Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Demand for professionnal pilots: reality vs the media

10 Posts

Every now and then we see cries in the media for more pilots, and for young people to embrace careers in the airline industry.

Yesterday Boeing released a long-term "outlook" of the market claiming the need for 500k new pilots by 2032.

However it seems every time I talk to people working (or looking for work) as airline pilots, they say that the market is tough and that it's difficult to find a decent job. On top of that some have to pay for their ratings.

Is it because most of these pilot jobs will be in Asia ?

Perhaps. But also a lot is to do with the media simply reporting with the flight training schools say without any real checking out the story.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

I only know that all my friends who have been recently engaged at airliners had paid their type ratings themselves. Some of them just started cariers as 1st officers but some were captains on different aircraft type changing company.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

The devil in me wants to say that if those pilots will be needed in 2032, then they are just being born now, so anyone who is older than, say five, shouldn't bother getting into aviation.

Yes, I expect most of the growth is going to be in Asia, India, Africa and perhaps even the Middle East still has growth potential. Of course, there will still be a healthy market in Europe as the airlines will have to replace retiring crews.

However, I think there is an often overlooked, but critically important factor.

A licence does not entitle the holder to a job.

I have met a few frozen-ATPL holders that would struggle to get a job in McDonalds, such is their personality. Unsurprisingly perhaps, many of these people have eventually gone off to explore other career possibilities, citing the lack of jobs in aviation as the causal factor yet at the same time, others were getting hired around them.

Those people are never going to be at the top of the airlines hiring list. All employers want to hire not only the best qualified, but also the best people, for the job.

EGTT, The London FIR

In my extremely limited field of view, from a few airfields I have trained at, most frozen ATPL/Flight Instructors I have known found it very hard to get airline jobs and are still teaching the PPL many years on - not through choice.

There are too many factors at play anyhow, maybe it's because their average age is 35 perhaps, or they dont want to relocate to Asia, maybe they didnt train at the "right" flight school, but I too keep seeing all these adverts in flying mags and cant help wonder why there is still such a push for pilot training. I think (somewhat understandably) the airlines want the proverbial 21 year old with sufficient academic qualificatons, + 500 hours logged courtesy of the parents credit fund + a self-paid checkride. Some airline pilots seem to be working zero-hours contracts or offering their time for free just to get themselves an edge over the competition.

The devil in me wants to say that if those pilots will be needed in 2032, then they are just being born now, so anyone who is older than, say five, shouldn't bother getting into aviation.

True indeed, unfortunately. There are presently no (decent) jobs in aviation. Anywhere. Pay-to-fly with self-fundend typerating and self-funded line training is all there is. And no job afterwards, because why should they pay you for something that your successor, just like you, is not only offering do do for free, but is ready to pay for himself.

EDDS - Stuttgart

All hot air cooked up by the integrated training schools to sell their product, and tacitly supported by airlines who like the oversupply of pilots because it means they never have to pay for training or type ratings and can even make the P2 seat a profit centre.

There is no shortage. There is not going to be a shortage. There is no 'cliff' of impending retirements. The age profile of pilots currently working for airlines is very linear, and they will continue to retire at the same rate.

Why on earth should there be a shortage? They never tell you why, just that there will.

I agree with what Finners says. I've met frozen ATPLs who I'd never hire to do anything, never in a million years. Aviation attracts a lot of weirdos. The integrated schools are businesses out to make a buck. They're never going to turn down an £80k sale by saying to some odd young man "no, don't let your parents re-mortgage their house for this, because although we could probably just about get you to test standard, no-one is ever going to employ you because you're really odd and have no social skills".

EGLM & EGTN

My favorite experience around ATPL and flight training: in my PPL course there was one guy who wanted to go ATPL and get an airline job/become a pilot (out of ~10 students at that time), and in the AZF class (German bigwig radio operators license) there was one (out of 8) who was training for ATPL as an alternate career option (was in his mid-forties I would guess).

The first one isn't flying solo yet (after two years of training), the other one had to use a magnifying glass in the radio exercises to be able to read the SID/STAR charts (and was generally challenged with anything, even after it had been explained the umpteenth time).

I just hope those airlines have some decent screening processes going, otherwise I might never place a foot in an airliner again... ;-)

EDDS, Germany

no-one is ever going to employ you because you're really odd and have no social skills

It's not only that. I know a couple of guys (one in particular) who are great pilots in the 'stick-and-rudder' sense of the term, but whom I wouldn't want in the cockpit of an airliner. Just not the personality. One of these, at least, found his calling and is now flying firefighting missions!

There are only two requirements to obtain a (frozen) ATPL: Money and Time.

10 Posts
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top