#2 Dream Job Pilot?

FOREWORD

For many people, becoming a pilot is the ultimate dream. And they are not wrong. Who else can say their job is 39,000 feet above the clouds? Who else can visit the world’s most fascinating places and cultures as part of their occupation? Who else bears such great responsibility for passengers and equipment?

The World’s Dream Job

A new study of Google searches finds that becoming a pilot is the world’s No.1 dream job, topping the wish lists of 25 countries, including Canada, the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Remitly, a digital financial services provider firm wrote in early 2023: To find out which are the world’s dream jobs, we looked at global search data to discover the dream jobs of every country in the world. To achieve this we looked at searches for ‘how to be a pilot’ - rather than ‘pilot officer jobs’ to show the number of people in the ‘dreaming’ stage of different careers.

What careers do people want to work in the most?

Pilot 930,630

Writer 801,200

Dancer 278,720

Becoming a pilot is enticing, although it’s not for everyone. A typical day is exciting and exhilarating, but also demanding. It requires in-depth technical knowledge, practical competence, technical skills, physical coordination, mathematical ability, teamwork, people skills, attention to detail, confidence, and quick decision-making. Yet, you still might have questions, and doubts as to whether and how this dream can become a reality.

Thousands of pilots lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic or they retired for good, and their ranks haven’t been replenished. This means the outlook for new pilots is pretty good in this decade and beyond. Airside Magazine recently wrote: There has never been a more lucrative time to be an airline pilot. Those are the words of Ric Wilson, vice-president of American Airlines regional subsidiary Envoy Air, which, along with whole subsidiary airlines Piedmont and PSA, is offering $100,000 signing bonuses to cockpit recruits. And $100,000 happens to be at least the amount needed to obtain a pilot’s license.

Pilot Shortage Particularly at Regional Airlines

Regional carriers are already facing a strong pilot shortage, as the twelve large carriers in the country hired 13,128 pilots in 2022, sourcing nearly all these pilots from regional carriers. Some regional carriers and Regional Airline Association (RAA) members include Air Wisconsin, CommuteAir, Endeavor Air, Envoy, Horizon Air, Mesa Airlines, and Ravn Alaska.

Currently, more than 500 regional aircraft are parked and those jetliners remaining in service are under-utilized. This has impacted 308 airports, or about 72% of all US airports, which have, on average, lost one-quarter of their flights.

Over the next 15 years, nearly 50% of the commercial airline workforce will be forced to retire because they will reach the age of 65. Thousands of willing, healthy, and skilled pilots, who would like to continue working, are being forced out of the profession at age 65. The RAA projects required retirements will peak in 2029. He urged Congress to increase the retirement age again.

U.S. airlines continue to face a recruitment challenge – the result of a wave of retirements during the pandemic crisis and fewer younger pilots joining regional airlines, the traditional route to the major airlines. The latter is partly due to the Federal Aviation Administration rule, introduced after the fatal Colgan Air crash in 2009, which prohibits those with fewer than 1,500 flying hours from piloting a commercial airliner. Even though the pilots had more than 1,500 hours, they were overworked and suffered fatigue.

To get young people interested in aviation-related careers, a lot of effort is made to introduce them to aviation-related studies. For example, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University has just received a $485,000 FAA grant to tackle the shortage of employees in the aviation industry by providing free training to high school students hoping to become pilots. This FAA-backed initiative, led by Embry-Riddle’s College of Aviation and Gaetz Aerospace Institute, includes developing online ground schools, as well as courses in aerospace engineering.

The project also will incorporate desktop flight-training devices, small drones, 3D printers, and virtual reality systems at the high school labs. Students will earn college credits, high school honors credits, and/or industry certifications. Embry-Riddle is currently recruiting schools nationwide to participate and take advantage of this tremendous opportunity for their students.

