A Crisis in Flight Training

I just spent a day at Delta Connection Academy (DCA) listening to industry experts discuss the state of airline flying and the industry training programs that feed the profession.

The big questions raised at the round-table conference centered around what DCA, which sponsored the event, said was a coming shortage of pilots. Many furloughed pilots have been out of the cockpit for more than five years, and many of those pilots say that they don’t plan on coming back to an airline job. On top of that, training providers across the industry say that business is off. Several said during the conference that nobody believes there will be enough new pilots to fill the seats on regional airliners even in a couple of years. 

The coming shortage--of pilots and students--is based on a number of factors, some of which are frightening to the training providers because there’s very little they can do about them.

Perhaps the biggest factor is the drying up of financing to prospective students. Many students who want to fly—and DCA says that it’s getting as many applications as ever—simply can’t get loans. DCA’s Jason Dauderman says that the company’s loan application acceptance rate is down to about 30 percent, and the amount of the loans that lenders approve has decreased, as well.

Part of why it’s harder for students to get loans is because of the sub-prime mortgage crisis that caused a worldwide recession. The same thing happened with student loans, as you might know, as the sub-prime market spread into the student loan market, with lenders okaying loans to inumerable students who had poor credit, poor academic records, and little prospects of paying off the loans. As a result, Sallie Mae, the private lending company, is writing off a billion dollars of bad student loans. Long story short, the crisis in student loans prompted many lenders to leave the student loan market altogether.    

While the biggest reason that many lenders have fled the aviation student loan market is related to the financial crisis, the recession has made it harder than ever for students to pay off their loans, which are typically between $100,000 and $200,000 per student, if the entire two-to-four-year education is financed. And there's little chance of those costs coming down. Flight instruction, as Dauderman pointed out, is an expensive proposition. We as pilots understand that all too well.

And when lenders look at the risk, they see some big question marks. Will the student actually be able to earn their ratings? Some do wash out. And if they're successful, will they be able to land a job and be able to pay off their loans? And  if they do wind up in the right seat of an airliner, will they be able to pay off those loans on the $18,000 annual salary they might earn for starters? Of course not.

And if Congress has its way, we might be looking at the need for first officers to have an ATP, a requirement that will add tens of thousands of dollars to these students' debt, making it more difficult for students to get loans and for school to attract young people to their programs. For the record, no one at the conference thought the right-seat ATP provision would improve safety.

Perhaps the most troubling question raised at the event was whether airline flying was a profession that any young person should pursue. One attendee, a bright young many who got his ratings at DCA and now flies left seat in an AirBus for JetBlue said that he loves his job and still backs the profession. But he admitted on numerous occasions that there were big factors--chiefly economic ones--that should give any prospective student pause.

Would I advise my kids to become airline pilots? As much as I love flying, in this day and age, it would be hard advice to give unless conditions changed substantially.

One thing has to happen. The airlines need to start paying starting pilots more money, a lot more money.  A starting salary of $30,000 would go a long way toward making the transition to professional life if not attractive, then at least survivable, though barely. Starting teachers in almost every state make more. And there’s no doubt that the airlines should start subsidizing training a great deal more than they already do. Today their subsidies consist largely of partnerships with training academies to give jobs to their graduating students, a good marketing approach but one that does nothing to help students cut their indebtedness. Why not have the airlines foot part of the training bill? It would be to everyone’s advantage, especially theirs. After all, they're the ones who need the pilots.

And it's not all the regional airlines' fault. The major airlines share much of the blame. After all, they're the ones who on a daily basis squeeze their regional partners to cut costs--especially labor costs--to the bone, and then some.

And schools need to start pre-qualifying students, helping to ensure that those who can get loans have what it takes to get their ratings.  That's a tough thing to do when times are hard. To be sure, some schools view a "qualified" student as one who can get a loan, as opposed to one who has the right stuff to fly an airliner. That kind of cynical view isn't fair to anybody.

