen the last of this yet.
C172 is blocked in Bastia since 3 week for a blown cylinder, and I suspect that club hasn’t enough money to sort it out, as it has 2 DR400 in the hangar that also need parts.
The perfect example as to why I became an owner doing his own maintenance 
People getting back to flying? Well, frankly I don’t know of too many that stopped in the first place. On my field, with a flight school and about 200 based aircraft (including gliders), I only observe a slow decline… probably a slight acceleration thanks to the virus, but nothing dramatic.
For the moment… as Greg mentioned above, fuel price, MOGAS or AVGAS, is on such an increase that some people will just have to quit. Having to feed a family usually has priority over leisure flying 
For me the question is the opposite one. Now that the pandemic is nearly over, will people keep on flying?
My club saw a 50% increase in flight time from 2019 to 2020. From 2020 to 2021 it was nearly the same – only a 7% decrease. About half of these 7% are explained by my club not having had the task of flying forest fire patrols in 2021 – so entirely unrelated to the pandemic.
Now people can spend their money traveling, attending theater etc. Also fuel prices are going up…
I am sure lot of people have stopped flying during CV19 but bizarrely clubs were boiling like hell in terms of new members (not sure if there was much flying), on owners side, I was expecting with crazy price increase in the last two years that some “CV19 3 years hangar queens” will get offloaded into the market but that did not happen? the same for N-reg IFR but no EASA IR, that did not happen neither?
However, with Avags price hike these days after quick look at planecheck, it seems 15 aircraft are getting advertised every day for sale, for now it’s the bottom end of GA market, not sure if the rest will follow, so clearly lot of people have or plan to stop flying
Meanwhile,
- Many “G6 with 3kts TAS speed increase” priced at 1 million are getting sold and shipped to EU/UK
- Plenty of 2pob aircraft for 300k under 600kg are getting picked here and there
Agree to the prior observations: Also over here the pandemic has brought a small boom to clubs and commercial flight schools. Many people have had a great mix of available time (lack of alternatives), funds (lack of expenses for vacation, etc.) and mindset (life is short, let’s live our dream now).
On the other hand many existing pilots have dropped out or reduced activity – mainly those who used flying for going places rather than for the fun of flying itself. I don’t believe that many of these will come back.
Therefore our challenge for the next 2-3 years will be to keep those people in our community, who started flying during the pandemic.
We are planning to go for our first flying trip away this year tomorrow…weather’s been too awful in NW Britain until now for anything other than local flying.
In my area we’re now paying $1/gallon less for 100LL than for auto fuel… but the plane has gone into Annual, mainly meaning some repairs and upgrades I’m doing myself. Otherwise it seems like a great time to burning Avgas here in the US, CV-19 or any kind of related restrictions haven’t been a been a factor here for quite a while and flying never really did change much one way or another.
I’ll get back to it if American Samoa and Kiribati ever open their borders…