Airline Pilots Association’s (ALPA) Recommendations to Maintain a Robust Pilot Pipeline

Invest in putting more pilots in the U.S. pipeline with several incentives, including:

Helping students pay for expensive flight training costs

Subsidizing loans for flight training in conjunction with 2-year and 4-year aviation colleges and universities

Exempting students from paying interest on loans while in school

Align federal funding to bring pilot academic education & training to the level of other highly skilled professions

Provide substantial grants to expand aviation and flight degree programs

Increasing the number of students who graduate from a certified two- or four-year aviation program who obtain the license needed to become an airline pilot

Increasing awareness of aviation job opportunities with today’s emerging workforce, including the support and mentorship they need to enter the profession with confidence

Recruit a more diverse workforce, providing role models to ensure minorities and women can see themselves as the airline pilot workforce of the future

Increase Title IV funding for hiring professional pilot graduates from colleges and universities that serve underrepresented communities, such as historically black colleges & universities

Provide substantial grants to minority-serving educational institutions to start aviation programs that serve underrepresented communities and introduce them to aviation experiences

While there are many training programs that can provide you with what you need, it will take hundreds (if not thousands) of hours of flight training, practice, study time, and check flights. While this can seem like a daunting task, it’s not nearly as difficult or onerous as it sounds - if you have a passion for flying!

All pilot training institutions mentioned in this book are only randomly listed and do not show any author preferences or quality assurance. Find links to all the training facilities and information you read about in this guidebook in the ‘Resources’ chapter.

CAREER PROSPECTS FOR PILOTS

In terms of quality, there is little difference between training with an airline, a university, or a private flight school. Many airlines also train in close cooperation with private flight schools. However, training with an airline often guarantees you a job - while you will have to apply on the open market after you took private training. The prospects of finding a suitable job worldwide are currently better outside Europe - but only for qualified pilots. The best way to find a well-paid position is to apply with several thousand flight hours and various type-ratings.

A commercial aircraft type rating only enhances the chances if the pilot can prove at least 500 hours on the corresponding type of aircraft. Otherwise, applicants without a rating are more likely to be accepted, as they can be sold an expensive rating (pay-to-fly). In the case of larger airlines, a type rating is provided within the company’s own procedures - and it must be paid for by the pilot.

Sometimes the airlines have a hiring freeze, and at other times they are desperately looking for pilots, which is the situation now in North America and Asia. For this reason, it is not possible to make long-term forecasts, the Cockpit Pilots’ Association says. However, it does expect air traffic to continue to expand in the coming years.

In the last quarter of 2022, Piedmont Airlines offered for a limited time $100,000 upfront bonus payments for experienced pilots. Instead of paying multiple bonuses over a five-year period, Piedmont pays $100,000 in advance to qualified pilots. Piedmont Airlines, a wholly-owned subsidiary of American Airlines Group, also offers prospective pilots selected for the Cadet Program a $30,000 bonus and a guaranteed career path to the world’s largest airline.

According to Boeing’s Pilot and Technician Outlook 2022 to 2041, there will be a global demand for 610,000 civil aviation aircraft mechanics over the next twenty years, and a need for 602,000 new pilots, in addition to ten thousand required for business aviation. However, for a U.S. airline to hire foreign nationals, the airline must certify on ETA Forms 9035 & 9035E that the hiring will not displace American workers.

Furthermore, the U.S. airline must certify that sufficient efforts were made to recruit and retain American workers. The pilot shortage for the industry is real, and most airlines are simply not going to be able to realize their capacity plans because there simply aren’t enough pilots, at least not for the next five-plus years.

~ Scott Kirby, CEO, United Airlines

Pilot Shortage in Canada

A 2018 report from the Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace found that based on demand, the industry will need as many as 7,300 more pilots by 2025. The number of commercial pilot licenses issued in Canada has fallen by more than 80 percent since 2019.

There are not enough people starting up at the bottom of the scale to get people interested in flying, John Gradek, a lecturer in aviation management at McGill University in Montreal, told CTV.

A number of new low-cost carriers have also entered the marketplace while others have expanded, leading to more capacity but also a greater need for pilots. SunWing for example, has blamed its flight disruptions and cancellations over the holidays, in part, on the pilot shortage, pointing specifically to the federal government’s decision to deny an application to hire 63 temporary foreign workers.

Forced and voluntary retirements have helped drive the years-long shortage of Canadian pilots, Gradek said, but the pandemic has exacerbated the problem even more. "Airlines laid off thousands of pilots across the industry and now, with the start of a number of new carriers in the Canadian marketplace and growth of existing carriers, guess what we’re short of, and it’s going to be a tough summer to try to find pilots in Canada.

Much of what is occurring, Gradek said, is an attraction and retention issue on the part of airlines, with many new carriers not paying enough and creating a revolving door where pilots leave for better jobs. Attracting pilots is the first step and retaining them is the second step and airlines have a responsibility to do both in order to deliver on the services that they market."

