82,876 views | Jul 27, 2018, 06:09am

A 'Perfect Storm' Pilot Shortage

Threatens Global Aviation
Marisa Garcia Senior Contributor
Aerospace & Defense

I offer an insider’s view of the business of light.

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“It's a perfect storm: demographic shift, regulatory changes, and socio-economic

 factors,” Seidel adds.

This post was updated with latest pilot demand igures from Boeing.
There has likely never been a better time to get your pilot’s license, but for aircraft operators
large and small, new trainees may come too late.
Boeing Business Jet Static Display EBACE BOEING

Discussion of the looming pilot crisis is not new, but we are beginning to see just how
damaging it will be for all sectors of aviation around the globe.

It comes at a time when demand for new pilots is expected to rise dramatically over the next
two decades as a result of new aircraft entering the global leet. Boeing BA +0% has projected
that aviation will need 790,000 new pilots by 2037 to meet growing demand, with 96,000
pilots needed to support the business aviation sector. At the Farnborough Air Show, Airbus
estimated demand at 450,000 pilots by 2035. Even with Airbus’ more conservative number,
the gap between demand and supply is vast.

Bob Seidel, an experienced pilot and CEO of air charters company Alerion Aviation, says the
pilot shortage also threatens private aviation.

Higher standards pit private and business aviation against commercial airlines, all competin
for a dwindling pool of quali ied pilots. Private aviation relies on the most experienced pilots
who can also offer VIP passengers the personal attention they expect. These pilots have to
work lexible hours to meet on-demand schedules. While these coveted pilots have
traditionally been among the highest paid, they are now moving to commercial airlines that
offer higher salaries and bene its private jet operators can’t match.

“We both draw from the same sources for pilots,” Seidel says. “A number of dynamics that
have occurred on the commercial side, and a number of social economic issues have
occurred over the past 30 years, including the demographics of society, including aging. Baby
Boomer pilots who are the largest number — almost 50% of the pilots lying today — are
about to retire. And over the next 20 years, [commercial] passengers are going to double.
Private travel is growing probably at a faster rate than commercial travel is growing.
Compounding this issue is that airlines have been forced to seek people with higher levels of
experience.

1,500-hour rule

The 1,500-hour rule, which went into effect in the U.S. in 2013, required irst of icers — co-
pilots — lying for commercial airlines to have at least 1,500 hours of accrued light time,
instead of the 250 hours which was previously required to qualify for an Air Transport Pilot
(ATP) certi icate. The rule also requires that ATP pilots earn an additional 1,000 light hours
before they qualify to serve as captains.

The regulation originated in part as a safety measure, because of the Colgan Air 3407 crash in
2009 and a Congressional mandate that followed, but the rule, while well-intentioned, has
made the pilot shortage more severe.

“At 1,500 light hours, that's the level of people that we have as a minimum. Airlines have
been stealing pilots from the private jet industries with higher salaries and free lights. They
are winning the hearts and minds of a lot of pilots,” Seidel says. “We've even lost captains
with 4,000 hours and more; [airlines lure them away] with offers of ixed schedules, ixed
days on and off, as well as high salaries and free travel. It has gotten to be very competitive.”

“It's a perfect storm: demographic shift, regulatory changes, and socio-economic factors,”
Seidel adds. 

Expat Pilots
But the pilot crisis is not a U.S. crisis alone. Like aviation, it is global. Quali ied pilots are in
demand around the world. Growth markets, like Asia-Paci ic and the Middle East, are
offering pilots attractive packages that include covering some costs of living.
Boeing 2018 Pilot Demand Global Projections BOEING

“A lot of people have jumped ship to be expats to places that are lush with cash that will pay
exorbitant amounts. That’s also a drain,” Seidel says. “The lip side to that is that it wears on
you after a few years unless you are really adapted to a new culture. After you do it for three
or four years, you need to get back to whatever it is that you miss.”

Grounded Planes
In Europe, the pilot crisis is already causing disruption.

