The Pilot Shortage is Almost Here!!!!

[bobbysamd]

Old Chinese Proverb

[T]housands of civilians, not having the timing/eyesite/luck/etc, to be a fighter pilot, attempt to get to the point at which they can compete with you. BUT they don't understand the market. They don't know that ten thousand (approx) qualified pilots are already (in any pilot market, not just now) walking around looking for a job. They read adds that state that airlines will hire 7000 pilots this year. Quite simply, they are looking at a different side of AirInc than you are. They see the continual pimping of a pilot shortage, you go to the seminars and hear the truth. Why does AirInc./Kit Darby speak out of both sides of his mouth? I don't know, but there is no doubt that AirInc is the main contributer to the continuing impression amongst the uninformed that pilots are in demand . . . .

(emphasis added)

Confuscius said, "Man with forked tongue should not kiss balloon."

 

[HoursHore]

I am going to second Hugh's motion as a miltary guy getting out. At the very least air inc has given me a place to start my job search, and we all know the hardest part of any journey is the first step.

As a military guy, most of my squadronmates had attended air- inc job fairs, met people, and got an idea of what their resume should look like. The most valuable thing the job fairs accomplished was getting me in the transition mindset.

Now that I have been at it a while, basically the only thing I need is the magazine, and most of the information in that is available on the web. But the program and the Job fairs were very useful for a while. At the very least I ran into a lot of buds from flight school I hadn't seen in a while.

After the second one though, I did realize that they were all the same, and my main two companies used a web-based application, and the job fairs weren't making a bit of difference with them.

 

[bobbysamd]

FAPA origins

I am going to second Hugh's motion as a miltary guy getting out. At the very least air inc has given me a place to start my job search . . . .

That was the mission of FAPA, Air, Inc.'s original incarnation, when Lou Smith started it years ago. He started FAPA to help ex-military pilots make the transition to civilian flying.

Sometime during the '80s, FAPA foundered. During the mid to late '80s times were good. Deregulation was in its early years and there was a hiring boom. So maybe it appeared there was a pilot shortage. Kit took over FAPA, contrived the "pilot shortage," grew FAPA, and turned "pilot shortage" into an art form and cottage industry, replete with hiring and interview manuals, dress recommendations, resume preparation, and advertisers of pilot schools, pilot improvement services, vision improvement vendors, and mail-order college degrees. Everything you need to start and built a professional aviation career. You learned the truth thereafter, when you found there were few, if any, takers for your services. There is no "pilot shortage."

The strange thing is that during the horrible times of the early '90s and worse times of today Kit has not changed his message. He still peddles "pilot shortage." It was a half-truth then and is a half-truth now. That is what offends so many people.

 

[HoursHore]

I will have to say, Kit's little "how to pass your Sim/ improve your instrument scan " irks me to no end. I would watch that and go "Who does he think he is talking to? We all instrumented rated pilots with hundreds of hours in the goo. " If you go to a job fair, skip the seminar, just go to the actual Job Fair.

 

[enigma]

I am going to second Hugh's motion as a miltary guy getting out. At the very least air inc has given me a place to start my job search, and we all know the hardest part of any journey is the first step.

HoursHore,

As I implied when I responded to Hugh, there are two sides to AirInc.

The side you see is the side that helps a qualified pilot get a job.

The side that people find objectionable is the side of AirInc's business that continually adds to the number of pilots who attempt to make this a career. AirInc produces more misleading information than the Democratic and Republican National Committees combined. The ad placed in Aviation Week a couple of weeks ago is the perfect example. At the time that there are over 10,000 airline pilots on furlough; AirInc is telling potential newbies that the airlines will hire 7000 pilots this year.
That is propaganda on the order of the news media reporting that Reagan GUTTED the Federal budget when he cut the rate of GROWTH from 30% down to 20%.

The sad truth is this: a glut of pilots exists for this year and most likely for the next four or five years if not longer; and only airline management (and AirInc) gains when the market is flooded with pilots.

Kit Darby may have helped you get a job, but he also has helped guarantee that you won't make as much as you could if he hadn't helped create a buyers market for pilots.

regards,
8N

 

[pilotyip]

glut of pilot?

There has always been a glut of pilots since WWII, read the books about flying in the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's all before Kit, there were always more pilots than there were good jobs. I would bet there are 10 times as many flying jobs now than there was in 1965, and 11 times as many pilots chasing those jobs, the glut of pilots is always there, it is the quaility of the new hire entrant than changes with demand. Kit had nothing to do with anyone's pay at any airline, it is the career choice itself that drives the supply, flying is fun.

 

[enigma]

PilotYIP, I agree with your basic point. Flying is a fun, "romantic" endevour and pilots will always be willing to accept the fun as partial compensation.

I disagree with your contention that AirInc has has nothing to do with the current oversupply. Your profile and your post history show that you are a military trained pilot who is most likely nearing retirement. You have had a hand in hiring, so I'll conceed that you have decent information on such things, but I doubt that you have had a first hand look at the modern entry level of the modern pilot market. That entry level is largely college flight programs. I taught at, and maintain contact with, a state run college flight training program. I can tell you that around one quarter of the students were children of professional pilots, but I would venture to guess that half of them are there because they read numerous articles about a lucrative pilot career. Most, if not all, of those articles used one source of information. FAPA, or it's successor, AirInc. These kids have been lead to believe that they will be RJ Captains in 24 months and be in a narrowbody in less than four years. Based upon that misleading information, they or their parents, spent $70 to $100 thousand dollars at ERAU, etc. If a student spends $100 grand on a BBA, and doesn't like his first profession, he can most likely change focus and make a lateral move. That person can choose to utilize his education in a similar field, he can quit if he doesn't like the pay. He can take a job in another industry and wait until wages in his prefered field reach a level that he finds satisfactory. Or he can just find another field in which his training is applicable.

If a potential professional pilot realizes that the career is not as lucrative as he had been lead to think, he has no portability of his education. This leads to a decision to go ahead and work for nothing/PFT in an attempt to eventually salvage the $100K he spent on flight training. I know way too many pilots who would have spent their college money on a different career, and flown as a hobby, had they known the career path before they paid their money.

My experience tells me that the people and organizations who make their money by attracting new pilots to the profession, have contributed to the continuing pilot overage and the associated low wages.

regards,
8N