Right now schools are doing a lot of selling from the point of view that pilots will need to make a sacrifice to get into the profession. (That's also talking point number one for the Regional Airline Association.) The truth is, that's the absolute truth. And it just might pay off for those pilots in the long run. I for one sure hope so,

But as it stands today, the sacrifice is just too much, far too much, to ask.

Comments

[Eduardo Garzon]

I agree completely with this article. Financial hardship was the main reason why I decided to stop taking flying lessons. I love aviation, and I really wish there were a better training approach by Airlines. Maybe to have a development program by the Airlines, where they can train you and then you sign a contract to work with them for XX ammount of years. Engineering companies spent a lot of money and time training new engineers. Why can the government and/or the Airlines can do the same? At the end everything is about the money!

[Joshua D. Williams]

I definitely agree with the salary issue! Personally I think that there are plenty of qualified professional pilots in the corporate and charter aviation world with many years and thousands of hours of experience who would jump at the chance to fly with some of the regionals if they could afford to cross that gap, such as myself. However, I know of no one willing to take the 20k-30k dollar annual salary reduction and sacrifice six months-a-year from their lives just to say " I'm an Airline Pilot".

[George Rozinak]

Having being involved with flight training for over 30 yrs, I wonder if the flight schools themselves can survive. I would never encourage anyone to go in the airline industry. The pay is terrible; the working conditions continue to get worse; the industry has always been unstable; and the costs continue to spiral up to learn to fly. In my opinion, deregulation of the industry manifested all these problems. Every airline is out there cutting each others throats and no body can make money.

[Andy (Orlando, FL)]

This is all part of a cycle in the last couple decades that has taken the romance and adventure out of flying for aspiring professionals and personal fliers both.

I take issue with the comparison to starting salaries to teachers. It's an insult because teachers as a group don't get paid nearly enough given the responsibility they hold educating our children. Pilots should make more, but not in comparison to other low paying vocations. They should make more simply because it takes many years of education and hundreds of hours in the cockpit to become professionals. It is a highly technical and responsible job that requires lifelong education and commitment to excel. This is what should drive the salaries. There are more basic forces at work here though.

The pilot pool will get through this. If a lack of talent is coming then salaries will go up, it's simple supply and demand. To attract more talent the industry has to do what every other industry does, lower costs to attract more customers/students. Good schools that are poorly run may close while schools that can support more students at a lower cost will thrive. Flying used to be a technical profession, where skill and ability in the cockpit mattered the most. Now you read that pilots need full undergraduate degrees and not just ratings and experience. This combined with the fact that salaries are low create unnecessary costs for the students. It doesn't make economic or emotional sense to spend years in training, then go through the equivalent of a cheap apprenticeship only to get into a profession that won't let you pay off your education for 20 years or reward you with financial satisfaction in less than 10. Perhaps the process of teaching and hiring new pilots needs to change as much as the airlines paying them.

Flying has become too bifurcated into a rich man's hobby or a professional pilots living. Without room in the middle to afford simple passion and fun. Given that, what would we expect to be left to inspire the next generation of pilots?

[Nate]

I agree as well, I too have put training on pause. Even with VA benefits it is still very expensive. It is so difficult to justify taking that leap from 100k+ in student loans to poor pay at 25k or less per year to start with an airline. I am at 160 hours going nowhere. 500+ hours seems a long way off.....
Oh, that's without the college degree!

Couldn't agree more with Andy.

[Michael (Dallas)]

Deregulation has historically created these types of issues. We saw it in the trucking industry as well. The carriers kept undercutting one another until the poor driver didn't stand a chance. You've got the DOT/NTSB on one side telling you that you can only drive so many hours a day, and on the other the company is cutting your mileage pay down so that you can't afford to stay in the profession. This brings the rookies in and then you start seeing more accidents on the highways involvoing 18 wheelers. This is what ultimately frightens me with the airline industry. We need experienced pilots up there that we can trust our lives to.