Ryanair has been confronted by a number of pilot issues over the past two years, some
attributed to the scheduling of holiday breaks, but in the interim its pilots have become
unionized and are taking industrial action, demanding better working contracts and forcing
the airline to cancel lights and reconsider the leet.

Ryanair has said that competition for pilots from rival airlines has made matters worse. The
airline has invested millions in new simulators, to accelerate the training of new pilots. It has
even shown interest in moving away from a single aircraft leet, exploring Airbus A320
aircraft which would allow the airline to hire from a larger pool of quali ied pilots. This
throws off the cost structure of Ryanair, altering a successful business model. But if Ryanair
can keep planes lying it can compensate because of growing passenger demand and the
airline’s strong ancillary retail strategy.

The worry is that Ryanair is only one example of what has been building up for a while. Not
all airlines are as resilient to these labor shocks, and the ripples of pilot demand are
spreading around the globe.

No Plan B for retirement

There is no adequate plan B for when the retirement age comes into effect—anywhere from
60-65 depending on the region—taking a large number of quali ied pilots out of the global
pool.

Many new pilots have been recruited from the military. These pilots are considered to have
excellent quali ications because of their high-stress training in the ield. But even the military
is having trouble recruiting new pilots and keeping the ones they have. “They have to pay
back the wings [with service], but the airlines lure them away with sweet bonuses and the
military has been hamstrung on that,” Seidel says.

Seidel, a former Navy pilot himself, believes that private jet operators could bene it from a
softening of the hourly requirements for private aviation First Of icers that would allow
experienced military pilots to qualify though they may have accrued fewer light hours. The
FAA made a similar exception for ATP pilots with military training.

Regional aviation has been training ground for commercial airline pilots, an opportunity to
build up their light hours and qualify for jobs in the larger airline leet, but low pay at
regional airlines has proven a disincentive for new recruits over the past twenty years. Pilots
can pay anywhere from $60-100K for school, but may only earn $25,000 a year working for
regional airlines. The tight contracts legacy airlines offer feeder regional carriers makes
paying higher pilot salaries inancially devastating for regionals.

A collapse of regionals will only broaden the gap of underserved routes in the heartland of
the U.S. That gap has led to higher demand for private aviation, Seidel says.

Companies based nearer to private airports have invested in private jets to help their
executives ly more ef iciently than driving miles to the nearest hub. But though airlines
abandoned those routes, their demand for pilots puts private jet service to those city pairs at
risk. It’s a vicious cycle that threatens air connectivity for a large swath of the U.S.

The biggest threat to aviation is time

There are a number of initiatives to recruit and train more pilots happening around the
world. Airlines, like JetBlue, are offering employees an opportunity to train for the speci ic
aircraft types they operate. While those training initiatives will help relieve the stress for
those airlines, they will not immediately replace the missing pool.

There is also an initiative to attract more women to the light deck—an initiative that Seidel
believes should have been set in motion long ago—but training new pilots takes time,
entering the ield is cost-prohibitive to some women candidates, and accruing the experience
hours to ly also takes time.

New technologies, including AI-enabled automation, might relieve demand, perhaps down to
one pilot in the light deck, but those technologies are more than a decade away from ready.
Seidel believes that there will need to be a combination of higher incentives for pilots to stay
a relaxing of the rules which would allow for a higher retirement age, and lower light hour
requirements to qualify.

“People are very healthy and active and interested in continuing to work past their 60s,” he
says.

To ensure safety, Seidel believes the emphasis must be on the quality of pilot quali ications
instead.

“There is a whole spectrum of capabilities represented [in the market]. Some are pretty
young and green but outstanding, and some very experienced but not that good. We have to
come up with different ways that recognize skills—other than light hours,” he says.

Whether it’s age or hours or wages and bene its or developing a new method to test and
measure pilot quali ications, there will need to be some lexibility somewhere. It is only a
question of time—less than a decade—before the perfect pilot storm hits and puts the
growth projected for global aviation at risk.

Marisa Garcia

I worked in aviation from 1994-2010 before turning my experience to writing about airlines and airports for leading industry and
consumer publications in 2013. I’ve spe... Read More