DEMAND FOR PILOTS IS ON ALL-TIME HIGH. …and this will continue up to the next 20 to 40 years.
600,000 PILOTS ARE NEEDED WORLDWIDE (Show Boeing’s projection chart)
Speaking to CNBC’s Phil LeBeau at the 2019 Paris, Boeing’s CEO announced that a global pilot shortage is ‘one of the biggest challenges’ facing the airline industry. Demand for air travel is growing so rapidly that 600,000 new pilots are expected to be needed over the next 20 to 40 years, according to Boeing’s latest forecast. The biggest need is in the Asia-Pacific region, where an improving economy in Asia has resulted in more people booking flights.
The Covid-19 pandemic put a halt on this demand but after the massive-roll out of vaccines and easement of government restrictions, confidence in air travel quickly returned thus pilot shortage now becomes the worst fear of airline operators. Even in the US, recently, thousands of flights were cancelled and the near extinct available pilots were forced to fly more time beyond the normal.
REASONS FOR THE SHORTAGE
- The rise of the low-cost airline carriers – due to the flurry of low-cost airline carriers, more people can now afford air travel. The ones so expensive and complicated form of travel suddenly became simple and at some times more cheaper than traveling by boat or even by bus. This created more and more passenger traffic day after day.
- The Internet, smart devices and the digital form or cashless payment, made flight bookings so easy anytime anywhere. The traditional way of buying tickets physically going to a travel agency became obsolete. This encourages more people to fly.
- Asian economy became stronger than ever. This cause massive growth in passenger traffic within the region.
- Pilot retirement and lack of schools doing flight training is also a major cause of the shortage. Since not much pilots where needed before, not enough pilots where produced. There was also a mandatory retirement of 55 years of age.
- Influx of passenger aircraft being ordered by the airlines in anticipation of the air passenger demand projections. According to Boeing’s latest outlook, the market place would climb to $8.7 trillion, up from $8.1 trillion, over the next 10 years. He also estimated the number of new commercial airplanes would rise to 44,000, up from 43,000, over the next two decades.
Question is, who is going to fly them? Available pilots not enough.
AIRLINES TEMPORARY SOLUTION TO AUGMENT THE SHORTAGE
- Retirement age pilots were extended from 55 to 65 years of age. Even so, still not enough to fill-in the void, there were some proposal to further extend it to 67 years of age so long that said pilot will be going more frequent medical exam.
- Most airlines flight hours requirements where reduced from the standard 1500 flight hours experience to 500 hours. There also some reports in some cases that some takes a fresh ab-initio graduates with only 200 hours of flight experience.
- More perks like sign-up bonus and higher salary are being offered to experienced pilots just to augment their crew roster.