[Mic Heynekamp]

This article is a very one sided analysis that only looks at the 'what if' scenario whereas the airlines continue to stay the size they are. As the economy continues it's decline, oil prices will rise sharply as peak oil becomes closer to reality, then perhaps large capacity in the airlines is cut negating a need for a large number of new pilots. As many pilots as there are waiting in the wings I have a hard time envisioning a shortgage. This panic cry has been issued too many times to fill flight schools just to have new grads to sit with no job or chance of a job. As supply and demand economics take hold, pilot salaries will rise and all the pilots that are needed will come out of the woodwork experience in hand. If the salary and QOL would be liveable for a family I myself would reconsider like many of my friends who left the airlines with me. There is no shortgage of pilots; there is a shortgage of reasonable salaries and quality of life!!

[EK]

I hope there is a pilot shortage in the next few years - it's the only way I'll find myself back in the cockpit. I went to a 4-year school, received all my ratings except CFI/II, had an airline internship, and am now a 300-hour pilot with all of the licenses required to find work as a pilot, but with only 300 hours ... haha.

I work a desk job outside of the airlines and make more money than a first year captain at any regional. But I sorely miss flying and would love to return.

[Rayman]

Like so many things in the USA, we are pricing ourselves out of flying. Why is training so expensive to start with? With flight simulators doing the bulk of the work, should not costs be less? Electronics usually go down in price after a period but not in aviation. It just seems outrageous to spend all this money for training to get a job that basically qualifies you, depending on family size, for government help. Something is wrong with this picture. Is this happening in other countries as well?

[Pilot Mark]

I have two bachelor degrees,my instrument rating almost complete and will do all my other ratings,including CFI so I can build time.It is a career change for me.I'll be happy to fly cargo or any other part 135 venue.

[Dana Atkinson]

Professional flying has ALWAYS involved financial hardship in the early years. If aviation is truly your passion, then you'll find a way without whining so much. Spending $200,000 for a pricey aviation academy education in the hope of a direct line to a regional airline at 300 hours is a relatively new phenomenon. The professional pilots who are serious about their passion will continue to work their way up the aviation ladder the old fashioned way in instruction, night freight, pipeline patrol, sales, etc. Pay your way and have 2 or 3 thousand hours of meaningful experience before you think about flying passengers in scheduled service. Also realize that airline flying is a very small part of aviation. As for the airlines, "Physician heal thyself." Fighting to add unlimited bus-fare airline seats is a losing business plan.

[Ks]

I'm continually amused watching history repeat itself. I've been hearing about a shortage of pilots for the past 30-years, and guess what? It's never happened! The market will correct for any imbalance through higher wages and benefits. The glut of pilots created by the RJ-craze brought down wages and benefits to the point where few are now interested in training. Once that glut abates, wages will either rise, or the airlines will (most likely) continue to shrink. When I first started flying and decided I wanted to be an airline pilot, it was 1978. I was told that deregulation would bring about serious pilot shortage. A few years later, Braniff, Pan Am, and Eastern went out of business. The market was flooded with excess pilots. I fortunately got hired by a regional in 1984 and a major airline in 1987 at the ripe age of 25. For the 22-years since, I've since sat as a copilot on a narrowbody, endured three rounds of furloughs at my airline, and now we're looking down the barrel at another round. Our pension was gutted, benefits have been slashed, pay is 1/3 of what it was less than 10-years ago (in nominal terms, adjusted for inflation the number is really depressing). With thousands of airline pilots out of work, talking about a looming shortage of pilots actually sounds pretty good to me. Work to increase training of new pilots will continue to depress industry wages and benefits. If that's what we as pilots want, we should join together to inspire all our friends and neighbors to all become pilots!

[Bob Walker]

An ATP will increase safety. I can't tell you how many F/O's i fly with can't talk on the radio properly or know ATC proceedures. There has been a handful of them that have never seen an ILS down to minimums. If this country wants safety then an ATP is a good start. The pay needs to come up as well. For all pilots, 200 days a year on the road and flying an airliner for $20k? Disgusting. Pay has everything to do with safety. The colgan crash never would have happened if they used a furloughed United pilot as a F/O. But then no United F/O would be working for such low pay. Pay has everything to do with safety.

