Inspire someone to invest in a degree and then thousands of expensive flight hours just to be paid BELOW minimum wage for around a decade and THEN become the least senior pilot where any medical issue can waste the whole thing? Tell me how you “inspire” people into endentured servitude for the better part of their youth and their young adult life?
If they really need people, the government and/or airlines should step up and pay for the required training. I am a college graduate who would love the opportunity to become a pilot. However, I cannot go from debt free making a salary to no income with $100k in debt. If the training was paid for until you’re making money with an airline (even a small amount), I would start training tomorrow. However, it’s not realistic to make that transition and continue to support myself.
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I find it interesting that Boeing is forecasting the need for so many pilots in 20 years when they, and other companies, are spending many millions of dollars to develop next-gen autonomous aircraft. Also, if the current pilot shortage is caused by the large number of pilots that took early retirement, has anyone explored asking them to come back as contract workers to alleviate the situation? I’m sure there are FAA rules that would complicate that idea, but the pilots are obviously qualified right now. Just a thought…
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True definition of a pilot ”shortage”. Problem is no US airline is willing to step up to pay to train their own pilots, since in the US there is no such thing as a pilot shortage, not in my lifetime.
Highly unlikely any former airline pilot who took early retirement is going to be willing to return as a contract pilot. In most cases in pt121 that is not even legal. And those pilots would have to undergo at least requalification training, or redo initial indoc and sim training depending on how long they were away from flying. If I were in that situation I would definitely not return and would just enjoy fun flying and watching the airline CEO’s try to explain their way out of a situation they created themselves.