More Female Pilots are Needed Too!

Even conservative countries such as the United Arab Emirates have female captains: Aisha Al Mansoori, an Etihad pilot just made history as the UAE’s first female Emirati Captain. She joined the Cadet Pilot Program in October 2007, as one of only two Emirati women in her class, and graduated in 2010 on the Airbus A320. She progressed to become a senior first officer, and was the first female UAE national to fly the Airbus A380 as a captain on August 28, 2022, Emirati Women’s Day.

Find a long list of aviation scholarships to apply for in the ‘Resources’ chapter.

AVIATION IN EUROPE FOLLOWING COVID

Until a few years ago, the situation for prospective student pilots was quite different. For example, if you were one of the lucky ones who passed the strict entrance test before starting training, you could almost be sure of sitting in an airline cockpit of Lufthansa, Swiss, or Air France in less than two years. Padded with all the benefits of the group’s collective bargaining agreement, you could count on basic salaries in the final stage for captains of up to 250,000 euros per year, with the possibility of early retirement, and then a lavish company pension.

Prospective pilots accumulate debts. In Europe, Lufthansa, however, was barely hiring pilots in 2020 and 2022, or they offered only jobs at their low-cost airlines. Lufthansa Group owns Brussels Airlines, Swiss International Airlines, Air Dolomiti, Austrian Airlines, Edelweiss Air, part of JetBlue (USA), and the expanding low-cost airline EuroWings Discovery. Most of these Lufthansa students are sitting now on a mountain of debt of at least 70,000 euros - their own share of the training costs, which are around three times as high. Moreover, because they still lack qualifications, they cannot easily start working for another company.

This is also one of the disadvantages of ab-initio (from the ground up) training with an airline: Pilots have committed themselves to the airline. They cannot easily, at least not without major financial hurdles, leave the contract in order to acquire a type rating, as well as the MCC and the Line-Oriented Flight Training on their own, in order to then be able to apply worldwide at regional and major airlines or as an executive pilot.

They also lack flight hours (for example, as pilot-in-command on twin-engine aircraft) and experience on aircraft types that are required as a minimum by most airlines around the world. Quite a few young people have dropped out of university or given up a profession they had already learned in order to train for a pilot position. Now I’m a high school graduate with a pilot’s license and large debts, complains a 30-year-old in this unfortunate position. I am completely dependent on what I am offered by this company.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) described Lufthansa’s situation: In complete contrast to the regions in the Middle and Far East, where double-digit growth rates are common throughout, traditional companies such as Lufthansa or Air France have reacted too late to the upheaval in the market and have criminally underestimated the rapid expansion of the competition.

This refers to competitors such as price-breakers EasyJet and RyanAir, which are pushing hard into European airports, as well as the heavily state-subsidized competitors from the Gulf region and Turkey, which are ‘stealing’ customers and market share from Lufthansa in the long-haul business. These are also the airlines that are offering positions to European pilots in 2022 and 2023, along with companies in the Middle East and in the Baltic.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND TRAITS FOR PILOTS

Aside from technical knowledge and flying skills, every pilot needs the following ‘soft skills’ to assure smooth and safe flights. They must deal not only with colleagues in small cockpits but also with flight attendants, airport and technic employees, examiners, and airline administrators.

Effective Communication:

Pilots need to communicate with their colleagues and air traffic controllers to ensure a safe flight. Controllers also help pilots in uncertain situations, complicated communications can jeopardize a situation further.

Situational Awareness:

A pilot needs to be aware of the aircraft and its systems, such as spatial orientation, time horizon, aircraft configuration, and much more.

Team Skills:

Crew members must work in a team. Teamwork is especially an important trait for pilots to ensure a smooth and safe flight.

Quick Decision-Making:

While situational awareness is also an important trait, alertness is also critical. Pilots must be quick to make decisions after analyzing a situation.

Calmness:

Staying calm in every situation is a crucial trait for a pilot. They must not panic in uncertain situations. Panicking can lead to poor decisions.

Positive Mindset:

Maintaining self-discipline is also necessary. To be a pilot, you need to have a positive mindset and be confident in your abilities.

Technical Skills:

You must understand the details of how an aircraft works. Pilots must be aware of all the typical procedures as well as all the technical aspects. You must be capable of checking the overall