[PilotPete]

Furloughed. As a delivery driver, I now make more than I did on 2nd year First Officer pay at a regional airline. This really is disgusting, but I guess I should feel all warm and fuzzy inside, knowing that the CEO of my former airline had a great Christmas bonus, and will probably have an even bigger one this year! I guess I should be thankful that I don't have to fly their rickety, beat up planes anymore.

[EM]

It's completely obvious that people are not looking at the BIG picture. Thanks to slimely, greedy people our country is in an economic crisis. Therefore all the trust in people and lending has gone down the toilet. Yes, we can over think everything and think ourselves into a circle and make no decisions. My passion for flying will not even come close to being consumed by this negative attitude! Of course education costs money and a Master's in Aeronautical Science and all the ratings do not come cheap. Flying as a profession is a very personal choice and I hold it very dear to my heart. I can't see my life without it. So whatever it takes..I'll be in the cockpit...

[John M Rose]

All the problems this country faces comes from the same source Washington DC! I'm a CFI and a small business owner, and from my point of view government regulation is the problem not the solution. They force us to be dependant on foreign oil which makes jet-A unreasonably expensive, then they regulate how many hours you can work, and when you receive your paycheck the government has taken half of it! The best thing to do to help the industry and our country is get involved during the next election and support the candidate that is for free market capitalism and smaller government.

[Mic Heynekamp]

An economy based on the requirement that it must always be expanding has a fatal flaw. We will see an economy that over the next twenty years will not expand but rather shrink dramatically. People will not have the means to fly for vacation; businesses will not be flying personnel anywhere near as much. Never before have jet prices been so close to turboprop prices nor have turboprop prices been so close to twin piston prices. Why? Because corporate flight departments all over the country are being shuttered and assets being liquidated. This creates unemployed highly qualified pilots in huge quantitites. There is not a pilot shortage nor will there be. There is simply a lack of incentive to get qualified pilots to accept the ridiculous salary offers at the airlines. I will continue to run my small businesses and fly my C340 back and forth reminiscing of flying bigger kerosene powered craft but content knowing I'm not a slave! Airline flying was enjoyable wheels up to wheels down but the rest of the gig was hell!

[John Utek]

I have a son who graduated Embry Riddle a year ago. I spend $250,000 of my own money and I am sorry for that. I am poor now approaching my retirement age and he is with out a job getting more and more frustrated and angry that we made bad chose. He could be union carpenter and make $45.00 hr.with out bachelor degree and no responsibility on the job.How it is possible that baggage handler make more money that pilot flying that airplane? Union truck driver make $50,000 where CDL cost him $3,000. Who with right mind will go and spend $100,000-$250,000 for educations to make $16,000 and have big responsibility. Avery pilot in USA should quit a job and let the CEO to fly airplanes for $18,000 a year no Christmas bonus.!!!What we have now it is disgrace and assault of pilot profession.

[Stewart Baker]

I my self have tried to find out if I could ever qualify for a loan. I gave up on answers .Dont know which direction I should go Commercial helicopter or fix-wing. already private pilot. Most schools are catering to students that qualify for loans if there was just a better method for paying as you go ...

[Michael F.]

Sadly, the simple fact of the matter is that pay will never increase and the airlines will never take on the financial burden of training it's own as long as $99.00 coast to coast fares remain an American birth right. A monster the airlines themselves created.

[Tex]

Where is the Obama stimulus money for this situation??? We have thousands of unemployed prospective people, highly interested in aviation, that could use 'retraining' funds to become pilots. I'm one of them. After 20+ years in the auto industry (that is destroyed) I find myself at mid-life needing a new vocation. I have 600TT and am looking at what it would take to become a commercial CFII. Half of my salary for 20 years has gone to taxes and I happily paid. I will make my sitaution work on my own as I always have, but it is ridiculous not to see any help for aviation from Obama's crappy administration. They clearly are all talk on 'making jobs'.

[Tony Vallillo]

I would suggest that we look to the maritime world for a possible partial solution to the issue of training the pilots of the future.

