Premium on Safety - Issue 47, 2022 - 4

SAFETY SPOTLIGHT
IT'S DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE NOW, BUT IN THE
MID-1990S, PILOTS HAD A DIFFICULT TIME
FINDING WORK. The regional airlines were
so fat with resumes of well-qualified pilots
that if they had a month where they needed
a few new hires, they could pick and choose
from the cream of the crop. Not only that, but
they could actually charge pilots to cover the
cost of their initial type rating (gasp)! Pilots
were so desperate for that coveted seniority
number that they were willing to pay tens
of thousands of dollars to get it. Not to date
myself, but I felt lucky to be in the third class
after they dropped the pay-for-training at
Atlantic Coast Airlines.
type rating cost for the Jetstream 3201 type,
which was equivalent to my first year's pay.
Yet even in that climate, we were told that a
pilot shortage was looming on the horizon.
There were pilot staffing cuts after 9/11, early
retirement offers and fears of furloughs with
the arrival of COVID in 2019. But now, in
2022, there's no doubt that those forecast
pilot shortage predictions were on the mark.
In corporate aviation, CAE
estimated in their 2020 Airline
and Business Jet Pilot Demand
Outlook that 45,000 new
business jet pilots would be
needed over the next 10
years. Hiring to fill that need
has begun.
I still signed a five-year training contract
where I promised to repay a prorated $15,000
Almost every major news network in the United
States covered the abysmal airline operational
statistics of the summer of 2022. According
to Department of Transportation data,
more than 45,000 flights-almost 2.5 percent of
all scheduled services-were canceled between
June 1 and August 31. While many cancellations
were due to weather, a great number of them
were because of staffing shortages and aircraft
scheduling deficiencies.
Between retirements and increased global
demand, Boeing estimates that 602,000
new pilots will be needed in the next 20
years in commercial aircraft with more
than 30 seats. In corporate aviation, CAE
estimated in their 2020 Airline and
Business Jet Pilot Demand Outlook
that 45,000 new business jet pilots would be
needed over the next 10 years. Hiring to fill
that need has begun.
Illustration by Webb Creative
4

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2018/april/pilot/connecting-the-dots https://explore.dot.gov/views/ontime_7_7a/Table7?%3Aembed=y&%3Aiid=1&%3AisGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2022/july/27/boeing-forecasts-need-for-21-million-aviation-professionals#:~:text=The%20commercial%20aviation%20industry%20(minus,2022%20%E2%80%93%202041%20on%20July%2026 https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2022/july/27/boeing-forecasts-need-for-21-million-aviation-professionals#:~:text=The%20commercial%20aviation%20industry%20(minus,2022%20%E2%80%93%202041%20on%20July%2026 https://www.cae.com/cae-pilot-demand-outlook-2020/ https://www.cae.com/cae-pilot-demand-outlook-2020/

Premium on Safety - Issue 47, 2022

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