Where have all the pilots gone?

October 20, 2023 by Eric Bradley

It may seem odd that airlines are complaining about a pilot shortage. After all, you can see planes in the sky every day, and you sure as heck can hear them passing over your house!

What you may not know is the aviation industry is massive — much more than just airlines — and it's currently experiencing rapid expansion. This is happening at the same time many pilots are retiring faster than they can be replaced.

Causes of the pilot shortage

The aviation industry was caught totally unprepared by Covid-19. Although in hindsight it seems like exactly the kind of situation where airlines should have made emergency preparations, at the time the airlines were riding high, and were also dealing with another crisis — the scandal and financial chaos resulting from the Boeing 737-Max fiasco which resulted in the aircraft being grounded worldwide from March 2019 to November 2020. This was a major concern for airlines that had invested heavily into the 737-Max.

With this distraction ongoing, and many airlines reeling from the financial impact, Covid-19 was able to sneak up on the industry. This time, the damage would be worse than anyone imagined possible.

More than 60 million people around the world lost their jobs in aviation as a result of the pandemic. The resulting financial pressure for the former employees created a situation where many had no choice but to leave the industry. Workers in many other industries had options to work remotely or to work on an adjusted schedule.

Aviation workers can't work remotely because their jobs require physical presence at the work place. When it became evident the pandemic was potentially going to linger for years, airlines didn't react well to the news.

Now here we are four years later, and air travel has opened up again. Contrary to expectations, demand is not only strong, it is actually stronger now than it was before the pandemic.

However now there is a new problem threatening to put a dent in revenue. The older and more experienced pilots who stayed with the industry are getting closer to retirement age. Many of their former colleagues have already moved on to greener pastures. Normally there would be plenty of people eager to replace them.

But now there are less people entering the industry than there are leaving it. This is happening because the current generation of graduating students are less likely to pursue an aviation career than earlier generations.

Consequences of the shortage

This has happened because the pathway to becoming an airline pilot is a long and expensive one. In countries with lower flight experience requirements than the US, it has proved to be less of a problem. But the FAA has steadfastly resisted calls from US airlines to reduce the 1500 hour flight experience requirement for the ATPL qualification, citing that public safety was more important than economic factors.

Airlines have responded to the crisis by relaxing their formerly restrictive hiring policies, allowing pilots to be able to start an airline career sooner and with less expense. But the major barrier imposed by the FAA experience requirement is a problem. With only 20% of flight school entrants continuing all the way to graduation with a CPL, and only 20% of those graduates actively working toward their ATPL, the pool of candidates is very small.

This has forced even further changes onto the industry and the government of the United States. The previously protected aviation industry, which has been very averse to hiring workers from outside the US now has had no choice but to open up.

Similarly, the USCIS has had to relax restrictions on visas in order to allow more foreign experts to seek employment in the United States, due to shortages.

As foreign pilots and other qualified experts leave their home countries in pursuit of better pay in the US, it has created a domino effect where the other countries are facing their own pilot shortages.

Meanwhile the demand for air travel is expected to double over the next five years. What this means for those who are contemplating getting into an aviation career is that there has never been a better time to enter the industry, and the world is wide open.