There exists in this country a relatively little known but excellent school called the US Merchant Marine Academy, at Kings Point New York. This is a full four year federal academy, quasi-military, and essentially the equivalent of the military service academies. It exists to serve the needs, modest though they currently are, of the vestigial US Merchant Marine, which consists of that relatively small number of surface commercial vessels required by law to sail under the US flag, largely for potential defense reasons. Its graduates are given reserve commissions in the US armed services and also have the opportunity (although as far as I know not the obligation) to serve as officers in the commercial US Merchant Marine, and, by the way, for salaries a quantum leap above even a Captain on an RJ. The academy is small, graduating only around 400-500 officers per year, but each of them has had what amounts to a full tuition scholarship.

We might want to consider putting commercial aviation under a similar setup - a US Commercial Aviation Academy. It could function just like Kings Point, offering flight training similar to the new regional jet FO concept and licenses through commercial-instrument-multi engine along with a 4 year degree. Graduates would have reserve commissions in the US military service of their choice and would be required to serve in that capacity for a certain number of years. They would also be required to serve in US commercial aviation for a certain number of years, in such specific capacities as would be defined by law. Kings Point itself might serve as the institution, with the pilot training conducted at the now closed Calverton airport, or perhaps at USAF/USN bases (the first part of military pilot training). The possibilities are many.

What we have been doing for decades for the Merchant Marine makes a lot of sense for the aviation industry as well.

[Gary C.]

I have often wondered how much it would cost today, to go through it all again. Privatge through ATP and the 4 year degree. I got involved in it starting back in 1978. A hour of instruction in a piper tomahawk was just 23.00 per hr then. I was doing all I could to find ways of building my time by doing lots of long hrs at the FBO where I worked. I started out with washing and waxing airplanes, fueling airplanes, and eventually got qualified to do the hourly weather observations. All for only 4.75 per hr. But I had hopes and dreams of becoming a airline pilot, and making BIG bucks. This kept me going. There was a small comuter service that ran from my airport to a major one, and I was able to ride right seat and if we returned with no paying passengers on board, I was allowed to fly the flight, which was then a part 91 flight. I eventually got my time built up to about 1300 hrs and landed a job at the same airport as a 135 air taxi pilot. A real lucky break for me then. It was a small 3 pilot mom and pop operation, and for the 1st year or so, I actually flew for mostly no compensation, to just get the flights that my boss would of normally of taken. I was used to do the less desirable flights in the bad weather, or late hrs. I now have 3300 total flight hrs and no job. Seems like I got caught in that time dilema of multi engine time. I never seemed to be able to get to the 500 hr mark. I have about 455 and it never seemed to be enough. At this point, I would probably except a right seat job even if it only paid 18,000 per year. Today when I hear a young person condidering a career in aviation, I allways tell them to do something else. The pay does stink. Getting it back to a respective level would help. But in todays marketing scams, top airline ceo's will not budge. They know that there are enought pilots out there beating the door down to have a flying job. Well, thats the way it used to be, now I see more and more pilots quiting there flying jobs to make more money doing something else or quiting the persuit before they even get there. Maybe I should of went to Med school like my mother wanted me to.

[RAH Pilots R. Scabs]

Pilot shortage? Ha! The ONLY people who claim this are greedy flight training schools and Kit Darby, both of whom use such scare tactics to lure in blind sheep ($$$). Tell the guys making $19,000 a year as a pilot there is a shortage. Nothin but baloney.

[Guy C]

I passed my CFI/II/MEI this past summer and thought I would have enough students to keep ticking over and build time. I couldn't have been more wrong. People are just not spending money. The only students who seem to be training are from foreign countries. Basically the CFIs teaching them are effectively training themselves out of work.
I was flying a Baron for a real estate company which is now in dire financial distress - they've parked the plane, enough said.
Now there is a proposal being heard which will mean, if it becomes law, that to sit in the right seat of an airliner the pilot will require an ATP and 1500TT minimum. If this is the case the pay will have to go up, however the foreign guys who we trained will be spooled up and ready to take that seat.

The outlook for this industry is bleak indeed..............