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“The underlying trend… general growth on a global scale”

Employment Situation - Historical

If there are so many advantages, how come everybody isn't doing it?

By necessity, this section is a very broad overview of the situation.

The last 15 years have thrown several hiccups at the industry: Wars, Terrorism, Disease and general economic troubles. These events have obscured the underlying trend, which is the general growth in air travel on a global scale.

At the same time, in the post soviet superpower era, the "peace dividend" has substantially reduced the supply of ex-military pilots entering the marketplace.

Traditionally, the major airlines have sponsored cadets through flying training. Such schemes are now a thing of the past due to intense financial pressure, removing another supply of pilots to the market place.

There is also a simple relationship between the availability of training, and airline recruitment, that has been fundamental to understanding how the industry behaves. In a nutshell, when the airlines need pilots, the effect is to draw a substantial proportion of flying instructors out of the training industry. This has the obvious effect of reducing training quality and capacity at the very time it is needed. This in turn precipitates a pilot shortage. The knock on effect of this is that growth suffers.

Consequently, bridging the gap between holding a licence and flying for an airline has historically been an uncertain affair. Potential pilots have been faced with significant costs and sometimes little guarantee of work in a reasonable timescale.